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08/14/2006: "“Full” BlackBerry vs. BlackBerry Connect"

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.

Clicking on the email display opens the list of emails. A couple of differences are immediately obvious in that unlike on a BlackBerry device only received emails are displayed in the list. Any sent emails will be held in the sent items folder to be viewed and this will only be the items sent from the device, those sent from the desktop are not sync’d to the device. Also the list is not separated by date as it is on a BlackBerry device.

Similarly it is also possible to open the calendar from the home screen and see details of the sync’d calendar entries. One word of warning BlackBerry connect does not allow tasks to be synchronised and which it ought in theory to continue to sync these via the Nokia provided PC Suite this only allows tasks to be synchronised at the same time as calendar items. Doing so leads to duplicate items appearing in the calendar, so be warned. Unfortunately this means that, at present, it is not possible to sync your tasks with the desktop. This is a shame as I am a big user of tasks, however, I never used them on my 7290 as the task application was so slow and poor in terms of the functionality it offered.

Not surprisingly there is no discernable difference in the delivery speed of emails. I use Microsoft Outlook 2003 in cached mode which means the emails are always delivered to the handset before the desktop. Similarly I am not expecting any change in the amount of data that is transferred so the costs should remain the same.

Clearly this is all about functionality and there is a trade-off. The full BlackBerry device offers many more options both in terms of what can be synchronised and how but the devices still lag behind the competition in terms of speed, ease-of-use and third party applications. Having BlackBerry connect allows the best of both worlds an enterprise level tried and tested push email solution with all the security and server management married with a rich, usable device. Who could ask for anything else?