When you think of a beautiful and relaxing summer day at the beach, in the garden, or by the pool, what sort of items do you picture yourself needing? At the beach you’ll need sunscreen, a blanket, and maybe a game to keep the kids occupied. In the garden, odds are that you’ll want a spade, plants, and a pretty good plan. By the pool, don’t forget a towel, pool toys, and a good book. Pay attention, because here’s the really cool part: The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet can help replace one of these items no matter where you go this summer! Let me show you how:

Life’s a Beach!

Kids love the sand and the swimming at the beach, but sandcastles and shells can sometimes give way to sighs of “I’m bored” right when you finally get comfortable. BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to the rescue!

• Encourage the kids to take pictures of their sand creations and send them to family members or post to social networks. Check out the photo frame apps in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront for that extra touch!
• Fire up a game like TETRIS™ or Monopoly for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet for the whole family to play while enjoying the waves.
• Browse the Internet with the kids to learn the history of the beach and some of the wildlife that occupies it. Searches for “shark attack” should be avoided, however.

No Green Thumb, No Problem

While navigating the mysteries of your garden, budding botanists and pros alike may sometimes wonder what to plant where, what grows best in shade, and what’s with that leafy thing that never seems to die. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has your back again.

• Browse the Internet to research the best places to plant, when to plant, and what to plant to create your dream garden. Some websites may even let you buy plants online and pick them up at the store.
• Photograph plants you are unsure of whether to dig up or water, and share them with experts or friends to get the whole story. Was that poison ivy you just stepped on?
• Show off your beautiful garden when you’re done by sharing 1080p HD movies and photos!

Poolside with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

An afternoon by the pool can be among the most relaxing of summer activities, but all that laying around can sometimes get a bit boring. After all, we are “BlackBerry People”, and we like to get things done! Here’s how the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can help.

• Load up a book in Kobo Reader and get lost in your favorite fiction, cower from a thriller, or swoon through a romance novel from the comfort of your deck chair.
• Watch your favorite movie or television show from the video store with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet Video Store. It’s like having a whole video store at your water-shriveled fingertips.
• Shoot high-quality HD video and pictures of the kids diving from the high-dive or jumping into the pool. You never know when you may need to access it later for an Olympic highlight reel or a wedding slideshow!

These are just a few suggestions and my favorite ways to use the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in the summer, but I’d love to hear yours as well. Where will you and your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet go to chill?

Those who know me well (or even a little for that matter) know that I’m head over heels in love with BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™). You also know that I’m a pretty big baseball fan. Well, put those things together and you get the inspiration for this week’s Top 3 Tuesday: Top Three Uses for BBM Groups. You might be asking yourself, what does baseball have to do BBM Groups? The answer might surprise you:

1. Coordinating groups of people. BBM Groups is possibly one of the best ways to get a group of people together in one place, without physically meeting. With the ability to chat in real time with your selected group, it’s simple and fun way to connect. You can also share calendars, lists and even photos. For me, the ability to create lists is among the best features because you can assign a task to a group member and track completion. Planning a party? Assign someone to bring the balloons, or the cake. Working on a project? Assign the completion of needed documents and track everything in the group calendar. Getting people together using BBM Groups couldn’t be easier.

2. Sharing the moment. Have something that you want to share with a group of your BBM contacts, but not the whole list? Creating a BBM Group is a great way to do this. One of the best examples I’ve come across is a friend who used a BBM Group to keep us all up to date on their pregnancy. They made the announcement in the chat, then added the due date to the calendar, and finally shared pictures of the baby – all within the group. (It was a girl – congrats!)

3. Clubs and Teams. I’ve been playing recreational baseball this summer, and we use BBM Groups as our main hub for the team. At the beginning of the season, we added all our games to the group calendar so nobody would forget. We share photos and memes for inspiration on game day, and use the chat all week long to coordinate impromptu practices and make carpooling arrangements to the diamond. We even use the list function to keep track of who’s on sunflower seed duty and make changes to the batting order. Now, we can focus on swinging for the fences.

If you haven’t already explored BBM Groups, you might find that it can be used as your personal coordinator. Do you have an interesting way you use a BBM Group in BlackBerry Messenger? Be sure to tell us all about it in the comments.

With all the smartphone options on the market today, I thought I’d dedicate some special Top 3 Tuesday time to discuss reasons to choose BlackBerry® smartphones. I’ve been talking to a lot of BlackBerry fans recently about why they picked BlackBerry smartphones to be their device of choice, and there are three simple (yet powerful!) reasons that come up time and time again. With these testimonials in mind, here are the three most popular reasons to choose BlackBerry.

Connected: BlackBerry smartphones have some unique and powerful messaging applications that help keep you connected to what matters most to you. BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) and email functions are the obvious examples here – and they’re designed to make communicating quick, easy and in the moment – but there are subtle nuances that make a big impact in sharing what’s important to you, too. Apps can be designed to be socially connected — not only between contacts, but with other apps as well. This makes it simple for you to share what game you’re playing, to chat about the sport scores of your favorite team, or update your social networks – all from within the app you’re already using and designed to be efficient and seamlessly connected. Your BlackBerry smartphone keeps your fingers on the pulse of your networks, your business and your loved ones.

Productive: People have been saying this for years, and it’s still true today –BlackBerry smartphones help you get things done. Whether it’s answering emails, editing documents, or even planning travel, the system is designed to help you easily navigate and be efficient. For those interested, the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog has got a ton of tips and shortcuts for you to check out, but that’s just the beginning. There are a ton of apps that come built-in (or are available to download for free) that are designed to make you more productive. An example of this is BlackBerry® Mobile Conferencing, which is designed to save you time. Once you activate the app permissions, the app will automatically pull out conference call numbers from your appointments to create a “Join Now” button that allows you to dial in with one click. Another good example is BlackBerry® Traffic, which is designed to find and display the fastest route to your destination — including the option of notifying your key contacts with your estimated time of arrival.

But my personal favorite productivity feature is something as simple as Universal Search. Simply start typing what you want to find, and it automatically presents you with items on your phone, in your applications and beyond to things like search engines or media service apps. It saves you time, and in the end, that leaves you with time to do more in your everyday life.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Choice and value: Everyone on Team BlackBerry is an individual — no two BlackBerry smartphone users are the same. There are many distinct lines of BlackBerry smartphones designed to offer you choices best suited to your personal preferences. For keyboard lovers, there are the BlackBerry® Bold™ smartphones and BlackBerry® Curve™ smartphones, but there’s also the BlackBerry® Torch™ line of smartphones designed to offer larger touchscreen experiences. There are different models in each line to match your needs and your budget, each of them offering exceptional value for what’s included out of the box in terms of accessories and built-in or free to download apps.

BlackBerry smartphones are also designed to provide ongoing value through exceptional data handling and efficiency as well. This is designed to help you by keeping your smartphone usage costs at a manageable level. For those of you in a monthly contract, think of how much you could save over the life of your term!

There you have it: three great reasons to choose BlackBerry smartphones. Why did you pick BlackBerry? Tell me below in the comments.

Well, here we are -– it’s Tuesday, and if you’ve been following along with us here at the Inside BlackBerry® Blog lately, you’ll know that it’s Top 3 Tuesday! This week we’re taking a look at my top three tips for BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™):

1. Communicate: With BBM you can send messages up to 2,000 characters long, and best of all, you can see when users on the other end are interacting with you. There’s a simple yet wonderful thing that happens in BBM. You can see when your message has been delivered (signified by a “D” to the left of the message) and when it’s been read (signified by an “R”). You can also see when the user on the other end is typing, so you’re not left hanging!

2. Share: With BBM, you can quickly and efficiently transfer pictures, files and voice notes from your BlackBerry smartphone to your contacts — it turns your moment into their moment. To send the file, all you have to do is open the file, hit the “menu” button on your BlackBerry smartphone, select “send”, select “BBM Contact”, then choose who you want to send it to. So simple! I use this all the time with my friends and family to share photos, and I also send voice notes when I want to add that personal touch to a conversation. Also, with BBM Connected apps, you can share what you’re doing in the app with your BBM contacts. Want to discuss the score of a sporting event you’re following, or share your app suggestions with someone you know? With BBM Connected, your apps become more social. Check out Alex’s blog post on his top 6 BBM Connected apps!

3. Organize: BBM has a built-in feature below your contacts list called BBM Groups. This is a great way to gather groups of BBM users and organize events, clubs and gatherings. Planning a surprise party for someone? Gather everyone (except that certain individual of course) into a BBM Group and share a central calendar so everyone can see key dates. You can create group lists so people can track who’s in charge of bringing what, and you can also share pictures, files and hold a group chat so that everyone can be on the same page. I’ve used this on a few occasions and the plan has always gone off without a hitch!

There you have it — my top three tips for using BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). Do you use BBM in a unique way? Share it with us in the comments below.

1. Browser: Surfing the web on your BlackBerry smartphone has never been faster with this snappy OS. With BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones, pages load faster — and when you’re on the go, speed matters. Check out this video comparing previous BlackBerry® Curve™ smartphones with the slick BlackBerry Curve 9350 smartphone running BlackBerry 7 OS:

[YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

2. Fast Fluid Graphics: The graphics behind the BlackBerry smartphone OS have been improved with BlackBerry 7 OS. You’ll get new visually appealing icons along with fluid transitions. Combine that with more powerful hardware and higher-resolution screens and you’re in for a rich smartphone experience. So, your photos are brighter onscreen, your game experience is faster, smoother and crisper, and your ability to swipe, scroll and launch is more intuitive, quicker, and satisfying. Take a look at this video comparing the all-touch BlackBerry® Torch™ 9850 smartphone with the BlackBerry® Storm™ 9550 smartphone running a previous generation BlackBerry OS:

[YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

3. Touch Screens: Of course, not all BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones have touch screens, but a number of them do, and I love how much quicker you can navigate around your device. For me, when I’m looking at messages, I can simply tap the one I want to read rather than scroll through them all. Or when I want to open an app from the home screen, again, I can simply tap the one I want. You can also pinch-to-zoom on things like photos and websites. See for yourself — watch this video to see a side-by-side comparison of the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700 smartphone and BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone:

[YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

There you have our top 3 reasons to upgrade to a BlackBerry 7 OS smartphone! Hopefully this was helpful for those of you using older BlackBerry smartphones and thinking of upgrading. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments, and if you’re currently rocking a BlackBerry 7 OS smartphone, tell us what you like the most about it!