[Rhincewind]

Good Day Ladies and Gentleman,

this is my first post! So far I'm not a Blackberry owner, but this might change in the (near) future and that's why I came here.

What I'm planning to do is the following:

Try to book the Blackberry option at my carrier.
Costs me 25� one time setup fee and 8�/month for a 200 MB data package. That's quite a fair price I think.

Then I plan to buy a Berry on ebay, either a used Curve (sells for about 140-160 � in good condition), or maybe wait for the Javelin
which looks _very_ promising. The Bold sells there for about 420 �, but that's over my limit and the device is too big for my taste.

So far my plan should work out I hope. Now comes the big question which is a bit unclear for me.

As far as I understand, all Berrys come with a carrier specific firmware, right? So there is no unbranded Blackberry.

Therefore the following question:

If I buy one for e.g. with T-Mobile or Vodafone firmware on it, will I be able to overwrite it with the one of my own carrier I'm using
(o2 germany)? Or is there some kind of original RIM firmware I could use?

Thank you

[jimmers]

I''m not familiar with O2 to know if they are a GSM or CMDA carrier but if they are a GSM carrier you will be able to use any GSM phone provided it is "unlocked". That means you can use it on any network by changing the SIM card. If the phone is not unlocked there are several web sites that offer unlocking services for a fee.

[Rhincewind]

Thank you for your reply. We only have gsm/umts networks over here.
My concerns are not about a possible sim- or net-lock, the berrys are
sold unlocked. What i'm afraid of is a possible software branding by t-mobile or
vodafone. Especially Vodafone is known here for doing "horrible" things with your phones software!

[Rhincewind]

Someone else can give an advice?