Blackberry on China Mobile

[reallych1932]

Can you get a blackberry to work on Chinamobile (with email etc.)

if so on what plan (prepay or monthly)

Thanks

P.s in general is internet access expensive on phones?

[roddy]

Does a Blackberry need anything beyond standard Internet access - wifi, GPRS, EDGE? - to work? You can see prices for GPRS on PAYG here - at least you should be able to, the page isn't loading for me so can't be sure.

[zozzen]

yes, china mobile has service plans for blackberry, starting at RMB398/month. As you can expect, the sales is very disappointing.

Use any PDA phone and subscribe GPRS (RMB20 / month) is the best way to go. There's a lot of choices for email notifiers which check if you have email at any time intervals (perhaps 15 mins is good enough to replace push email technology)

[Madot]

My Chinese friends always insisted that pre-paid mobile phones were 'the only way to go'. Perhaps they thought they were just the cheapest but I'm wondering if you can get a plan MONTHLY without a long contract. That way I could get email on my phone. Does anyone know?

Mado

[roddy]

You don't need a contract for mobile Internet, PAYG should be fine. If you poke around in your phone's menu, you should be able to find GPRS settings - cmnet for access point, no username or password. Or drop into a China Mobile store and ask them to check your settings, or find a helpful friend.

I'm assuming you're on a standard China Mobile PAYG card, and not some random local version.

[Madot]

Ah, that could certainly be the problem. I'm not in China yet, but when I was, I'm SURE I was indeed on some little local something or other which cost almost nothing. But I now have a new phone, an HTC Touch, and I'll have to get a new SIM card obviously and-- this is probably a stupid question-- but... well, I'm embarassed to have to ask, but will the features I have on my phone (the email, internet browsing, Pleco Dictionary et al) be affected by what kind of SIM card I have?

Mado

[roddy]

Wireless Internet (wifi, indicated by the little antenna symbol at the top of your screen) will work exactly the same. Mobile Internet (the E or G over or next to your signal bars) depends on your SIM card and you'll need to enter new details under Internet Connections (or something). Go to a largish China Mobile store for your SIM card and they should be able to set it up.

[Madot]

Thanks Roddy. I don't generally use WiFi for email, but of course I could, couldn't I, at internet cafes? Hadn't thought of that! As to the SIM card, I'll go to the largish China Mobile store you mention. I'm sure there's one in Zhengzhou. In fact, I've learned that since I was last there, they've even built a Carrefour... oh those devilishly tempting croissants!

m

[Prodigal Son]

it seems to be quite random. right now I have an 8700g and I can't get the gmail application to connect. I can run the program but it doesn't access my email. on my previous phone (a blackberry 8820) the gmail app worked fine. it's actually really frustrating. both phones connect through Edge for wireless data transmission and it's not very expensive although I don't know exactly what it costs. average price for me last year was about 200/month and I was reading/sending email daily on the phone.

[imron]

Are you connecting to the http or the https version of gmail? Note: the http version has an https login screen so it can be easy to get confused. You need to make sure you actually input the address to https://gmail.google.com to get the full https version.

[Prodigal Son]

I don't know if the gmail application connects to the https version but both the encrypted and non encryped gmail website work on my phone through the browser. it's only when I try to access it with the gmail application that it doesn't work. under application preferences I already gave the gmail app full permissions as well. I don't get it, I gave up months ago discouraged.

[rewsay]

I've heard from a friend that blackberries won't work in china despite my online searching saying otherwise. Is this true? Thank you.