Well, I loved the Blackberry as a phone and a basic PDA. Unfortunately, Verizon seems to have tunnel vision on how to position a Blackberry...
What I mean by this, is...
RIM (Research In Motion) originally introduced the Blackberry as an always-on wireless e-mail device. Cell phone functionality was an afterthought. So, the pricing model for the wireless service assumed that the user would always subscribe to the data service. Subscribing to voice service was an (additional) option.
Apparently, even if you don't subscribe, nor want to subscribe, to wireless e-mail, the Blackberry will establish a connection with the wireless provider every few minutes to see if there is any new mail. There is no configuration option on the unit to prevent this. And Verizon doesn't offer a service option to ignore these checks. So, if you don't sign up for the $44.95 per month data service, the Blackberry burns through your voice minutes in about a day and a half.
Seems to me like the Blackberry would make a dandy cell phone with basic PDA functions. Why either RIM or the carriers don't offer a plan that provides voice only service, with wireless e-mail available as a future option, is beyond me.
But, what do I know?
Oh, I know that after realizing that the Blackberry had burned through a month's worth of minutes in 1 1/2 days, that I needed to take Verizon up on their 15 day "no questions asked" return policy.
So, no more Blackberry.
I spent some time researching other phone/PDA options, both with Verizon, and with other carriers. Based on discussions with a number of co-workers, Verizon appears to offer the best wireless network, so I am going to stick with them. The Treo 600 appears to be a dandy little unit, but it is expensive, and Verizon doesn't offer it, so I ended up ordering a Kyocera 7135. I used to sell Kyocera printers, and I believe that Kyocera is a good company, so, maybe this try will be the charm...
More to follow...
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Posted by David at May 23, 2004 12:07 PM | Categorized under: A day in the life
I had a BlackBerry for a couple of years, but I dropped it when WAP came to my area on an ordinary phone. My Nokia is much smaller, and I don't pay ~$40 a month just to check email now and then. I decided I only needed to have my email buzz me whenever there was a new message someone needed to send urgently, so they use SMS to basically page me to tell me to check the email.
Only $4.99 a month for 2MB of email that way. Plus unlimited text messaging.
Posted by: Dennis on May 23, 2004 09:44 PM