Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the new iPhone launched yesterday. Honestly, I've been more immersed in it's sister service, MobileMe. But if you're a reader here, you know my thoughts on that. Horrible launches aside, my interest in the iPhone has been mediocre at best for the past week. Last week, I got a BlackBerry Pearl (8100), and I haven't looked back. Let me preface this by saying that push email hasn't been anything new to me for years now. When Gmail launched (well, I guess it's still in perpetual beta, but that's another discussion), I set my emails to forward to my MMS account on my phone. As soon as I got an email, boom, it was on my phone. So the push email isn't all that amazing to me as I set up a push system years back. Nor is the organizer function; on my Nokia phones, I've set them to sync calendars, tasks, and contacts. Full web browsing? Opera Mini. So what is so cool that it has quelled my desire for the coveted iPhone? The tight integration of everything is one thing. Background application processes are another (Viigo, my RSS reader, grabs feeds without even being open, for example). It all just works. SureType was something I thought I would abhore, but it's actually turned out to be very intuitive, much moreso than the iPhone's keyboard (remember, I had an iPod touch for a few months). Everything is fast, easy, and overall smooth. There's a ton of 3rd party support out there, so I can get an app to do just about anything I need. It has some seriously fast EDGE performance; I've had several EDGE phones, and none have even come close to this speed. Media functions? The Pearl can do that, but I have my 80 GB Zune to cover me on that front anyway.
Now, spec for spec, the iPhone beats out the Pearl. I don't begrudge that at all. And one day, I might pick up one on the cheap, but I don't have any desire for one anymore. My Pearl is almost perfect; it's gold, which is fugly, but I got it second hand, and I'll be ordering an OEM black housing kit next week to fix that! My Pearl has become my connection due to it's tight integration of everything I need on the go. No longer am I jury-rigging a push email solution, proxying internet through Opera Mini (though I do have that installed for some things), and digging through a menu structure to get to my calendar. And now that MobileMe syncs with my Outlook, I can keep all of my information "in the cloud" and my calendar synced with with my wife's computer. I love my BlackBerry, and honestly, my next phone will either be a newer Pearl (I'd love onboard GPS), Bold, or I'll hold out for a Thunder.
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