New Blackberry Pearl on the Way
My Sidekick II had again begun to separate the keyboard from the device itself. It had begun this about the same time last year so I figured I’d give it until March and I’d just purchase a different phone since the Sidekick II is now out of warranty.
Well Friday was not a good day for it. I decided to sync up the phone with my Powerbook using The Missing Sync by Markspace. I hadn’t done it in a long time. I went ahead and did it . . . I lost a good chunk of my contacts from both the Apple address book and the Sidekick’s online address book. Lovely.
I then check out MarkSpace’s website for support. They’ve discontinued the product due to lack of support from Danger (The creator of the Sidekick). After that I did some searches online. The general conscientious from what I read is that there’s nothing to be done. There are no snapshots kept of individual accounts and no way to
The constant syncing with the online address book between the device is a great thing but it’s apparently somewhat hit or miss syncing the online address book with PCs and Macs. There’s also no way to just do a straight export of your address book. Best thing to do (which I should’ve done before the sync) was go to the web based interface and send VCards of my contacts to myself. Can only do 36 per email so it’s inconvenient. I’d hate to be the person with the maximum 2000 contacts in their address book!!
So, needless to say, I do not trust the Sidekick service to manage my contacts any longer. And yes, this means I will not be upgrading to a Sidekick III.
Saturday morning I decided to look for a new phone. I checked out the prices for an unlocked Palm Treo but it was much more than I wanted to pay. This is even with the discount I get on Palm products from the class action lawsuit settlement for owners of various Treo flip phone models with various hardware defects. I had the original Treo 180. I loved the phone but I had it replaced under warranty about six times before giving up.
This leaves me with what T-Mobile had for a smart phone selection. Aside from the Sidekick III they currently have a few Blackberry models and several Windows Mobile devices. I’ve tried a few devices running various iterations of Microsoft’s PDA operating system in the past . . . I always found them to be clunky to use. This is a stark contrast to what I normally heard about Blackberry devices, which are supposed to be very well done. The most experience I’ve had with Blackberry devices, however, was configuring the synchronization software for end users.
After looking over the specs of what they had available I decided to go with the Blackberry Pearl. My only caveats are the Suretype keyboard and the phone looks like it’s case is made from the same material as some of the current iPods, which are very easy to scratch. (A friend of mine found that the surface scratches on his iPod were easily fixed with Meguiar’s Scratch X which is a product to remove scratches from automobiles Good to know) Interestingly you have to get a case for the phone separately.
I should have it later this week. I called T-Mobile and ordered the phone with a case yesterday . . . We shall see how this works out for me.
