Smartphone choices

My wife and I recently decided it was time to get into the digital wireless revolution with our own smartphones. We've been pretty much voice only users for the past decade. A fact which has sometimes frustrated the daughter who prefers text messages to phone conversations when she is on the go. Also, our contract with Sprint was expiring, and it seemed like a good time to take a look at our options.

Both of us have been iPod users for several years, and we both have second generation iPod Touches. I love the numerous apps and the ability to watch video on the iPod's screen. So naturally we considered switching to AT&T and the iPhone. Except for several problems we were foresaw:

1. I don't like typing on the iPod's touch screen. If we were honest that we'd be doing more text messaging, then this was going to be a big concern. I have big fingers, and I'm constantly hitting the wrong key on the iPod.
2. At the time there wasn't a choice for 32GB iPhone, and we both have much more than 16GB on our iPods. If we were going to make the switch, it wouldn't make sense to carry both the iPod and the iPhone.
3. AT&T. What more do I have to say? Sprint may have a reputation for bad customer service, but we've been happy with them. AT&T still doesn't provide many features on their network that we knew we could get on Sprint or Verizon. MMS anyone?

To be honest, with the WiFi built in to the iPod Touch, we get many of the advantages of full network access already. Especially since I work from home and have WiFi access most of the time anyway. This also meant I wasn't looking for a phone with WiFi as anything I would do on my network I could already do with the iPod. And we already get all of the same Apps the iPhone users have access to.

The Palm Pre wasn't out when we were looking, and to be honest despite our previous reliance on Palm devices for all of our schedule and contact information I wouldn't have chosen the Pre for several reasons:

1. It's too new. There are not very many apps available for it yet. The new OS will need time to fix and it isn't clear that it will stay viable in a very tough marketplace.
2. It really isn't that much like our old Palm devices. If the big advantage was going to be familiarity with PalmOS, then this wasn't really on option anyway.

I really didn't see the point in going with unproven technology for our first real smartphone. I knew it would be frustrating enough for both of us getting used to a new phone. Why complicate that with the frustration of a new device that is still getting the kinks worked out?

While we might have been overwhelmed with the rest of the smart phone choices, it really came down to one brand name that has been around long enough to be a proven choice: RIM's BlackBerry. I looked over the specs on the various BlackBerry devices, but we had several requirements we both agreed we wanted to see in a new smartphone:

1. Full qwerty keyboard. We really hate having to press keys multiple times to get a single character. This would rule out the Pearl.
2. A camera. We'd read enough articles recommending having a phone with a camera for various reasons so this was a must have.
3. No touch screen. Although the Storm has enough reported problems it wasn't going to be on the list anyway.

In the end we chose BlackBerry Curve 8330 phones. They had everything we wanted, have been around long enough to be a stable platform, and they are pretty cool. In fact I was very happy to find a large and extremely active BlackBerry user community. It seems that to own a BlackBerry is a bit of a badge in some circles.

So we're pretty happy with the decision. There are some web pundits who predict that the iPhone and Palm Pre will knock BlackBerry out of the market. I frankly don't see that happening. BlackBerry has too big a market to disappear anytime soon. And I suspect they will be matching features with new devices in the not too distant future.

And lets be honest, strong competition really is good for the consumers. I can't wait to see what my choices will be the next time we are ready to renew our wireless contract.