Are Blackberry devices popular in Poland among business and individuals?

I am doing research on RIM devices and its services in Poland. I visited websites of three major polish cellular providers (ERA, PLUS, ORANGE). I saw Blackberry phones only on ERA websites and they were very expensive especially for individuals. I assume therefore are not, but perhaps many people order blackberry phones cheaper through Ebay which full price for new of those without contract are very likely still cheaper than they would otherwise order through their carriers.

BlackBerry has one major issue - all communication goes through Waterloo, Ontario. This means that there is a single point of failure.

Blackberries are the number one business phone for business people in warsaw for sure. The Iphone is a gadget which doesn't provide the same services as a blackberry. Most people here have phones which are given to them by the corporation they work for during their service at the company. The cellular providers often give the phones for free or have a rent to own feature while subsidizing the cost of the phones through the revenue generated by the service contract. When the zl was stronger many people were buying the blackberries from the states. As well the Iphone has many dead zones in the city.

The iPhone does provide push corperate email from exchange servers.

To use a blackberry you need a special blackberry sim card so you cannot just buy one from eBay.

This is because of the way that RIM devices handle data and therfore you cannot just drop a data enabled sim card into a blackberry handset. Believe me I know this for sure.

ok but how does that answer the op's question?

It does not however from what I can make out (it's not exactly clear) he is thinking you can buy one from eBay but you won't have the sim (ERA won't sell you a sim without a handset) so the blackberry will be useless because it won't be able to pick up any data.

ah right. sorry I thought he/she was doing some sort of study for school or something. Yes its not cheap to use a blackberry in warsaw unless your company is paying for it and it may not work if you bring one from abroad.

No problem I just don't want the poor guy to pick up a blackberry and be disappointed!

I don't think most people should have a blackberry, believe me once you have one you will wish you did not have!

yep they are surely overrated unless you are a top business person who needs to see their emails asap.

Alright, from responses it seems to me that people know very little about blackberry. One person even things they are overrated and another is concerned about all major communications going through a single data center in Waterloo. I believe RIM has a separate data center for Europe. The reason why data communications in North America go through a single server is for security. I am the owner of Blackberry in the US with ATT Wireless. There were some Blackberry failures, but they rarely happened and when they happened it was during either holiday or weekend. I have owned it for one year and these failures happened only twice so far.

Whether Blackberry is overrated or not, this is not an objective but a subjective opinion. It's like someone said Starbucks is overrated and expensive, but a lot of people still go there and order lattes because they are willing to pay more for quality (and addicting caffeine).Another person would say that Nok&ia is overrated, or Apple's iPhone, etc. Someone who owned Palm may have a difficult time switching to Blackberry. Phone's preferences are subject to a personal taste. For sure, In my view they are mores secure and reliable than Windows Mobile or iPhone devices. They are very fast and unlike iPhone you can copy and paste and run application in background. However, Apple will release new OS software in summer for iPhone that will expand to these features. A lot of people in the US own Blackberry.

"I don't think most people should have a blackberry, believe me once you have one you will wish you did not have!"

Because they are addictive and thats why people call them crackberries! :)

"To use a blackberry you need a special blackberry sim card so you cannot just buy one from eBay."

Wrong, any sim card will work as long as blackberry is unlocked. I could use my sim card from my blackberry in another non-blackberry phone. But of course, you cannot buy it on ebay or without a phone. And you cannot buy prepaid, because you need either BIS (personal use) or BES (corporate) for data service. You might still browse web, but not have push email and data.

Anyway guys, thank you for support. I did research on blackberry enterprise solution architecture and made a technology report for it. Comparing to BIS, BES offers more, but most people, especially personal users, need only to access BIS and any program they can buy or download for free from software vendors.

I also needed to know how is the situation with Blackberry in Poland. Thanks

Ok but you are being stupid because what is the point of a blackberry with out push email?

They are hugely over-rated.


Well done you. I bet the world would stop turning if you couldn't read your email every ten minutes.


No, just because they turn their owners into twats.


Blackberries in Poland are mainly used by twats who are not important. Anybody who is important has people to read their email and call them if there is something important.

There are many useful applications, such as google maps. With new Blackberry devices you can do almost as much as you would with iPhone because they support multimedia.

Btw, iPhone doesn't support push for a personal email, only corporate. Even the new version iPhone 3G does not support MMS in North America, but they are popular. And with the new OS release it will support MMS too. It has built-in MMS, but it is disabled when locked with ATT on contract for some reason.

it was my reply cjjc

Which is why we use Nokia, among others, in this house.

Ok I will not get into a slanging match about how much better an iPhone is than a Blackberry.

Suffice to say there are thousand more apps for iPhone than Blackberry and the 80% of them which are useful out number the hundreds of useful ones on Blackberry 100/1.


I think you need to check your sources there. I have a .me account and I get push email, calender and contacts. Lack of mms is fine to me because I have email on the phone and if you do not then you won't be getting pictures from me.

Eh, you're jealous!


No, but it is still useful when I don't have access to PC. Sometimes professors in my college sent emails when they cancel class and it saves me time on taking trip to school.

No comment on the rest of your post where you use an offensive term. If you still do that you will be ignored and in extreme case suspended by administrator.


I have expected that this brand is more popular in Europe.

misquote. and you have altered it.

I agree, but Blackberry devices are designed more for stability, security and reliability rather than for usability. Among of avaialbility of 3rd party applications, I would choose iPhone because of browser Safari and iTunes.

Soon Blackberry will release its own version similar to Apple's Store, called Blackberry App World.


Does push technology work only with Apple's email account or just any email from major email providers (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo)?


Sorry. May I know why I get warning about use of this brand when I attempt to post? Why it is treated as a spam?

Work tried to give me a Blackberry (everybody else has one). I told them where to stick it.


Yes, because you can't use an iphone to read email....

I doubt it will match up to the App Store. Too much ground have been covered in terms of innovation for developers.


Exchange(obv), Gmail, AOL, .Me and Yahoo.

It seems to me that Blackberry has a certain degree of security and nothing else.


I didn't know this.

It seems that my daughter's (now outdated) N95 is better.

I don't have iphone because I only use one phone and I prefer a physical keyboard to virtual when it comes to a lot of texting and emailing.


You can read emails from from iPhone. And it seems from cjjc last response that iphone support push technology with Gmail, AOL and Yahoo. If he gets email withing a minute on his device when an email arrives to his inbox then he is correct. Otherwise it is polling technology.

it was my reply to Wroclaw. I am not sure how I got quoted myself.

He was being ironic Wrocław. iPhone is the most advanced mobile device available.


Many people do. It is a thing that I personally do not like also but I have become used to it and I find I can type much faster than I could on my 8300.

I also have the benefit of switching to a Polish keyboard at any moment.

Oh! OK. I'm just listening in and trying to learn.

Are Blackberry devices popular in Poland among business and individuals?
Yes, Jams, cakes, flavoured drinks, blackberries are very popular :)

No problem. I have recently converted my entire family to iPhone users and everyone of them is amazed at how they ever used any other device before and all would not change them for anything else.

I really do recommend this product. 100%.


The previous generation were Blueberries I suppose Poland has lots of those too?

Cheeky bugger :)

I'm very much the same.

It is also interesting that at my office, all the people who can choose what the firm provides them with have iphones, not blackberries (note that that doesn't include me, I don't have a blackberry because I refuse to have one and I do have an iphone because I bought it myself).

Blackberries really are lackluster I can't stand them now. Plastic rubbish.

I used to do IT cover when our manager was on holidays and in emergencies (I lived on site) they asked me if I would have a blackberry and I said no so they then asked me if I would have my corporate email forwarded to my iPhone and I replied no again...looking bemused they asked me why and I told them that it was not the device I was concerned with but the fact that when I am with my friends in the pub I do not want to see any sign of work whatsoever!

I have a phone and if it's urgent then call me!

Well in some ways its still primitive. A 2mp camera on a mobile phone was the standard 3 or 4 years ago. No replaceable battery, no memory card slot and no support for bluetooth stereo, it is also the same weight as a house brick ;)

It also does not have true GPS, which gives turn-by-turn instructions. In all I am very happy with my Nokia N96 ;)

I have to counter you because I am a mac geek.

2MP camera well yes but yours has a 5mp right? How thick is your device again? :> ;P if you know about cameras then you will know that the megapixel myth is not a great argument anyways with a lens the size of out little finger nail it's useless at gathering light.

No replaceable battery...you got me there.

No memory card slot...the 16Gb I have is quite enough for me surely you are not mobile enough to listen to/watch 16Gb of media?

Bluetooth stereo is announced already in the 3.0 update.

Weight? Try dropping your N96 5ft off of a tram in Poland and have it land on the corner of the device...I've had that phone and I know it would smash into pieces :)

GPS is available if you jailbreak and also announced for later this year. :P

Tell me how that browseing experience is compared to iPhone... ;)