I have been running BlackBerry Connect on a Nokia E61 for a while now so I thought that now might be an appropriate time to do a comparison between the two.

BlackBerry Connect is the client software that allows you to use the BlackBerry push email service with a device other than a BlackBerry. Currently this is available for a number devices and mobile operating systems including Nokia, Palm and Pocket PC.

BlackBerry Connect allows an enterprise to get the additional features offered by other third party devices and still have the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) manage the push email. Additionally, depending on the version of the software, you are also able to get calendar and contact entries synchronised.

I tested the latest version of the BlackBerry Connect for Nokia software with a Nokia E61 device. This version allows push email and calendar synchronisation only.

Set-up was very easy with a install package for the device and the BlackBerry Connect desktop software for a suitable Windows machine. It should be noted that the device install is built around a specific version of the device operating system so you will need to ensure that you have the right version. I then connected the device to the machine with the desktop server. As I already had a device assigned to the BES I was asked if I wanted to replace it with the new device. After this an initial sync of the device is done and I started to receive email immediately.

On the home screen you now see the latest two emails along with a count of the number of unread emails.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Devices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.