Black berries and smart phones

[Zeke]

Who here has a Blackberry or similar device? What kind of plan do you have, and how much does it cost? Do you find that it's worth the money?

I recently got a beat-up old Blackberry Curve from a friend; I love it to death (half the XAW updates were written on it), but it's malfunctioning so badly that I really need to replace it. However, you get the best prices by committing to a $50/month plan for 3 years, which makes me leery to say the least.

[Derek]

I've heard Canadian plans lock you in for 3 years. Standard US plan is 2 years.

I love Android phones, and I'm borrowing a friend's currently. Android appeals to the developer in me since you can write applications for it for your own use. I'd love to get one for my own, but my current plan with Verizon is voice only and Verizon is expensive when you start adding on data and everything else, so I'm probably going to have to suck up having a non-cool phone for the time being. Oh well.

Is having the plan worth it? For me it depends on the situation. When I had the Android phone on a plan (I don't anymore), I had two out-of-town trips going on back-to-back, and I found the phone very useful. I could use it for GPS navigation, I could use it to locate nearby stores, I could use it to check email from the long car trip, etc. But when the trips were over, I didn't use the data plan as much. I have wifi at work and at home and my normal week involves me pretty much being in either one place or the other where I have laptops that do a whole lot more than the pecking I did on the phone. There were still some times when it was useful around town, but just not as many. So how much value it has to you depends on your circumstances.

[Chancellor Valium]

I don't have a blackberry, but over here they cost about £100+, IIRC. I'm too mean to get one, personally.

My brother and sister both have one, though, and my advice would be to saw your own legs off before you even consider getting one, unless you want to be on call for work 24 hours of the day. Neither of them ever has it off, and consequently are always (a) available for people at work with no concept of when to stop bothering someone and (b) always tapping away replying to the person responsible for (a).

[Katy Jane]

large quantities of my class (probably everyone but me) has some sort of fancy touch screen phone... They all have them out during class, despite how many times they've gotten in trouble for it which leads me to the conclusion that they are evil... but I'd love to have one if i had the money.

[Zeke]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm posting this on my new Blackberry Bold 9700, purchased off Kijiji for a bit more than I had hoped to spend, but much less than the store price and much, much less than I'd pay over the course of a three-year data plan ($50/month adds up to roughly $1800).

I found myself agreeing with Derek the more I thought about things. I have Wi-Fi at home right now, and I'm a university man (not in school right this minute, but hoping to start my PhD in the fall), so I have Wi-Fi there as well. This did me no good on my old Curve, but the Bold has Wi-Fi, so I can browse without a data plan. Even better, Rogers has a handy feature called a Data Daypass, so any time I do need a data plan, I can pay $3 and get 24 hours' worth instantly.

Of course, the most important thing for my purposes is that I can type easily on it. The Bold has a better-looking but slightly less comfortable keyboard than the Curve; I'm sure I'll get used to it. And above all, it's quiet. The clackety-clack of my old Curve made it awkward to use in public places that weren't already noisy.

It's nice to have a higher screen res, too... though I wish the screen were also larger instead of just finer. But the 9700 is about the same weight as my Curve, so that makes up for it.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Sucker*.


* Says the man with the second hand iPhone that is gradually breaking one component at a time.