Why Yes, I Do Carry Two Phones.
Well my iPhone has gone haywire. After months of working fine, the phone began turning off by itself and remained in a constant reload. You don’t understand how depressing this is for me. My iPhone has been my constant companion, my life-blood here in Egypt. It was my computer, phone, media hub, game machine, and now it was useless. The only way to get it back was to restore it. Problem? It would remove my unlock and I would need a new phone. I was faced with sobering reality. I had to buy a new phone.
Oddly enough, I’ve never really been a phone guy. I hate using them and never really liked carrying them around. However, the iPhone was used more for media purposes. In a sea of Arabic, I was always listening to podcasts and reading websites in a familiar language. Of course I can still use the iPhone as music player, but now carrying two phones has become very cumbersome. I still do it, but I’m not happy about it.
So what did I get?
BlackBerry Curve 8520....picture taken with iPhone
So far, the two phones offer vastly different user experiences. The big advantage of the Blackberry? Physical keyboard. After using it for only a week, I understand why so many people stand by RIM. I can send out emails so much faster with my Blackberry and I LOVE the integrated gchat. I’m constantly in contact with my friends now, something the iPhone didn’t allow me to do. Internationally, I can travel much easier with the phone as the Blackberry network extends to most countries. Now for the bad parts. It’s a horrible web experience. Web page navigation is a chore. It has a miniscule amount of apps. Social networking apps are either poor or non-existent (Google Buzz is coming soon).
And the phone only supports the EDGE network. I’ve worked around this by using the Opera browser which loads the pages on its own servers and then beams them compressed back to the Blackberry. It actually runs really fast that way and people should be pretty excited when Opera hits the iPhone. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the iPhone now. I’m hoping I can figure out the unlock again at some point so I can sell it to someone here in Egypt. My phone, brand new, costs over $1000 here so I’m sure I can get a nice chunk of change for it.
For now, I’m one of those weirdos who thinks they’re so important that they need two phones. Two smartphones at that. At least, one of them is just a paperweight. 😉
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What I’m listening to:
Charlotte Gainsbourg –IRM. I’m a sucker for female singers, especially one’s that can sing in French.
Charlotte Gainsbourg – Heaven Can Wait
What I’m reading:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I’m only reading this because of Twilight. Seriously.
What I’m watching:
The Book of Eli. As an action movie, I really liked. There’s even a fun twist at the end so the story isn’t a total throwaway. Denzel really carried that movie. I have no clue how it was perceived in America but it’s not doing so hot here. Too bad.
