Blackberry and Gmail: Seamless

One of my major issues when looking at a Blackberry was the integration with Gmail.  From what I’d read, it worked, but I was still a bit leery of the push e-mail feature and potential delays.

My fears were unfounded.  I couldn’t ask for a smoother Blackberry/Gmail integration experience.  If you’re not familiar with the Blackberry, the term “push” e-mail describes the fact that the e-mail is pushed to the device by a server over-the-air, rather than having the device go poll for new mail at some interval using POP.  Setting up Gmail for the Blackberry is darned simple”

1. Log onto the Blackberry Internet Server (BIS) control panel through your provider (in my case, T-Mobile).
2. Choose the Add an Account option.
3. Put in your Gmail e-mail address and password.
4. There is no step 4.

That’s it.  Your Gmail messages will now be sent directly to your Blackberry.  Very quickly.  I usually have Gmail open in a tab in Firefox when I’m at my desk, and what I’ve seen is that the messages arrive on my Blackberry before they show up on the web.  I’d say that’s seamless.