Due to an unfortunate incident with some snow and a bout of silliness, my dear beloved BlackBerry's keyboard decided to give up on me. And along the way, after trying many older telephones and buying a new one even, one of my co-workers dropped off his Google (well, HTC) Nexus One.
Life hasn't quite been the same since. On the one hand, this device is leaps and bounds better than my berry. It has a nice touch screen, and most of google's apps are front and centre. More importantly, it has a great browser and enough apps to satisfy anyone who has an app fetish. Incidentally, it doesn't have flash installed (I didn't install it on purpose), and that actually stops a great deal of terrible pop-up advertisements (one of the banes of the PlayBook).
I installed Swype on it to type and am impressed by it. It seems to learn well enough and is quite forgiving with my fat fingers swiping over the wrong words. Prior to Swype, I was using the stock Android keyboard, and found it quite frustrating, likely because my fingers were fatter than the soft keyboard's letters.
Now, onto the frustrating parts. I have used a few touch screen devices in my day. I can't think of any that worked well. There is something about my fingers and the screen whereby I cannot touch where I want to. In the case of keyboards, I get the wrong letters, in the case of other things, I click on the wrong link or whatever. It frustrates me. With this phone especially, when I try and use it lying down (I wake up, I see emails, I try and respond, while not wearing my glasses), I find it really hard to use. It could be that they don't work as well upside down or something, but in any case, I usually give up and deal with it later. I also found the four buttons at the bottom very annoying. For example, instead of hitting space on the keyboard, I sometimes end up hitting the home button on the phone. Now, whatever I was typing is still saved and I can usually get back to it, but it leads to frustration on my end.
I found the lack of simple things quite annoying. For example, I wanted to use a timer the other day. I had something in the oven and my friend was in the coffee shop the next block over. So, I told him I'd meet him there, but I had to be back in about 50 minutes. My oven has a timer. I use that, but you can't leave things sitting in there post-cooking because it will get over-cooked (even though the oven turns off). My phone, it doesn't have a timer. It has a clock, it has an alarm. No timer. I have to download an app for that. Why?
I found the framework via which things are sent across apps etc lacking. For example, I am looking at the location of a place to meet my friend. I click on it and you get the option of sending it. Except, you can't do it via google talk. Guess how I am conversing with my friend? That's right. He's on his android phone as well. Now, yes, you can email someone. You can use latitude or something, but that's not the point. It should just work.
Viewing contacts was annoying. On the berry, everything about the contact is in one place. All your numbers, all your email addresses etc. Let's say my mother calls me from her office and I missed the call. I see that she called me and am about to call her back. If I call back the number, she's already left work. So, I need to find her mobile number. I have to now go into my call log, find her, look into the contact and then click the right number. You know what my berry had? You go to the number and when you click the menu, you are presented with a bunch of communication options: call phone x, phone y, email on x, y, sms etc etc. Because when I am in the phone history area, I am likely to do what? Try and communicate with the person. I know it is a small thing, but it is important.
I am looking forward to my contract with Bell ending in August and the release of a new BlackBerry 10 device. I am a bit apprehensive as to what the folks at RIM have created, especially given that it is a touch screen. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and buy in. We'll see how it goes I suppose.
I can't say enough how much I miss my BlackBerry. They really are made for people who get things done.
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