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OK, I've forced to carry around an 8330 for work. I've mostly, to be honest, not liked it and have avoided using it for anything other than e-mail, calendar, and as an actual phone.

I especially despised the browser and assumed that it's general lameness boded for the lameness of all other things blackberry related outside of its core e-mail function.

Today I realized that I've been completely ignorant in this opinion. I downloaded the Opera Mini browser, and discovered my Blackberry doesn't actually suck nearly as bad as I thought.

Which got me wondering - maybe there are lots of other basic tips out there that I'm missing out on which would completely change my opinion of the Blackberry. Perhaps the spoon fed nature of my iPhone's experience led me to an innapropriate rush-to-judgement of my 8330. It might even be possible that with enough detailed tricks/tips/apps I might learn to love my Blackberry.

So - this is your chance Crackberry heads, help convert this iPhone boy into a blackberry lover. Please throw all your tips my way.

argh, typo in the second word...

Nothing, not a single tip?

Wish i could help, but i had a BB pearl and with the help of Opera, like you, it made the experience better but BB is great as a email phone, and thats about it. I had a few games on it that were fun but they killed the battery so quickly it almost wasn't worth it. After using Android i don't think i could go back. The one thing i did love about the BB was the email synching and how great it was. But Android gives me the same experience and has a lot of the push notifications if not all that BB did.

Basically the BlackBerry is good for getting stuff done. If you use a BlackBerry for work odds are its primarily a communication tool, and perhaps you can use it for some integrated work database stuff.

1) E-mail shortcuts
- Reading an e-mail you need to reply to simply hit "r" or how about forward hit "f"
- Reading through your list of e-mails and you need to find unread messages hit "u" until you find the right one
- Need to get to your last e-mail hit the letter "b" or how bout now get back to the top "t" or how about you just need to look page by page hit the "space bar" to go page back up hold down shift (not alt) and "space bar"
- To get through e-mails quickly turn off the confirm delete in options under messages. This helps you clear your inbox quickly, and not waste your time in stupid e-mail convos your co-workers absolutely need to reply all to

2) Addressbook
- Don't have someone in your contacts, but know they are in your global addressbook? Then type the last name, and hit menu button and select lookup
- Sort your contacts into categories, then you can have a quick way to filter your contacts
- Screw filtering just start typing part of the name and the BlackBerry will show you the hits
- Don't be afraid to use Voice Dialing with your BB, while not the best on the Curve (i like the bold and tour the best) it is still pretty effective at getting who your speaking to, and it works great with bluetooth headsets or speakerphones
- Get Gwabbit to automatically pull signature line information quickly into a contact

3) Instant Messaging
- Absolutely, positively the BB kicks the ass of any other device because of their push technology. A Push notification is great, but I want that message to actually be on my device not simply a notice hey open the app and then the info will be there
- BlackBerry Messenger is obviously exclusive to BB users, but GoogleTalk, AIM, and Yahoo IM all work great as well. I recommend you download beejive for an all in one IM. If free is more your style then get Instango which works great as well, and its free

4) Use Password Keeper
- Free encrypted way to keep passwords or any important information

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. Also if your company has sharepoint, since your BES is behind the firewall you can access alot of that material as well on the BB.

Oh and don't forget SkyFire is coming for the BB, and it is honestly the best browser around (of course you have to not mind that the data passes through their servers first)

why would a password keeper be so important? DMing my other twitter account does the same thing.

I would load the Google Voice and Google applications (Maps, etc).

A couple of things to try out:

- Instant messages: they use negligible amount of battery power so you can run gtalk, msn, etc... all day and be available. When you get a message you get notified and they show up in your main message "inbox" as well.

- Install Viigo, superb and fast RSS/News/Sports/etc... reader

- If you're into Twitter, download Ubertwitter. Keep it running in the background that way you can be notified and can switch instantly to it. Keep a look at SocialScope and Tweeteev which are not freely available for now.

- If you're into podcast you must try Podtrapper which is superb. I've tried almost every smartphone platform and it's the best podcasting app IMHO.

- download BeBuzz, you can customize your notification LED. Green for email from this person, blue for corporate email, yellow for sms, etc... From the other side of the room I can see if I have personal email, work email, sms, calendar alert, etc... waiting for me.

Other little tricks that you get on Blackberries and nowhere else:

- Use the BB holster (or the small pouch that came with the box). It has a special magnet that your BB recognize. When you put it in it goes automatically into sleep mode and locks the keyboard. When you get it out it turns on the screen and is ready. The convienience of a flip without the hassle of flipping anything.

Also if you receive a instant message, facebook alert, email, PIN, SMS while in the holster, just get it out and the BB will open on the email/sms/etc.. you just receive so you can reply instantly.

- If you're listening to music, press the mute button on top to pause the music, press it again to unpause. Hold down the volume up button (on the side of the phone) to skip to next track, hold down volume down to previous track.

- Extremely customizable profiles: On BB you can adjust profiles of each type of notification for every programs (even 3rd party). For as many profiles you want to create. You can even have a behavior for the phone in the holster (for example, vibe only) and out of holster (don't vibe, just ring).

These all sound awesome. After my morning bike ride I'm going to try as many of out as possible.

Keep 'em coming!

Some apps to check out:

Beyond411 and Poynt are great for directory look ups. I personally use Beyond411 because it runs quicker than Poynt, but Poynt is prettier (and I believe has a few extra features).

Palringo and BeJive - great all-in-one IM apps. Palringo is free, but you have to sign up for a free account on their service. BeJive is $20 I think, but much better overall. I use BeJive.

Bolt Browser - another alternative browser. I personally prefer Opera.

Google Maps is great. If you're with Verizon, I know they lock down their GPS and Google Maps won't be quite as useful.

I wouldn't suggest Viigo personally. The older versions were great, but the latest version is bloated and runs like a hog.

crackberry.com there's no place better for help with a crackberry addiction and news drops of the latest apps for it.

Podtrapper - costs you 10 dollars, but it is far superior to any podcasting ability currently on the iPhone. Enter your podcasts, even those that are subscription based, and it auto downloads like a champ. You can set overall and individual download settings. iPhone simply provides you with a link to grab more..... Nothing auto about it.

i have a blackberry bold and i don't know if you want to try this out but one feat that i like that i like that not even my iphone 3g has is.when you are listening to music with your head phone i press the volume key up and it goes to the next track. and if you press it down it goes back.but if you want a good web browser try http://www.boltbrowser.com its in beta right now but let me know what you think about it.

I don't love my Blackberry yet, but after using many of these tips I've switched from hating it to quite liking it.

The Blackberry, I'm learning, has way more depth than I'd realized. It's somewhat similar to how Ubuntu is ugly on the surface but sexy underneath once you get to know it better.

Thanks for all the tips, and please keep them coming!

BOLT changed my opinion of web browsing on the BB. Opera is good, but I prefer BOLT. It's not all that fast on the 8330, but it's the best way to check out real web pages on the Blackberry. I can even use it to check out Gmail or my work webmail (Novell GroupWise) using the normal computer web browser sites.