Grab yourself a BlackBerry, baby. Because all the cool kids are doing it.
Grab the chance to win a BlackBerry® CurveTM 8310 smartphone right here with NerdMag!
The BlackBerry Curve 8310 smartphone is the ideal gadget if you want one device for all your communication needs – whether it be via phone, email or web-based communications.
It is a powerful and easy to use smartphone that makes it simple to make calls, send and receive email, surf the Internet, take and share photographs, listen to music and watch videos, and even find your way around town with its built-in GPS. It also comes complete with a full featured organiser and access to a wide range of business and leisure applications, making it the ideal tool to remain connected while juggling your busy work and personal life.
I’m very excited to let you know that along with the launch of Nerd Mag, we have managed to get our hands on one of these insanely cool BlackBerry Curve smartphones to give-away to one lucky reader!
Here’s how you can win it:
- Visit the official BlackBerry® website.
And do some research, then come back here and list your top 3 favourite features to the BlackBerry Curve 8310 smartphone.
- We want to hear your stories.
Tell us your worst cell phone story. Did you flush it down the toilet, dunk it in tea, drunk-dial your ex Mother-in-law?
- What justifies you to get this phone?
Tell us why you deserve to win more than anyone else. We don’t care if you cat fight it out, send viruses to each others PC’s or beg and plead, just don’t let it be yawn-inducing. We’ve worked hard over the last few weeks, anything dull will have our eyes glazed over in seconds and we’ll be forced to administer a swift kick to your nether regions out of sheer boredom.
- Spread the word.
If you own a blog, we want to read all about ourselves teaming up with BlackBerry for this competition. Just like all other online compo’s, link back to this article so we can keep track of who says what.
The review is coming!
Keep a look out, within the next few days we will have two of these handsets delivered to the HQ of Nerd Mag where we will play around with the one not being given away. With it we will take pretty pictures, do all the testing of its characteristics and officially review the BlackBerry® CurveTM 8310 for your reading pleasure. If you have any specific questions or suggestions as to what we should especially look out for when doing the review, let us know in the comments section.
Right, the NerdMag - BlackBerry® CurveTM 8310 smartphone Competition opens now, start doing your homework boys and girls!
BlackBerry® CurveTM 8310 - it's the awesome.
Terms & Conditions:
-
Competition closing date is 13th February 2009. All entries beyond this date will be printed out and burnt in our campfire marshmallow braai department.
- All entries are to be submitted to our email address if not blogged about on your own site. You can holler at us here: ed@nerdmag.co.za
- The judge’s decision is final, although potential winners are encouraged to attempt bribery with personal favours, chocolates & nice compliments.
- South African residents may only apply
- All entrants must have a valid email address and be willing to hand over personal details for record purposes.
vincenthofmann
SheBee
AcademicGeek
gogi
gobz
cath-jenkin
JuicyJustin
BlindCripple
supercopygurl
Green_Guerrilla
Cassey
romeogeek
steve-tech
beetle001
3 favourite features:
* Global Positioning System (GPS) capable
* Full QWERTY keyboard
* Integrates with an existing enterprise email account
My 3 Favourite Features:
The QWERTY keyboard with the trackball.
Music ID that identifies songs your listening to (How cool is that).
GPS (Incase I get lost from a night of drinking).
One Feature missing. Does it make coffee?
Darryn – not only enterprise mail. Up to ten e-mail accounts. Got three linked on my BB, work, column and Gmail. Plus the standard BB-mail.
CtrlAltDel – there has to be something left for you to do too!
damn. I thought that when the alarm clock goees off in the morning and it is busy reading out my day to me it would make me a cuppa at the same time.
I’m so excited to receive my BlackBerry for testing. I personally love the music feature, since I’m such a nut for tunes.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah, I want a BlackBerrrrrry!
From the GPS system to the full qwerty keyboard, this is the ultimate geek toy – If ExMi sees what a nerds fingers can do on this, she’ll just pop!
Last, but not least, the Music Identifier is a really cool feature for those of us who have tons of songs, but have no idea which one is playing!
So there’s my three features, which make this a drop dead beautiful mobile, one which I’d die to own – I’ve even blogged about getting a Black Berry!
I even added a link back to here from here – http://imod.co.za/2009/01/29/the-blackberry-storm-9530/
Nerd in training needs cool flashy phone to upgrade nerd status.
I enjoy Calculus, Coding and Copulating…
Some awesome features include but not limited to:
Global Positioning System (that’s GPS – DUH!)
Full QWERTY keyboard (for my fast fingers)
Integrates existing email accounts (‘cos nerds are popular)
nerd according to Wikipedia
Tom Duff, Bell Labs —
How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won’t even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury.
Nobody want to share their worst phone stories or why you should win? Or can you not read properly?
Let me tell you my sob story:
So back in December 2007, you couldn’t get the original iPhone in South Africa. I had it specially brought to South Africa from America via New Zealand. Needless to say it was an absolute mission to get the device into the country.
About a month later I was in the bathroom (let’s just say I was sitting down. I’m a guy so do the numbers) and had the phone in my pocket. I happened to be wearing a jean pant with shallow pockets. I got up, the phone fell out of my pocket and fell on the floor. Now normally this wouldn’t be a problem but lets be honest, this is a boring story until now.
The drama comes in with the fact that the phone landed face down on its massive, beautiful glass screen. Again, this wouldn’t have been a problem without another important co-incidence occurring. That coincidence was me standing on the phone and dragging it on the floor as if I was wearing the phone like an ice-skate. The sound of glass and tile connecting is something that a year later still makes me cringe in horror.
In the end I had a beautiful phone with a massive scratch on the entire screen. Considering you couldn’t get the phone anywhere in SA and thus there was nowhere to get it fixed I was pretty broken.
Anyway, that was pretty much the end of my iPhone experience as it never really worked again after that.
[...] (lol , gees I’ve started using “lol” way to frequently. I blame Twitter!) go to NerdMag.co.za and tell them why, as well as share with them your favourite features of the [...]
I just wrote a mother of a blog post about why lil miss me is most deserving of winning that most beautifully beatutiful BlackBerrrrrry
, here is the link –>> http://talyagoldberg.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/nerdmagcoza-that-beautiful-blackberry/?preview=true&preview_id=634&preview_nonce=d1e15d3482
ok, sorry, here goes:
I got a slide phone, it started sticking from slide one, it was a kak phone – samsung d900i, and I got an above average big thumb and ended up sticking my thumb straight through the nice pretty shiny new glass trying to slide open the damn thing and this is why I will never ever get a slide phone again.
oh yeah and one time when I was at band camp…
[...] link backs are coming in fast and furiously, the BlackBerry competition entries have taken off rather nicely, ExMi has you guys in an uproar & of course, all of you on [...]
Best features:
Music ID
GPS
up to 10 email accounts
Worst cell phone story….
(*GROAN*) it was a few weeks before my wedding and naturally i was ready to JUMP my fiance. And so… in anticipation of the imminent jumping I smsd him some sauciness! yep… i sent it to my mom by mistake. there’s just not much you can say after that!!!
OK, here goes…
I want it because of the features. I’ve got a very old Samsung and I want a phone that I can tweet on!! I know, I’m very very sad, but I’m so so addicted to my blogging world. I really need help, and this is the best form… maybe if I completely overdo it, I’ll be cured
Seriously, I’d love a phone with a QWERTY keyboard so that I don’t have to fiddle with the damn thing to accept my name! I want to be able to get my gmail… because I can’t access gmail from the office. And lastly, the GPS would be VERY handy considering my husband is directionless and hogs the Garmin!
I don’t have a funny story really, but this phone I get better be strong… my youngest son has a habit of throwing them… in fact throwing anything!
Okay, so trackbacks don’t seem to be working for me, so you’ll just have to go here to read my story!
Winning a Blackberry would just complicate my life… in the good old days people couldn’t get hold of you willy nilly, they would wait until they knew you were at home watching Loving and phone you, in this way people respected your schedule. Also, a Blackberry would just make me dumber, I can’t even remember my phone number, never mind the people in my life, when I was a kid I knew every number off by heart, man! I don’t think I’d survive in this world if I got any dumber (watch Idiocracy!)
data compression, the blackberry internet service is awesome, visiting sites via other phone browsers uses up to 10 times the data.
twitterberry although lacking much is the fastest way to tweet
viigo, the best most incredible rss reader anywhere ever
[...] February 2009 · No Comments Nerdmag are offering a BlackBerry Curve 8310 smartphone as a prize; so despite the fact that I am not the luckiest soul around I thought I’d have a [...]
Three favorite features
1. The Curve’s full QWERTY keyboard
2. The new spell-check functionality for e-mails.
3. camera has 5x zoom and a built-in flash
Worst Camera story
Remember it like it was yesterday, I had just passed matric(2003) and as a reward my mom bought me Samsung C100. Was one of the first mainstream phone’s with Colour screen and Polyphonic ringtones. I was the envy of all my friends(Nokia 3510 owners)
Loved that phone to bits but one day I went to the toilet with my phone, and I somewhat stupidly put in on the toilet bowl(the top part that holds the water) . Handled my business and flushed the chain, wished my hand and as I turned around to take the phone, it slipped and fell into the toilet bowl. After that the screen was messed up and the vibration and sound didn’t work again. Managed to get the screen and sound back, but alas my C100′s vibration was lost forever
Why should I win it?
I believe that I deserve to win it because, er , I really really really want it!!
oops. Meant worst phone story…not camera
[...] just entered this awesome competition being run by Nerdmag.co.za, in which you can win a Blackberry Curve 8310 [...]
My funnyand sad cellphone story took place earlier today.. off I went bright and early to UCT to register for second year, when to my horror I spotted the queue that I would have to stand it. There were more people in it than the madness that erupted at the Waterfront when Robbie Williams tickets went on sale.
This queue of over a thousand people stretched out of the building, wrapping around it. I of course got frustrated and started chewing at the first thing that came in site, my black ballpoint pen. My phone starts ringing and I already have my iPod in one hand, 3 student handbooks, 2 forms, a pen and my very large bag. So I, without thinking, shove my pen in my favourite pair of jeans pockets, take the call and then put my phone into the same pocket. To my absolute horror when I decided to Tweet about this terrible queue, I pulled out my phone to find it was completely covered in black ink!! I managed to wipe most of the ink off the front, statching furiously at it.. it seemed to have dried almost instantly!
There is still ink on the back of the phone which I didnt manage to rub off in time, and my leg looks like I have the most awful bruise, there is black ink everywhere!
So I put that on Twitter and @oliver_nielson shot back “Oh, the iPhone finally came to South Africa? hehe” not quite, I wish the ink had morphed my phone into something more functional, and aesthetically pleasing, but alas this was not the case. I’m still stuck with a Samsung, which now has ink on it, not to mention my leg and favourite jeans which I fear may be ruined for life! Seeee, I really do need that BlackBerry!
My 3 Favourite Features:
- Voicemail attachment playback – Listen to your voicemail attachments in mp3 format.
- Full QWERTY keyboard layout for fast text and email composition.
- Advanced phone features: Speakerphone and Voice Activated Dialing, user-definable convenience keys and dedicated Send, End and Mute keys
My 3 Favourite Features:
- Voicemail attachment playback – Listen to your voicemail attachments in mp3 format.
- Full QWERTY keyboard layout for fast text and email composition.
- Advanced phone features: Speakerphone and Voice Activated Dialing, user-definable convenience keys and dedicated Send, End and Mute keys
Worst phone story
- I was lying in the bath, smsing some guy, when my phone slipped and took a swim. The water dried up after a few days and I was able to use my phone again.
- I dropped my mom’s phone in the toilet… It had my simcard in so I saved it as fast as I could.
- I received my brand new motorolla phone and after 3 months it stopped charging. I sent it in for repairs. Had it back for 2 weeks when it couldn’t get signal. After sending it in and receiving it back with that same problem 3 times the phone was finally replaced. Guess what!? the brand new phone also had a problem. It froze in the menu. So that phone was also replaced.
- I received my new Sony ericsson phone. After a few months, any key pushed would direct me to the menu. Once in camera mode you could not exit camera mode. I sent it in for repairs and it came back with the same problem. It was replaced. Now, it too has signall problems.
Why do I deserve a new phone?
For four years I have been struggeling with faulty phones. It’s about time I get my hands on something that wont let me down.
Dear Editor(s),
Let’s talk about my favourite features:
1) I can receive my mail on my 8310 and delegate it to other people immediately
2) I can use it as a GPS for finding cool treasures and stuffs, cause I’m manly you know.
3) I can upload lots of photos of my Gorgeous wife onto my facebook profile (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirtwilightking/2678031683/ )
Let’s talk worst stories:
1) I got terribly drunk on matric holiday, called my girlfriend that I had for two weeks and professed my undying love for her. Her dad had answered her phone and he didn’t like me…..
2) When my wife and I had only been dating a few months, we were planning a long drive to Lydenburg for the day. I woke her up at 05:00 with a hot mug of coffee. While we were sitting on the bed drinking coffee I was playing with your cellphone. Trying to be all cute, I dropped her cellphone to give her a big kiss. Unfortunately for me, she had put her coffee down to rub the sleep out of her eyes and her brand new phone landed in a mug of steaming hot Nescafe Classic.
Let’s talk about why this phone is already mine:
1) I’m a bigger nerd than you. I have an Elfish Love ring as a wedding ring. I will provide pics if requested.
2) I’m generally a nice nerdy type dude, I like help other people with tech issues for free
3) My Nokia N70 is wrecked after 3 years of use. It looks terrible and a nerdy dude like me needs cool tech things.
This has been posted at http://www.stevenmcd.net/2009/02/my-nerdmag-blackberry-entry/
Ive posted this on my blog and on my twitter as part of the Spread The Word part of this entry!
1. My favorite features of the BlackBerry® (In rank of awesomeness):
- GPS Integration
As you can tell, quite a popular choice! I much prefer this over the WiFi offered by the 8320, since I loathe wireless networks!
- 3.5mm Stereo Headset port
This sounds like minor feature, but I am prone to destroying headphones in one way or another, and with this, I can cheaply replace them instead of shelling out hundreds of bucks for the branded one offered by other handset manufacturers!
- INtegration with Lotus Domino
Yes, I know, I should be running exchange, but I’m not, so this integration for push email suits me perfectly!
2. My Sob Story…
It was April 2005. A Saturday night. I was sitting at home doing my thing on my computer when my dogs started barking. I stood up and walked to the window, where I saw a decent looking guy in my garden. I shouted to him to get out the garden, to which he replied he needed water for his car. I directed him to the tap that he could use and closed and locked the front door, then resumed what I was doing on the PC. Moments later, 5 men appeared at my bedroom door with vicious looking knives, and presumed to hold me and my brother at knifepoint for almost 2 hours, while they helped themselves to everything in the house.
Once they were done taking what they liked (including my beloved cellphone), they had everything piled in the garage. They brought me to the pile and asked me very casually… “Is there anything you really want to keep from this stuff?”
I immediately asked for my cellphone back, which they declined, saying I could call the cops. I then asked if I couldn’t maybe just keep my SIM card from the phone. They agreed to that. With trembling hands I removed the simcard and handed back my cellphone. They then quickly piled the rest of what they had gathered into their car and left.
It took me 2 hours to get hold of someone to come over because they had cut all our phone lines, and of course stolen our cellphones.
3. Why I Should Get This Phone…
Since that robbery, I’ve been left with hand-me-down cellphones – my current one is my dad’s ex-phone which often loses the ability to hear me talking, and to get reception you have to shake it like a salt shaker!
It’s about time I got back my cellphone street-cred with a phone as awesome as the BlackBerry® CurveTM 8310 Smartphone!
[...] haa haa! Don’t forget to enter here before [...]
Look I think I deserve this phone so badly that in my enthusiasm I have mixed my favourite features, the most horrific and shameful mobile phone story on the planet and the reasons why I should be sporting it all into the entry below. May it fall on fertile soil:
Very seldom in life timing is absolutely in sync and the object of desire right in front of you. (This excludes the night that a DJ from a national radio station passed out in front of the urinals at a fashionable nightspot in Pretoria…..and yes Sheena, other people saw it too…not it, but the actual passing out of said DJ). So, when a friend of mine in London alerted me via Skype that there is a new Blackberry Curve phone up for grabs I just knew that I had to enter. Unlike most of your other entrants I am actually prepared to beg, nag and loose my dignity in order to get this phone. I have only ever one two champagne glasses before in my life and the courier packaged them so badly the one arrived with a broken stem. Which eradicated the joy of receiving such largesse.
Back to the Blackberry. I have it on very good authority that Black is the new black, hence a trendsetting quasi socialite like me should probably rather be dead then be without said Blackberry 8310. The titanium shell can go with my cool company…. The A-list is a fickle crowd and one cannot risk being slighted for being technologically impaired. Plus nobody listens to me anymore. My staff ignores me, my dog pretends I don’t exist. So the handy voice command will boost my ego and enhance my self-esteem. It would be great to have one thing around you that actually obeys a command. The four hour talk time comes in handy for someone who knows half the Sunday Times staff by name and who gossips with the powerful Gwen Gill on a daily basis. Few things are more irritating then losing a conversation about Patricia Lewis’s hair because your battery runs out. I also loathe carrying my laptop so the onboard email facility would be a massive bonus. It is so 1990’s to have to flap open a laptop at a lunch table and knock a bottle of Veuve Cliquot over in the process. It just strengthens that thing of being technologically disadvantaged. As for publicity, I am photographed far and wide and I will be sure to dump the champagne glass and show the Blackberry for the next few months on the schleb photo’s. I am going to Oscar Pistorius’s fragrance launch next Monday and the publicity with the international media present will be priceless….think about it. Seriously. If I were Naomi Campbell you would have paid me obscene amounts of money to drag that phone with.
I know a lot of people will have stories of how they threw up on their phones and could not retrieve them from a pool of cold vomit, how it fell into the toilet while they were drunk and how the puppy/baby/Barry Ronge chewed and destroyed it. I actually ate one. Well, not a WHOLE one, but it was eventually eaten until the inside was exposed and it became dangerous to use it. It was many years ago though and I have since had a lot of therapy. It was one of those tiny little flap phone Ericsson T-something models. It started with the flap. Initially I just nibbled the corners, then the flap came off. Somehow, like chewing on an eraser, the aerial went next, and then the top corner opened and common sense kicked in and I went back to chewing actual food. This is not a story I am proud to tell, but the horror of realizing I actually ate most of a mobile phone is just too good not to share in a competition like this. I don’t think many people can claim to have eaten a mobile.
And if these reasons, ladies and gentlemen of the judging panel, does not convince you that I deserve that Blackberry you have up for grabs, nothing will. I am only asking for a phone, not a job or a penis reduction or a new car. Just the Blackberry.
Please have mercy.
Christian Smit
Oh just to prove that I will further prostitute myself if you can get me some Nerdmag t-shirts I will see to it that they are worn by an IT company who send geeks out to fix IT problems thus spreading word about your company and mag like herpes through Pretoria. And if it is classy enough I will get some male models to pose with them and put the pics on fb and send you some to use as eye candy for your website.
Is this enough? Another thing I forgot to mention in my earlier submission is that I am quite keen on the vibrating feature. When you get to my age you will not only sympathise, but understand that completely. Please add this to my list of favourite features.
Christian
HAHAHA HAAAA!
I am LOVING Christian’s entries. Truly.
@L33tN3rd, thank you…now tell the judges that – mind you, not about the plastic model….that just lacks the whole vibrating aspect which I am so keen on. I had lunch today with a bunch (okay, not a whole bunch, four to be exact) of fashionista’s and they were all horrified at the lengths I am going here. One of them,who can probably be safely called the Janice Dickinson of Pretoria (and if you don’t know who Janice Dickinson is please don’t admit to that…rather google) said that once you loose your dignity it is gone forever and I have not only given it away on a plate, I managed to show people what a cheap and greedy b*tch I am. Sold my soul for an entry into a competition were the words….so there are reputations at stake here now. Besides, if I dont get that BlackBerry I will be VERY dissapointed…and might to recover in one of those small private clinics specializing in nervous disorders. And that because someone begrudged me a free BlackBerry….
Who wins?!
My 3 Most Awesome Features
The QWERTY keyboard with the trackball.
GPS, The fact that it has GPS in a compacted phone is extraordinary and Incase I get lost from a night of drinking , just kidding.
Music Identifier, this is a cool feature, no matter were you are, listening to a song but you got to get the name, this app comes in handy, with just a push of a button, it records the song then sends the piece over the net, sending back the artist, song title and album.
My Nightmare of a Cellphone Story
This is the worst thing that can happen to anyone. Last year in June after visiting my gran,who is a stone throw away from were I stay,I was on my way home, just after crossing the intersection of Manning road and Mc Donald Rd, walking up, A white corsa lite pulled over with two decent looking white guys. They gave me a story that they were lost and asked me if I knew were Wriggly Court was. I replied to them that I’ve never heard of it so I cant help. Then they said to me, would I be able to send a please call me for them , so that their friend can phone back and explain the directions , with confusion i replied to them that they got 2 phones to try and send please call me’s. (By then I actually should of realised something was cooking) Anyway they then asked politely if I could phone for them, So I asked for the number, while dialing the number, that they were calling out ,the guy on the passenger seat pulled out a gun and was aiming at my chest shouting,’ Give me the F@1king phone else I’ll kill you. I then handed over my Samsung U700 to the guy that was pointing the gun at me. I thought I’ll be clever to take down the number plate as they drove off but the clever morons most probally removed it before they went hunting.
Why I Should Win This Phone.
After the incident of me getting mugged at gun point, I’ve been borrowing phones left right and centre from friends and family, and at this present moment, I tell people to phone my sisters number to get hold of me, which she gets really annoyed at times. So if i do win ask shebee for max’s number .
My 3 Most Awesome Features
The QWERTY keyboard with the trackball.
GPS, The fact that it has GPS in a compacted phone is extraordinary and Incase I get lost from a night of drinking , just kidding.
Music Identifier, this is a cool feature, no matter were you are, listening to a song but you got to get the name, this app comes in handy, with just a push of a button, it records the song then sends the piece over the net, sending back the artist, song title and album.
My Nightmare of a Cellphone Story
This is the worst thing that can happen to anyone. Last year in June after visiting my gran,who is a stone throw away from were I stay,I was on my way home, just after crossing the intersection of Manning road and Mc Donald Rd, walking up, A white corsa lite pulled over with two decent looking white guys. They gave me a story that they were lost and asked me if I knew were Wriggly Court was. I replied to them that I’ve never heard of it so I cant help. Then they said to me, would I be able to send a please call me for them , so that their friend can phone back and explain the directions , with confusion i replied to them that they got 2 phones to try and send please call me’s. (By then I actually should of realised something was cooking) Anyway they then asked politely if I could phone for them, So I asked for the number, while dialing the number, that they were calling out ,the guy on the passenger seat pulled out a gun and was aiming at my chest shouting,’ Give me the F@1king phone else I’ll kill you. I then handed over my Samsung U700 to the guy that was pointing the gun at me. I thought I’ll be clever to take down the number plate as they drove off but the clever morons most probally removed it before they went hunting.
Why I Should Win This Phone.
After the incident of me getting mugged at gun point, I’ve been borrowing phones left right and centre from friends and family, and at this present moment, I tell people to phone my sisters number to get hold of me, which she gets really annoyed at times. So if i do win ask shebee for max’s number .
sorry bout the 2 entries, paragraphs got messed up.
Come on guys….have a heart….you cannot give up on me now and I want that BlackBerry so badly I will do (almost) anything to win it…..
So when’s the winner being announced?
I just asked my son to choose a topic that he was interested in.
@CtrlAltDel, yeah I need a phone to wake me with a cup of coffee. Thats how you get out of bed in the morning.
@Christian, keep em coming mate
If you don’t win the phone I think we should send you a fake plastic one for trying. hehhe.
For those not in the know, the winner has been announced here: http://nerdmag.co.za/the-nerdmag-blackberry-competition-winner-announced/