The Great Crackberry Experiment

I decided that it is time to replace my aging Palm Treo 680. It's been a good smartphone, but too much abuse (I drop it too often) and a desire for a smaller phone are pushing me towards replacement. After a little research, I decided on the Blackberry Curve (8310). I picked one up about 10 days ago...and returned it yesterday.

While Blackberry is very popular, I found it deficient in several key areas

• The trackball is not the easiest thing to use to select fields, icons, etc. I don't understand why they did not use a mouse cursor on the screen...much easier to move for precision.
• Configuring and using different ring modes (normal, loud, vibrate, etc) are not easy.
• Keypad is too easily pressed by accident and Lock/Unlock is kludgy.
• A key application I need (time tracking) is sorely lacking in functionality. I tried several versions and none came close to All Time by Iambic. Too bad they do not make a Blackberry version.
• Call quality was not good.
• Email pushing was sporadic.
• Although the power port was USB, non-Blackberry chargers did not work. The earphone/mic jack was not standard, so all my current wired ear pieces would not work.
  

The final straw was last Tuesday. I was nearly hit by another vehicle and I suspected that the driver was drunk. Fortunately, the state of Colorado has a cell number, *DUI, you can dial to report drunk drivers. Unfortunately, I could not find the * key nor how to spell out DUI while driving. I was able to call 911 (US Emergency #), though it meant getting bounced around between jurisdictions.

All in all...it was just not the device for me. I have decided to go back to a simple phone and some sort of PDA.