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Welcome back to Feed Reader Fridays. In this series of articles we are reviewing all of the available feed reading options for BlackBerry owners. This is our eighth review in the series with a few more to go. If you are just joining us here at BBGeeks.com, please make sure you go back and check out all of our previous reviews so that you can chose the feed reader that is best suited to your needs.

This week we are going to take a look at the SimpleReader which is made available to you by SimplePie.org.

The SimpleReader Mobile feed reading solution is free to use, but will incur data charges from your carrier..

Overview

The SimpleReader Mobile platform is a departure from the traditional RSS reading solutions we have been profiling for you up until now. Instead of being an actual piece of software that you download and install onto your BlackBerry, this solution provides a web based gateway to all your favorite news content.

In order to browse any RSS feed that is published to the web without downloading any special software, you can simply point your mobile browser at the following URL m.simplepie.org. Once you are there, you will see a dialog box where you can type in any address under the sun. If that website publishes it’s content in an RSS format, the feed will then be presented to you.

Thats it, no frills, no special features. Just straight forward feed reading on the go.

Requirements

There are no special requirements for running the SimpleReader Mobile. The software should run on any OS and any model of BlackBerry you may own. As long as you have access to your BlackBerry mobile browser you are set.

Features and Functionality

The functionality of the SimpleReader Mobile platform is limited to the display of RSS feeds for a mobile device. There are no frills here, just straight forward reading of any feed you enter into the search field.

That being said however, the SimpleReader Mobile platform loaded all the feeds I entered very quickly. I had my news when I wanted it with little to no hassle. So while the features list is non-existent, the functionality works well.

My Opinion

If you know exactly what feeds you are interested in reading and only have a few that you check on from time to time, you may find that using SimpleReader Mobile is a quick and painless option for keeping up to date on your news. On the other hand, if you are looking for an actual RSS reader that you can install on your BlackBerry which will automatically update feed lists and keep track of read and unread items etc., you may want to look elsewhere. I would suggest taking a look at our previous RSS reader reviews. I am willing to bet you will find for a more suitable option there.

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