Saturday, February 28, 2009

Blackberry? Opinions?

This no-email-at work thing is really beginning to rankle. I desperately need some kind of solution, or I'll go completely bugfuck from boredom and the ennui of not being able to blog or talk to anybody.

We have a Verizon cellphone/landline deal. My current phone is a cheapie LG flip-phone, but I'm thinking Blackberry. I'd love an iPhone for its slickness and its total integration with OS X, but we're roped into that Verizon account pretty tightly, and AT&T coverage (I'm told) kinda sucks.

So I'm thinking Blackberry Storm, the new one with touch-screen capabilities. Verizons offering it for $119 with a 2-year contract extension, which seems mighty sweet to me. Don't care about audio or camera capabilities, but I absolutely need the ability to write email and IMs, and surf the Web without restrictions. I've read extremely mixed reviews of this device, from raves to outright warnings not to buy; I suspect that a lot of the glitches people experienced had to do with early adoption, and that later firmware updates will have repaired some of the problems.

I'm also willing to lose touch-screen features in favor of reliability. I like what I read about the Blackberry Curve, but I've read so many reviews now that my eyes are beginning to glaze over.

Any of you folks have any opinions? Please help a glaze-eyed and entertainment-starved raconteur out...

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will be of no help at all...except to brag (?) that I own none of that ilk at all.... I pay less than $30/month for my land line (in hopes that Verizon is LOSING money on my account!) and will refuse to go there until my oldest gives me so much anxiety that I will be forced to go there.... Call me a ludite, g'head.... I'm oddly proud about this particular point of my ludite-ness..... (I blog, now.... Isn't that enough?!)

Carl said...

I just got a Palm Centro, which I got for FREE with a two year extension through my company's discount plan with Verizon. I am a Palm guy, having laid a Tungsten E2 to rest with this acquisition, so I am comfortable with the interface. Not nearly as flashy as the Storm or an iPhone, but it seems pretty solid for e-mail and low-scale web browsing thus far.

Neddie said...

Carl, do those still rely on the old stylus interface? I had a Pilot back in the day, kinda liked it, but that point-and-stab thing got old...

Free, huh? I like that price.... But Verizon's quoting me 50 bucks with a two-year contract extension.

I just ducked into my local Verizon store, and came away more confused than enlightened about what the addition of email and web browsing would do to my monthly bill. Nothing the guy said jibed at all with what the Verizon site told me. Odd.

Chris "Stu" Stuart said...

David Pogue absolutely hated the Blackberry STorm. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html

I've read a bunch of other really negative reviews of it, but his is the only one I remember by name, mostly because I trust him more than most people I've never met.

Rob Hill said...

My experience with Verizon is they're crafty swine & if you don't keep a close eye on the details of your account, prepare for a grand swindling. They've attempted to sell me a replacement phone despite being covered by my warranty, & talk me into buying a new phone when I was due for a free upgrade. After I pointed this out the response was something along the lines of "well, sure you can get one for free if you really want, but your conscience will be clearer if you pay."

That said, the service itself is great. Maybe your best bet is to call & talk to someone on a managerial tier instead of dealing with the hirelings at a branch store.

Anonymous said...

I broke down and got a Blackberry Bold recently. I like the pushbuttons rather than touch-screen myself.

The interface and calendar/contact features are better than my stylus-based Palm Tungsten, and is OK for short, plain-text messages. Cruising the web is best done on something with a bigger screen...

Carl said...

The Centro does still have a stylus. The interface is somewhat less reliant on it than previous Palm models, but it still comes into play at times. And the stylus is flimsy plastic, compared to the solid metal one from my Tungsten, which bothers me a bit.

bobby lightfoot said...

I like FROOT

Melani Motzkus Carty said...

With that Verizon tower right above you on Short Hill Mountain, I would think you would get great coverage....

Neddie said...

Oh yeah, Melanie... That "Verizon" "Facility..."

Anonymous said...

This may be a little late to be useful but consider a last generation iPod TOUCH aka an iPhone with everything but the PHONE capabilities.

You said you had wi-fi all around your workplace. This way you can log on during your BREAKS, still stay in good standing with your bosses (aka no internet) and pay nothing in terms of subscriptions but still have all the OS capabilities of an Apple product.