phreaker18, 2 points.
1. BES vs. BIS account. Unless you work for a big company who assigns berries to employees, you probably can't even get a BES account. However, you are entitled to an BIS account which is what you will need to get email. BIS is very reliable and is the best mobile email service in my opinion. Hyedipin is right in his breakdown as well. BES allows a device to sync with a private blackberry server - usually deployed by large institutions. On top of that, the BES can work next to an Exchange server for added functionality.
The difference is Blackberry Enterprise Account vs. Blackberry Internet Account.
the site to manage your service, via att, is
http://mycingular.blackberry.net. Even though it's not cingular anymore, they still use this url.
2. When you buy a curve, or pearl - keep in mind that many owners indicate that the trackball starts to exhibit strange behavior. Jumping, selecting menu items even when you didn't tell it to. The repair will cost $65 and there are good repair shops that can do the work. If you buy one from att, then you will likely get a 12 mo warranty. Keep all paperwork.
Of the 3 dozen or so curves that I have deployed, several have experienced trackball problems. Perhaps the 8310 (att) is better than the 8300, but there are definite issues.
It might be worth reading some blackberry forums and investigating what other users say about trackball issues.
bernard
