COLUMN: I will never give up my BlackBerry
Just try and pry my BlackBerry from my fingers.
My best friend and I got our BlackBerries together. One Wednesday morning he called to tell me he had news: he was switching from our beloved BlackBerry to an Android. We talked it out, and ultimately I took his betrayal in stride.
“Wow, this was harder than telling my parents I’m gay,” he joked.
We ultimately got through the struggle, and mostly because I knew he was in for a downgrade of devices.
This was in April. And today, despite this week's three-day service outage, I know my BlackBerry is superior to any other device ... at least for me.
My obsession with my BlackBerry is real and it’s deep: aside from when I’m asleep, nary an hour goes by without me checking my device.
Now I admit, an iPhone or an Android phone has more multimedia capabilities, but my BlackBerry does what I need it to do — messaging — better than any other device.
Plus, Research In Motion, the company that makes BlackBerry, just came out with a new line designed to compete with the multimedia capabilities of its opponents.
I love the QWERTY keyboard and the interface, specifically, having buttons, just makes more sense to me.
I look like a caveperson trying to operate a touchscreen-based phone. It’s as though my fine motor skills have disappeared while I point, punch and jab at the buttonless screen, my fingerprints glaring back at me with smug disgust.
For my job, I have an Android, but I still prefer my BlackBerry. There are definitely pros to the Android: using it as a mobile hotspot is much more convenient than it is on my dated BlackBerry.
While taking a picture or shooting video is easier on my BlackBerry, the quality is better on the Android.
But what I need the BlackBerry for most, it comes through with, and in much better form than my Android: email. My BlackBerry sends and receives messages with much greater speed than my Android, which doesn’t constantly update with email messages.
I can send and receive several messages on my BlackBerry in the time it takes for my Android to update with the same messages.
Ultimately, for a professional on the go, it’s inefficient. The other operating systems just don’t keep up with the BlackBerry, at least in the primary uses of the smartphone: phone calls and messaging.
Perhaps I’m enslaved to my device, perhaps another friend is correct when he said that they would find me 50 years from now BlackBerry Messaging myself. But it’s going to take a lot to see me get rid of my BlackBerry.
