Yes, I am aware that some people call them CrackBerries. And now I know why.
For the past few months I had been planning to upgrade my three-year-old Samsung SPH-A500 mobile phone. As phones go, the Samsung was pretty reliable -- it was no classic StarTac or TimePort -- but it was a workhorse that survived living with me for years in NYC. The sound quality wasn't bad either, and the address book was usable -- my two main criteria for judging a mobile. But the A500 wasn't everything I was looking for.
The A500 was supposed to be one of the first phones to use Sprint's 3G Vision network. Well, technically it was, but that was essentially just inconsequential marketing drivel. Considering that the A500 web browser was pretty abysmal and the latency between page loads ranged from 10 seconds to a minute (and frequently timing out), you hardly knew or cared that you were on a "high-speed" network because it still took ages for a page to load. And worse, the A500 didn't offer SMS -- all text messaging was done through their proprietary web interface -- the same web interface that timed out every other request. Which all made the $10/mo you spent on the "Unlimited Vision Plan" rather a waste.
When you take an expensive phone from Samsung, mix it with an expensive plan from Sprint, add a dash of uncaring customer support, a pinch of dropped signals, and a dollop of exorbitant overage charges, you can really surprise yourself with just how much a hatred for a mobile phone can be cooked up.
Even though I was long out of contract with Sprint, I still didn't want to lose my address book on the Samsung. Sprint, of course, stopped selling the data cables for the A500 once they saw that people were using them to connect their phone to computer and get wireless internet over Vision. (The irony being that it was useless on the mobile phones, but they damn well wouldn't let you use it for anything else.) The people at the Sprint store did offer to print out the 300-odd phone numbers for me though, which was nice, if a bit silly.
But after two straight months of $150 phone bills and literally hours wasted waiting for Sprint's text messaging interface (in fairness, Sprint does finally offer SMS on some phones, though you have to pay even more, as it's not included in "Unlimited Vision"), I finally decided to suck up the loss of my address book and try something, anything, else. (A new plan? A new phone? A move to Amish country?)
My requirements were this -- I wanted a phone that could do SMS well, a phone with Bluetooth, a phone that I could read my email with, a phone with a decent calendar, a phone that didn't drop calls, a phone with a fast and intuitive address book, a phone with good sound, and a phone with interoperability with a non-Windows OS (either Mac or Linux). The nice-to-haves were a built-in speakerphone, a hackable OS, a decent sized keyboard and/or good predictive text entry, and a small form factor.
I didn't want a camera. I didn't want to download ring tones. I didn't want to stream video. I didn't want to play mp3s. I didn't want to have custom faceplates or skins. I didn't want an FM, AM, or Satellite radio. I didn't want Marble Madness, Video Poker, or Bejeweled Mobile Edition. I just didn't want any of that nonsense. I simply wanted a good mobile phone that did a little more.
Obviously, I was looking for a bit of a PDA in a phone. There are a number of Windows-based options out there right now, but none of them can sync with a Mac or with Linux, so they were out of the question. Out of the remaining choices, I was leaning toward a Treo 650, which coincidentally my friend, Eric, bought at exactly the same time I was looking. Unfortunately I didn't know this, and didn't have a chance to compare notes with him beforehand. (I'll probably go with the next generation of Treo devices, as PalmSource is now committed to supporting SyncML. If any of them stay in business that long, that is.)
As it was, I was so annoyed with the lack of SMS that I almost went out and bought some ridiculous Samsung or Sanyo phone from the Sprint store. But fortunately I stopped into Ruben's office on my way out to the store and asked him how he felt about his BlackBerry. He said he loved it, but that up at PacMed, everyone was coveting the sexy new 7100t. (And these are people that take their gadgets seriously.)
Now I liked the theory of the BlackBerry fine -- but I always found the phones themselves to look more like old-school Franklin Dictionaries than something you'd want nestled up to your ear. But I looked it up on PhoneScoop and Amazon and realized that I, lifelong vows to the contrary be damned, would soon also join the ranks of the corporate mobility.
Three weeks ago, T-Mobile was the only US carrier of the BlackBerry 7100 Series. (Cingular now carries the 7100g, which is the same phone, just branded differently.) T-Mobile as a provider wasn't a bad thing, either, as they are a GPRS / Quad-Band GSM carrier, they are extremely price-competitive, and have good coverage in San Francisco and NYC. (And besides, M. is also on T-Mobile, and I wouldn't have had $150 phone bills if we had been on the same network all along.)
Half an hour later, I was holding my new 7100t -- complete with my old phone number intact, which transfered without hassle from Sprint. And for a 1-year contract with 1000 any-time minutes per month, free nights and weekends, 1000 text messages per month, unlimited mobile-to-mobile, and enterprise support, all for something like $80, I am going to have saved the entire $200 (post-rebate) cost of of the 7100t, just by changing my plan. And to be honest, I probably would have paid a bit of a one-time luxury tax simply to never have to deal with Sprint again.
(Since this review is 90% positive, I'll say this as a bit of an aside. I may still be forced to cancel my T-Mobile contract. I've had "All Circuits Busy" messages just about every third outgoing call. Sometimes these messages will last 10 tries in a row. Incredibly not cool when you are trying to make a call while driving. Or a call in hurry. When I called T-Mobile to ask about it they said they "needed to run some diagnostics on my phone." Now, we all know that's a lie. They don't have enough capacity to handle the demand. I'm giving them one more week to fix it, then I will break my contract and go back to shopping. All circuits being busy on a regular basis is unacceptable.)
But mostly, it turned out there was a lot to love about the 7100t. First, it was a pretty decent phone, as mobiles go. It's a bit big for a pure phone, but small for a PDA. It even feels, acts, and looks like a phone -- something that the old BlackBerries weren't exactly known for.
On the downside, the sound volume is atrociously low. Even so, the sound quality is clear (static-free) and the signal strength is excellent -- I get coverage inside my elevator and stairwell now, whereas the Samsung/Sprint calls often dropped just walking past a tall tree. And the address book, navigated by a thumbwheel/button, is intuitive and powerful, even if the wheel itself is a little over-zealous and inaccurate sometimes.
The text entry is done via a proprietary predictive text system called SureType that squeezes most of the full QWERTY keyboard onto 20 keys. I've written about T9 text entry before, but this is better. The screen is extremely bright and legible -- and the fonts on the 7100 are first-rate.
And the belt clip is actually useful. Belt clips are something I never really liked before -- and to be honest, still don't. I hide the whole thing in my pocket when I go out. But like all BlackBerries, this one has a small magnet that puts the phone on vibrate when it is holstered, and then sets the phone back to ring when you take it out again. Plus more little touches, such as how the phone automatically opens the most recent text message or email if you pick it up within a few seconds of vibrating. Those details set the BlackBerries apart from the competition and are the mark of a mature and heavily tested product.
I added a wireless headset, partly to alleviate the volume issues, and partly to survive my daily commute on 280. Fortunately the Bluetooth-enabled Motorola HS810 is a work of art. (Actually, it looks downright creepy, what with its blue light pulsing on and off next to my freshly shaved head and all.) But it works well enough and it sounds amazing. I've even left the phone sitting on my desk in the middle of a call and gone into the kitchen to get coffee without losing the signal. Plus, it is good about connecting with the 7100t and answering calls automatically when flipped open.
But what makes the 7100t truly shine is how it handles email. While I was sitting around waiting for the home office to connect my BlackBerry Enterprise Server account so I could get work emails forwarded to the phone, I set things up so it could fetch my GMail inbox via POP. The BlackBerry Web Client handles up to 10 remote inboxes, so you could have multiple GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or any POP or IMAP accounts, all being delivered to your phone. The BlackBerry Web Client polls servers asynchronously every 10 or 15 minutes, then pushes the contents of the mail onto your handheld. Filters can be configured server-side to control what gets pushed. Since the push happens in the background, SMS messages or emails just appear on your device -- a very welcome change from the pathologically broken system that Sprint used.
The polling works, but there is sometimes a wait before emails get to the phone -- the delivery is fast, but GMail is only checked once every 10 minutes. I discovered an alternative -- GMail can be configured to selectively forward a copy of your email to your tmo.blackberry.net address. Since I have multiple addresses forwarded to my GMail account, I set up a filter with the following rules:
To: me@gmail.com | me@somewhere.net | me@somewhereelse.net
Has the words: (!has:attachment)The "To:" line handles To, CC, and BCC headers, and the "Has the words:" line excludes mail with attachments. The first step only forwards mail sent to me and still in my inbox -- i.e., no mailing lists or mail that GMail has already marked as spam. And the last step is necessary to avoid filling up your tmo.blackberry.net account, which has only a 10MB quota. Eventually GMail will support filtering by size -- this will be a lot more effective than filtering on whether an email has an attachment or not. And once the filter is configured, simply have all messages that match forward a copy over to me@tmo.backberry.net.
After setting up the GMail filters, you then set your BlackBerry Web Client to BCC your primary GMail account on all outgoing mail. GMail is smart enough to correlate them as conversations, thus making a seamless merging of wireless and server-side technologies. Pretty impressive integration, and a credit to both the BlackBerry and to GMail.
Yet the CrackBerry addiction itself -- and my decent into perpetual connectedness -- didn't begin in earnest until this very week. This week, when I activated the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and started delivering work email right to my handheld, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ah, the corporate email account. The connection to the enterprise email and calendar servers. The joy of being able to get away from my desk. The shock of realizing that my desk was now following me around. The complete and total freakout when I was asked -- nay, required -- to set up a password on my very own phone. The horror when I discovered that it was not just any old password of the "123" variety, but no, it was one of our legendary -- and probably patented -- VERY COMPLICATED passwords. All this due to our extensive and fully articulated security policies. All this because they now own the data, the phone, and anything that passes within 10 yards of me. You know. Just in case.
But I finally learned to stop worrying and simply love that little 16 digit sequence of mixed-case letters, numbers, and symbols. The cute little random string I now needed to enter every time I put the phone down for a minute. Yes, that password that I fruitlessly attempted to enter one handed while driving (in a snowstorm) just to make an outgoing call to my great-Aunt Matilda (on her deathbed) as she feebly cried out one final time, "DeWitt, DeWitt... If only he... had... called..."
Oh well. Old Matilda will get over it. The wireless calendar support is excellent. I can now send and accept Exchange meeting invites from anywhere on four continents.
(PS: While I joke about the security policy, it's actually completely understandable, given our business. And it has its upsides, as my phone now really is extremely secure. But it is still funny to need both hands to make a phone call.)