BlackBerry?

[Chris Edwards]

Just wondering if any of you have had any experience with BlackBerry? It would be interesting to see what the key features that we look for in devices are these days.

I don't use my Smartphone for too many games anymore (unless I'm really bored), and email on the go is a lot more important to me than any of that. Music on the phone is a nice feature, but I have an iPod foir that. What about you?

[Mike Wagstaff]

Er, I use my BB for work emails. It's very good at that, but not much else, as you'd expect

Mind you, the browser is about as fast as PIE. No surprise there!

[refractor]

I just got a Nokia N770 as the prices have dumped (£75 / 110€ / 150$ ). It's pretty much how the reviews make it out: underpowered, but good for internet browsing. I might get a new 'phone in October or so when I go to Hong Kong again.

[Dan East]

My current phone is a piece of crap Kyocera Phantom I paid $5 for on ebay. Up to this point it has lasted me longer than any cell phone I've had. After running over two previous cell phones with the car, and my wife having two Razrs in a row toasted because of water damage, I'm not too keen to dump a lot of money into a phone. However, after 10 years, I've never had any of a multitude of PDAs damaged, even though I use them quite a bit. I guess the main reason is that I carry my phone with me everywhere I go, whereas with the Pocket PC I only pull it out of the vehicle or laptop bag when I can actually make use of it.

For that reason I'm having a hard time reconciling a smartphone. If I had the money to blow on cell service for a smartphone, even though it would only be a secondary phone for me, then I might consider it.

The other aspect is that this Kyocera is so cheap, and so crappy looking, that I can lay it down in public (like at the pool), and be assured that no one would dare steal it.

Dan East

[refractor]

The mention of a blackberry always puts this song in my head too. Round and round.

[Dan East]

You're dating yourself.

Dan East

[David Horn]

Well, I did have an all singing, all dancing Orange SPV C600, which went through the washing machine. Orange decided it was "malicious damage", and refused to honour their insurance package so I went and bought a £25 el-cheapo Nokia replacement.

Bugger me if it doesn't run Google's Java email app, the battery lasts for weeks and it's survived another trip through the washing machine and plenty of other abuse.