BlackBerry Presenter Does PowerPoint Without the PC

BlackBerry Presenter Does PowerPoint Without the PCBy Andrew Garcia

The BlackBerry Presenter lets users stream a PowerPoint slide deck from their BlackBerry to an external display or projector via Bluetooth.

The Presenter supports VGA and S-Video output, although the maximum resolution possible varies by connection. There is also a PAL/NTSC standard toggle switch beneath the USB connector.

We tested the Presenter with both an external monitor and projector (shown here).

Presenter software must be installed on the BlackBerry smartphone. It can be installed via a PC, a direct download or through a BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

The Presenter Software works on any BlackBerry running OS 4.6 or higher, except the Curve 8300 and Pearl Flip 8200 series.

Consumer BlackBerry users can only display PowerPoints saved to the local device storage or removeable storage card.

Corporate users running device OS 5.0, with access to a BES 5.0 SP1 server, can also present files attached to e-mails.

Corporate users can also present slideshows attached to calendar entries, again assuming the correct device OS and background resources.

When starting a presentation from the smartphone, the software enables the device’s Bluetooth radio and searches out nearby Presenter appliances.

Users should consider preloading slide decks to the appliance, as transfer over Bluetooth can take a long time. While the presentation can commence while the transfer is still in progress, performance becomes quite sluggish.

Using the BlackBerry as a remote control, presenters can move forward and back within the slide deck, or go straight to a specific slide. Users can also view speaker notes on the device, while the projector shows the real slide.

From the Windows-based management application, I could change the name of the appliance.

The Manager software can also update or reload the appliance firmware.