I hope to be getting a new phone within the next few months. I've been using a blackberry curve for a while and I've heard that data won't work once the device is no longer activated with a carrier, even over wifi. I was hoping to still be able to use the berry as a simple email/messaging device around the house over my wifi after I moved on to a different phone. Can anybody confirm this is true or not?

I heard there is a ROM out there that you can install at your own risk, was curious if anyone had, and if so, what their experience with it was.

I'm doing an article for my Professional Writing class, and while I'm looking specifically for apps essential to students, I'm looking for a few choice quotes that answer why your device of choice (whether it be Android, iOS, or Blackberry OS) fits into your life so well. Of course there's the fact that it's portable and can take the place of many other devices, etc, but what about specifics?

I keep seeing advertisements on various buses, billboards, and bus stops around San Francisco, touting the benefits of BBM. As someone who's never owned a BlackBerry device, what are some of the benefits of BBM over something like regular IM or SMS / MMS? It seems somewhat antiquated, but I recognize that might just be because I don't understand it.

Specifically, how many developers are estimated to be working on apps for BlackBerry devices? A friend of mine asked this question via Twitter and I thought it'd make for an interesting discussion: http://twitter.com/jimgoldstein/status/21613249921

I fixed my calendars, but I checked my contact list, and I now have many many duplicates and some are gone! Some contacts have their first name and another contact's last name, and I'm not sure whose numbers they are. I use google sync for my contacts and calendar, but the contacts synced like this to google and they are messed up everywhere! Is there anything that I can do? Thanks