24 Aug 08 Blackberry

I like Blackberries. Some of my earliest memories are of going out into the countryside with my parents and grandparents and spending an afternoon picking them. I always ate more than I ever put in the basket I was given – and I never took any notice of the adults that threatened that I’d swallow a worm.

Of course, I digress. Now I have one of those little nifty bits of electronic kit called a Blackberry, that is reported to be able to make phone calls.

I’ve had mine about two weeks now. I think I’ve made about six or seven calls on it in that time. I’ve been putting it through its paces (or perhaps myself), working out all the things I can do on it through.

For the first day or so, I almost missed my old phone – a Kyocera Strobe 612. I’d had it for a couple of years. It flipped open to reveal a minature QWERTY keyboard, which for me – an avid texter – was a useful, and very well used addition. I’ve always found text messaging useful since I got my first SMS-capable brick back in 1997. Of ocurse, back then there were no unlimited text plans, but it was still fun to send a few messages to the few people that also had the capability.

I’ve never been one for using the phone a great deal really – it’s fine for chatting to old friends and family, but for business use, I much prefer email. Written record for a start, and I can read and reply to emails when I choose to. The phone is my slave, not my master. Thank God for voice mail  too. If you call me, and I’m busy, doing something else, or I don’t want to answer it, then, quite simply, I won’t. I do return calls though – when I’m ready.

Anyway, back to the Blackberry. Technology moves so fast these days, that whenever you buy a new bit of kit, it’s out of date.

Why a Blackberry?

I like a keyboard. Personal experience tells me that Cingular sucks around these parts, and a name change to AT&T isn’t likely to foster much change. So, that pretty much rules out an iPhone. The iPhone might have 1,001 apps of varying quality, but, well the blackberry has enough for my needs, and I don’t need a mobile mail solution costing $100 a year, when I can use Gmail and the free Google Sync app automatically keeps my calender up to date without any interaction on my part.

I’m not into fashion or style. I don’t give a hoot what it looks like (not that the Blackberry looks bad). I don’t need to show off. There is only one thing I am interested in. Functionality. Period.

Still over the past two weeks, I’ve got my head around this little beastie, and have found many useful things. Oh, and only really got one gripe, and that’s about a third party app, that the company concerned is working on anyway (and it’s a free app too, so no money spent and/or lost either).

The Smartphone data plan with my carrier (Alltel) is $40 a month, but then I did have the unlimited text and data plan with my Kyocera, and that was $20 anyway, which I now don’t need, so total extra outlay was $20. Mind you, my wife and I share an account, and we recently cut our free minutes right back, and neither of us talk that much on the phone anyway – and then it’s mostly to each other or our my circle numbers, which aren’t in the minutes. So even though, we’ve both got ‘berries our phone bill has gone down by over $50 a month recently.

Kathy’s contract is eligible for renewal in December, so she’ll be getting a curve around Christmas time too.

More on those apps I’ve found useful soon. Right now, I’d better reply to some of my text messages.

I like Blackberries. Some of my earliest memories are of going out into the countryside with my parents and grandparents and spending an afternoon picking them. I always ate more...

Tags: 8830, adults, blackberry, countryside, curve, electronic kit, memories, paces, parents and grandparents, RIM, swallow, worm