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September 2, 2009
BlackBerry Something-or-Other®
So, I got up this morning and left work work a little before 8. I thought it was odd that the sun was at such a low angle on the flowers. The time in the car said 7:00 a.m., not 8:00 a.m. So, I called my brother and he confirmed my suspicions. The BlackBerry was still trapped in Mountain Time. I'd set it from GMT to Mountain Time when I got it, but I assumed that it was on track at that point.
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BlackBerry Something-or-Other®
I have more phones than I know what to do with. These are (from your left to to your right) a V3C RAZR (Verizon), a Palm Pre (Sprint), an iPhone 3GS 32Gig (AT&T), and a Blackberry Something-or-Other® that's not sure what time it is that cost about five hundred clams.
But my old-skool RAZR always knew what time it was. When I landed on the plane and turned it on, it adjusted to the local time zone and I was off to the races. So, I went online to confirm my fears and sure enough - the stupid BlackBerry does not automagically adjust to the local time zone, and worse still, they think it makes sense.
Their theory is that "we couldn't possibly change the local time in the phone without changing all of the appointments in your Outlook account." Well, yes, actually, you could, if you programmed the phone properly. Remember, it is a hand-held computer as much as it is a phone, and as such, is programmable. The fact that you can't figure out how to automatically update the time on the phone by using the local time stamp from the local cell towers without screwing up the appointments is a lack of vision on the part of RIM, not some quantum physics issue due "spooky action at a distance" and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
The iPhone figured it out. Nuff said.
Plus, it's impossible to surf the internet on this BlackBerry Something-or-Other®. Although, in theory, you can surf the net, it's so small you'll go blind and then when you zoom in, instead of re-wrapping the text to fit the new window size, you now have to scroll left to right, up and down to read a page. Brilliant!
The navigation with the little roller ball takes some getting used to. The interface is about as intuitive as a Rubik's Cube. I keep wanting to touch the screen, which does precious little, of course.
I thought I'd like the little keyboard and I'd be punching out emails with my thumbnails that said "Sent from my BlackBerry Something-or-Other®" and all my friends would see that I had a BlackBerry and they'd be impressed that I could send emails from a bus stop while standing in the rain.
But now, I wonder where the people are that are sending me emails that say "Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry". Like...can you not get to a PC? Are you in a garage in Tijuana? Are you in the Mojave Desert? Are you OK?
Now, I wonder if they're not sending me emails from meetings or even from the bathroom. As Robert pointed out - "If I'm at work, I'm at my computer" which is pretty much my situation. I'm not some big thinker, organizing meetings and trying to generate a consensus. That's not my game. I'm more of a "hold the line..i can fix it...just stay out of my way" type of guy. So, if I'm breathing, I'm usually not more than two steps away from a computer. Hence, I really don't have a need for reading email on my phone.
The back is already coming off the phone and I've had it less than a week.
Granted, the Verizon network does work for me very well. That is, it works at my house, and at the client's sites. Works better for me than Sprint or AT&T and I know because I've tried them all this year. But I can use a Verizon RAZR and talk on the phone. So, I'm not convinced that I have a need for a phone that isn't touch screen that can surf the web in theory, but not in practice, and can't change time zones automagically.
So I give the Something-or-Other® a big fat "F" on this one. Fail.
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 2, 2009 at 8:39 AM
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