Dumb & Dumber III: Blackberry Madness

Christopher Rath

2009-07-23 (updated 2009-08-13)

After years of delay, I finally succumbed and acquired a Blackberry. I had previously resisted the Blackberry's charms for two reasons: (1) Lack of a data plan that would allow me to cost effectively travel to other countries; and, (2) The fact that the Blackberry would convert every email into plain text—discarding any text mark-up applied by the original sender.

Verizon now offers a flat-rate, unlimited, data plan that works is 200+ countries; which overcame my first objection. RIM upgraded the BES and Blackberry device software such that when replying or forwarding emails the sender's text mark-up is preserved; overcoming my second objection.

Given that the Blackberry platform is about 10 years old, my expectation was that it would be a mature, well thought out platform; instead, I've encountered a hodgepodge of poorly implemented features reminiscent of the crap written by Microsoft's new-grads and coop students. This poorly implemented feature set is supported by a cast of faithful Blackberry zealots who are convinced that everything crapped out by RIM is gold.

For the record, my new BB device is a Blackberry Tour 9630.

Top of mind dumb stuff:

I'm signed up for a two-year contract; so, I'll continue to use the device. That said, I'll definitely be looking at non-BB devices when my contract comes to an end. Hopefully Verizon's competitors will begin to offer decent data plans so that I can make the switch.

Rather than finish this piece on a negative note, I will admit that it is handy to be able to do a bit of web-surfing from my handset, and the Google Maps GPS integration is very nice. It is also a plus to be able to carry all of my 2,000+ contacts in my handset and to be able to send a short email to them without breaking out my laptop.


©Copyright 2009, Christopher & Jean Rath
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Last updated: 2016/02/08 @ 05:43:16 ( )