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October 20, 2008Summary: After almost a year of using the BlackBerry Pearl, I have grown tired of its idiosyncrasies and want to move on.
It’s not one big thing about the Pearl that irks me, it’s several little tiny things that collectively just annoy the hell out of me. Some of my issues are with the device itself, some are with my provider, and some are with the apps. Most notably, since I am working from home these days, I really don’t need all the functionality that the BlackBerry brings so I have the luxury of being a little more critical.
The Device
The Pearl was probably a bad choice for me. I got it on a promotional offer from Telus and it cost me nothing. At the time, I needed a mobile PDA and the only ones that Telus was offering in the $0 range were the HPC Touch (ugh, what a dog that thing looks like), some Windows Mobile thing (never catch me dead with a Windows anything), and the BlackBerry Pearl. I took it and while the honeymoon period was nice, I am now on my third Pearl in less than a year because it keeps breaking. The formfactor is nice as it fits into my pocket easily, but the Pearl really isn’t up to true road warrior use.
Since it keeps breaking, its usefulness to me is less.
The Provider
As mentioned, Telus is my provider. Even though I would much rather be on GSM, Telus has exceptional customer service and I’ve quite enjoyed being their customer. One thing I don’t like, though, is that they charge an arm and a leg for a data account that will allow a BES connection. BIS is cheap – $15 unlimited web and email, but you can’t do BES on it. To get a BES-enabled account, I’m looking at tripliing my data plan cost as well as adding the additional cost of an Exchange provider for the backend. I don’t much care about the Exchange back-end, but I do like some of the advanced filtering and configuration options that a BES account offers over BIS.
Since I cannot get BES on my $15 account with Telus, the device is less useful to me.
The Apps
This is where things really fall apart. There are a LOT of apps out there for BlackBerrys. I’m not talking games because, well, other than kids, who cares about games? I’m talking about real apps that professionals need. Things like RMilk sync, Google Calendar Sync, Facebook Mobile (OK, not so professional…). While the BlackBerry apps themselves are nicely integrated with each other, the growing mass of third party apps are obviously created in isolation from each other.
I’ve loaded by BlackBerry up with a bunch of productivity apps just like any other BlackBerry carrier, and what I am left with is much the same as I remember Windows PCs being. A bunch of unrelated apps with disparate UIs all fighting each other for resources and only working half the time. Having all these apps available for your BlackBerry sounds neat, but at the end of the day, I’ve ended up with a hodge podge mess of broken things in my hand. It’s got to the point where I can’t trust anything – my calendar (which is supposed to be syncing with my Google Calendar) is missing things, my to do list (which is supposed to be syncing with my RMilk to do list) is missing things and when you get to that point, all trust is gone.
My Changing Life
My first mobile PDA was the Apple Newton which took 6 AA batteries that had to be changed every 45 minutes. This was long before wireless internet (hell, even before broadband Internet I think) and certainly long before cell phones were able to do anything other than make and receive phone calls. I’ve had everything from a HipTop (that’s a SideKick to you Americans) to the Pearl and have found all of them to be fairly useful in different ways.
Now that I work exclusively from home, I find my need for a full communications suite in my pocket to be diminishing. I do still need email and web at all time for I am frequently not near my desk when a client calls, but I don’t need the 40 apps that a BlackBerry comes with any more.
If the Pearl were a decent phone then I would probably just kill the apps I no longer need and continue to use it as a phone, but it’s not. One of the many things that have broken on this third handset already is the speaker so it vibrates roughly during calls.
The Solution?
So, what’s a guy to do? Well, for starters I am moving to a Nokia 770 (silghtly outdated, but a good starting point to see what it can do for me). The 770 is an Internet tablet which can use WiFi b/g and Bluetooth to connect to the Internet. The WiFi part is great because that will let me stay connected around the house (yes, my Pearl has largely been relegated to email in the living room rather than on the road) and the Bluetooth part should let me stay connected on the road via my Bluetooth enabled phone (currently the Pearl, but there are so many BT enabled phones that it can be easily replaced).
The added advantages of the 770 abound:
- Real web browsing
- Real screen real-estate (comparatively)
- Since it runs Linux there are real power user tools out there for sysadmins
- Looks kinda sexy
So that’s the plan. I am awating delivery of my 770. Once I get it, I will test it all out on the WiFi around the home and at the local coffee shop. If that all goes well, I will then experiment with the BT tethering with the Pearl and if that goes well I will talk to Telus about getting a normal old phone with BT and call it a day.
Or at least that’s the plan now…
Tags: apple newton, blackberry, cell phone, nokia 770, pda
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