The readership should take it as an obvious point that because I should be vigorously readying myself for the end-of-semester hoo-hah looming ahead of me, I am instead poking around and immersing myself in technological geekery. I am all studied out. I am also still ceaselessly exhausted but have stopped sleeping all the time because I never feel rested. I feel certain I have mono but see no point in getting a Monospot; even if it is positive there is no treatment. I’m not licking anybody to spread it around!
I have turned my attention to my neglected Centro. I know a few people with recently purchased Blackberries, and I experienced Blackberry envy, but on closer investigation the envy stemmed from novelty and no other good reason. People are howling that the Palm OS is dead, but it actually works pretty darn well. I’ve had a Palm since the very first models, and perhaps the OS hasn’t changed drastically because it worked fabulously to begin with. The browser does indeed suck, but the Blackberry browser sucks even worse. My Mac iCal and tasks sync flawlessly to the Centro (with the help of Missing Sync). I have Sprint, and the EVDO network is satisfyingly fast; I mainly use the Web for sites that have mobile-optimized sites, so I don’t suffer much. The Centro threads SMS messages in a helpful and usable way. It cooperates seamlessly with my Mac Contact lists.
Granted, I have added a few programs to the Centro that make it WAY better than an out-of-the-box unit, and I don’t know how the plain old Blackberry stacks up. I have Agendus and Agendus Mail (both Iambic products). I have owned Agendus for years so I didn’t have to buy anything extra with the Centro. (I just don’t feel the need for the latest and greatest with this program.) Agendus Mail is $20 or so, and I similarly owned it previously. You can get Snappermail for $60 that will do SSL and IMAP, or you can pay a third of that for Agendus Mail, which does SSL and IMAP; hmmmm.
E-mail is one of the possible deal-breakers between Blackberries and other smartphones. Sprint’s Mobile E-mail app tantalizes you with the option to “push mail to device.” Trouble is, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, regardless of which ISP you use. That app and Versamail are not plagued with fatal doses of stability, either. They hang and crash occasionally. Always have. Agendus Mail doesn’t claim to push mail to the device, but you can set it to poll for e-mail, and it actually does it. In actuality, it therefore ends up working better than the “push” from Sprint’s and Palm’s apps. If I were truly foaming at the mouth to know exactly when each e-mail arrived, I could arrange to have a text notifier sent each time I got an e-mail, but even I get tired of text message beeps every 10 minutes.
Finally, I added a $6 app called MissedCall. I would add a link, but it moves around. Go to Handango and search for it. It basically adds a feature that Palm left out through, one assumes, a result of a transient ischemic attack: a visual indicator that you have missed something. Even the cheapest crap phone will blink or something if you have a missed call or text, but not the Centro. It is supposed to, I think, because you can pick “flash LED” for some things, but the only time my LED ever lit up is when it was charging. Result: you have to constantly turn it on and look at the screen to see if you have missed a call. MissedCall lights the LED so you don’t have to do it.
So. I think the Centro gives the Blackberry a decent run for its money. It’s also cute. And cheap. And despite my decided pro-Apple bias, I would much rather have it than an iPhone. The iPhone looks sleek, but they’re hard to type on, you can’t add extra programs to them (I know, I know, this is about to change), they’re wicked expensive, the EDGE network isn’t blindingly fast, and…did I mention they are a huge pain in the ass to type on? I do wish the Centro had a regular headphone jack on it, but my Shuffle isn’t exactly a hideous load to add to my bag. The Centro may bail Palm’s butt out of the sling it’s in!
Bummer! Just got a BB!
I love my Blackberry Curve 8320. The email feature is by far the best around. You can access 10 email accounts quickly and easily (not that I have that many.) I have AIM, MSN, and Mobile Facebook as well. Also, T-Mobile has hotspot at home, whereby I can use my BB at home with my wifi and not use up my minutes! It also works anywhere there’s a wifi connection (so the most important places for me: school, hospital, coffee shop, etc.) I haven’t had any trouble syncing my iCal to my BB. All in all — I love it!
Yeah…there is much to be said for Blackberries (esp. Wi-Fi and a way better camera). My next smartphone will likely be a Blackberry (YEARS in the future when my contract expires), if for no other reason than developers will probably quit supporting the Palm OS sooner rather than later. I have a year and a half before I have to worry about it. By then there may be some super-duper Blackberry that makes breakfast and everything.