Considering a BlackBerry for a No-Frills Communication Device

There have been many ProfHacker posts dedicated to helping our readers choose a Smartphone, but all of them focus on one particular choice: Droid v. iPhone. Amy has offered the pros and cons of these devices, while Julie has written exclusively about Droids in “Using Super Smartphones for Productivity” and “Update on My Productivity with a Super Smartphone.” Alex, too, has weighed in on the subject and offered his thoughts on the Android OS. I’d like to offer a different perspective: RIM and BlackBerry. In the high-tech world of super Smartphone apps and operating systems, BlackBerry is often an afterthought, but for many consumers, they can be very a good choice.

Almost three years ago, I was all set to buy an iPhone. I love Apple products. I find them intuitive and sleek, and it’s not at all hyperbole to say that the iPod changed my life when I first bought one in 2001. Not only did I like and trust apple products, but friends of mine who already had iPhones loved them. The iPhone seemed like a no-brainer. A no-brainer, that is, until I tried typing on one.

I am typically a patient person when it comes to most things. The virtual keyboard on an iPhone (or iPod Touch) is not one of them. I couldn’t type my own name without half a dozen missed keys, and when I finally could type without having to try three times for every letter, I found myself typing so slowly, that I was convinced my blood pressure had risen several points. Whether the keyboard was vertical or horizontal didn’t matter, I felt clumsy and frustrated. Gadgets are, at least from my perspective, supposed to make our lives easier. The touch screen keyboard only made me miserable. Clearly this was not the right choice for me.

Having ruled out the iPhone, I decided to wait on an upgrade. Truth be told, I was still happy with the phone I had (a trusty RAZR). It worked fine, and the price (free) was right. Years before, I had made the mistake of taking an upgrade for the sake of an upgrade rather than waiting for a better fit, and I was determined not to repeat it. Every now and again, I would swing by the phone booth at Costco to see if anything caught my eye. And then one day, something did: a BlackBerry.

I’ve been a “CrackBerry” addict now for the better part of 2 years. First, as I mentioned in my portion of the “Five Things That Helped Us Survive Summer” post, I used a Blackberry Pearl. Recently, I upgraded to the 9800 (Torch). I’ll follow up with a more-detailed discussion of the Torch once I’ve spent more time with it, but for now, I’d like to offer a couple of BlackBerry benefits and issues.

• Tactile Keyboard: The keyboard is by far my favorite BlackBerry asset. Typing on them is easy and fast and I find that I am much more nimble when I have actual buttons to push.
• Reliable Push Email: Emails register on my phone in about the same amount of time as they appear on my laptop. Sometimes the phone wins. And more importantly, I can check my campus account without logging into MS Exchange, which I find to be cumbersome, and I don’t get logged out after 15 minutes on my phone the way I do on the computer.
• BBM: Also known as BlackBerry Messenger. I don’t use BBM personally, but I have a couple of colleagues who love it. Basically, BBM allows you to instant message other BlackBerry users anywhere in the world regardless of what network they use as long as they have a data plan. There is no per-message charge; messages are sent over the RIM network much like email.
• Limited Apps Selection: BlackBerries do not have nearly the wealth of applications that one can find for iPhones or Droids.  Personally, I don’t see a need for many apps, so I wasn’t bothered by this shortcoming. The phone comes with mobile versions of MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and I have installed apps for the Weather (BerryWeather), Twitter (UberTwitter), and an RSS reader (Viigo), and I have recently added Evernote and Tungle, based on reviews by fellow ProfHackers, but I haven’t tried to use either one (yet). If you like to have thousands of different apps, then the BlackBerry is probably not your best bet, but I’m reasonably happy with the available selection.
• Web browsing: Until recently (read: 3 weeks ago), the BlackBerry operating system was its Achilles heel. Web browsing was slow to the point of being was almost unusable. 3 weeks ago, BlackBerry released their latest operating system (OS 6), which is still not perfect, but it is light-years better than earlier versions. Now, getting online with a BlackBerry feels like getting online with an iPhone 3G. It isn’t ideal for everyone or all occasions, but it doesn’t make me want to throw my phone out the nearest window either.
• Call Quality and Signal: All cell phones will drop calls from time to time. But I have to say that it happens less with a BlackBerry than with some of the competition. Take that as you will—many people don’t use their phones to make many calls anymore anyway—but call quality is important to me.

In short, the BlackBerry is not the fanciest phone on the market. Even the newest model, released scarcely a month ago, has been criticized for not keeping up with the Jones, iPhone and Android. If you are looking for a phone that you can load up with games and applications, you should keep looking. If Open Source programming is important to you, you should look elsewhere.  But if you are looking for a reliable Smartphone that will get the job done, it might be a good choice. In any case, the best thing to do is go to the store and see how the devices feel in your own hands. When you’ve found your match, you’ll know.

Are there other BlackBerry users out there? What are your favorite features and/or applications? Please share in the comments section below.

[Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user Honou].