Not all smartphones are created equal

I read this comment by Student Nurse Midwife recently and explored the topic with her a bit. Swayed also by the short battery life on my Centro, I journeyed out and returned with a BlackBerry Pearl. I LOVE it. I don’t necessarily think that BlackBerries are the best smartphones for everyone, and Palms can still do things that BlackBerries can’t. If the BlackBerry had a touch screen, the world would be a friendlier place, for example. It depends on what you want the device for, I suppose. There is still more software for the Palm platform, and a lot of it is free; however, there is more software for the BlackBerry that I personally wanted and couldn’t get for the Palm (Facebook app and Milksync, for example). I don’t use smartphones for any media at all so I can’t compare there. The kicker for me after a solid few days of putting the BlackBerry through its paces is the battery life. I read review after review stating that the battery life for these two devices was similar or that the BlackBerry came out worse than the Centro, and either the reviewers were on crack or my Centro was seriously flawed (I had had it to the Sprint store for repair, and they said “What do you expect? You’re online all the time and talking as well; it’s a smaller phone, so it has a short battery life.”). Seriously. If I had two conversations on that thing, it was done for. I had chargers in reach at all times. It also occasionally reset spontaneously and dropped calls, but I guess I had gotten used to the Palm OS resetting from time to time. Perhaps my long-term Palm loyalty blinded me. Also the pink Centro is just cute. Anyway, the Blackberry pushes e-mail to me all day long and I can read RSS feeds and Web sites plus talk to more than two people before it drains. I can just baaaaaarely make it all day on one charge. The camera, disappointingly, sucks just as badly as the Centro’s. It took me awhile to adapt to the keyboard, as well, but I have gotten used to it. I still like the Centro’s QUERTY keyboard, but I’ve gotten almost as used to the Pearl’s keyboard and I don’t accidentally hit neighboring keys as I did with the Centro. All in all, I have joined the crackberry universe, although I am still nostalgic about Palm and wish they kept up with the pace.

I got my grades today and squeaked by with another 4.0: don’t ask me how. It is almost miraculous because I wanted to quit soooo badly that my motivation was at an all-time low. I’m still burned out even though I haven’t been to class for a week. I’m already dreading the end of August. For real. I’m hoping that a few months away from that place will restore me to a place where I have some inner reserves built up. Blah. Right now I am still extremely bitter and angry about the way these faculty members bend over backward to frustrate us and be unfair and unreasonable; it’s not the Army. At least the end is within shouting distance and there is a summer with NO school! Yippee!