It's an iBlackberry for Jeff the Great

One of the success stories that Apple might be able to tell about the iPhone is that it helped sell Blackberries, Treo's, and other PDA's. I've been out of contract with Verizon for about 3 months now and finally decided over the weekend to get a new phone.

After all the iPhone hype I decided to seriously consider a PDA. I've been doing a lot of independent, after hours work, and having access to email 18-20 hours a day is essential to me. A regular, run of the mill cell phone just wouldn't cut it this time.

So I shied away from the Motorola Q and opted for the new Blackberry 8830. In a few words, this phone is AMAZING! From what I read, there is very little this phone doesn't do that the iPhone does (namely wifi, and 'real' web surfing). Here are the pro's and con's:

Pro's
Easy, lovable trackball navigation
customizable and fast operating system
bright, sharp color screen
Java enabled for 3rd party applications
QWERTY keyboard
expandable to 4gigs of memory (micro SD)
fantastic media player

Con's
no camera :(
no wifi
a tad bit of background noise (I had to exchange the first one I got)
hard to figure out how to make simple adjustments to things like volume

How much you ask? With a 4gig memory card and car charger (and after rebate) it set me back $249. That's half as much as the 4gig iPhone. And I give up what, a camera and touch screen?

I like my money more than I like Apple.

-Jeff the Great

P.S. Thanks to Angie from the Beaverton GoWireless for taking good care of me!