Tip: Using Your BlackBerry as an MP3 Player

By Amy Mayer
February 8, 2008
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Now that you've grown an awesome digital music library on your desktop—maybe it's even replaced CDs as your music-medium of choice—isn't it time you enjoyed choice selections on your BlackBerry? Whether your all-in-one replaces your iPod remains to be seen, but to get music onto your BlackBerry, you'll need to connect it to your computer and launch the Device Manager.

To maximize the amount of music you can transfer, and minimize the impact on your BlackBerry's device memory, install a media card, the larger the capacity the better. Then, activate mass storage mode on the BlackBerry by selecting Options from the home screen and then Advanced Options„³Media Card„³Mass Storage Mode Support„³ON.

(You can use the Device Memory to store your music files, but they will take up considerable room quickly.)

From the Device Manager, click on Media Manager: The Media Manager will open a file transfer screen. Use the top-left corner to navigate to the place where your music files are stored on your computer. On the lower left area, indicate if you wish to store to a media card or your Device Memory.

When you select folders in the upper-left corner, the contents appear on the upper-right side. Select songs you want to copy and use the "Copy Down" button to place them on your BlackBerry. You'll be prompted with the question of whether to convert or not. Converting should reduce the strain on your BlackBerry's resources if you're using Device Memory. Whether you'll hear a difference after conversion depends on your ears, your device's speaker and whether you're using a headset.

To playback on the BlackBerry, select Media from the home screen. Then select Music. If you haven't placed your music in this folder, you may need to browse to find your music folder. But once you do, just click a file to play it.

The amount of music you can store will be limited by what else you're keeping on your device. But since it's quick and easy to copy files, you can always trash the tunes you're bored with and copy on some new ones. As for listening, if those around you tire of hearing your taste over the built-in speaker, then that's another reason to consider a headset.