My Blackberry Experience
I told you earlier that I finally got rid of my old clunker phone, my wife and I upgraded to the Blackberry Pearl 8130, and I have to tell you that it has been one of the greatest months of my life.
At the beginning of July we finally decided that we had had enough with our crappy old phones. She had an LG 5450, and I had the Kyocera 7135 Smartphone. Both phones were old and outdated, and we had been looking at possibly getting the LG Glimmer, but I wasn’t fond of the metal case, weight, and sliding screen. My wife didn’t like the size, but wanted a touch screen. So after about an hour and a half we finally settled (I finally sold her) on the Blackberry Pearl.
The first day I was like a child again. So many features and settings and choices that I couldn’t set the phone down. It has only gotten worse. I have to admit that I am addicted. Luckily internet service and text messaging is included in the $89 monthly bill (for one phone), so there is no need to worry about number of texts sent/received or time spent on-line. I’m not a bragging person, but pretty much everyone was jealous. Even my wife was jealous after I downloaded vlingo. So, being the good husband that I am, I took her phone away and installed vlingo (after testing thoroughly on my phone first). She was impressed and has since used it to send me text messages.
I’m a little dissapointed with it as I cannot for some reason get it to open applications. Maybe I am doing it wrong, but when I say ‘Open Calendar’ vlingo searches the web for Calendar. The same thing happens when I say ‘Open Facebook, TwitterBerry, Alarm, etc.’ This may be something that I am doing wrong, but when I use my wifes phone, it works. Puzzling…
I mentioned two other applications that I have installed the first being Facebook. It does as well as I expect it too. I would like to see more on the front page than icons to perform tasks. If it would load up at the wall that would be sufficient, but I rarely use Facebook anyway, so it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I prefer just logging in to the mobile Facebook site, as this has everything that I would like to see when using the Facebook application.
The second program is TwitterBerry. This is a twitter application. I’m in love with twitter and this application only makes it more so. TwitterBerry is to Blackberry as Google is to the internet. Yes…I feel that strongly about it. If you have a Blackberry and a twitter account you need to install this application.
The maps application came in very handy while driving through Topeka. We were given verbal directions by the friend whose house we were finding and this is what she said:
“Stay on the turnpike until the very last exit. Then go all the way down to the last stop light, turn right and drive to 37th street…”
I had to stop her and say, “Just give me your address. I’ll find it.” I saved her address in the contact information and had directions to her house in about 10-15 seconds, once the maps application updated. Although it is not a true GPS (no current location or verbal indicators) I was very pleased with the results.
The last application that I want to mention is Flickr. I’ve only just started using Flickr at all (mobile or otherwise) so I don’t have a lot to say about this app except that it works well and saves a lot of time. I can see how this would be very beneficial to those of you that use Flickr on a regular basis. I am going to try to use it more often, and maybe the next time I post about my applications I will have a more in depth review.
Overall, my experience with the Pearl has been fantastic. Nearly seamless interaction between applications make this phone very user friendly. The phone is very well designed and behaves in every sitatution as it should. I was worried about SureType, the guy at the store sweared by it, and I have to agree, it is much easier than I originally thought, and very intuitive.
If you know of any must-have applications please let me know by email or comment.
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