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So, whether or not you have been following my SmartPhone adventures or not, the short of it is, I’ve gone through 4 phone in less than 1.5 years.  I went from a Blackberry (can’t remember which model, but one with a ball, not the trackpad), to an Android (Samsung Captivate), to a Windows Phone 7 (Samsung Focus), and recently – back to a BlackBerry 9700.  Through all of these phones, I’ve learned one valuable thing:  Even though a phone may have super-duper awesome powers, such as a great touch screen, awesome apps, or a fully Exchange 2010 integrated Outlook client, simplicity will always be king.  I’ll explain…

My original Blackberry was great.  It was BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) connected, which meant full exchange integration including calendar, tasks, notes, etc…, but I was so tired of watching everyone around me get iPhones, and Androids… fun phones.  So, I basically went in whining to my boss one day, and little did I know that there was already a plan to do away with the company enforced Blackberries, and let people choose their own hardware.  I was ecstatic.  So, after much deliberation, I upgraded my phone to a sparkling Samsung Captivate.  It came with Android 2.1 Éclair (immediately upgradable to 2.2 Froyo), and had TONS of free apps, and games.  It was truly a remarkable phone.  I paid $100 at the time, and that was including my upgrade as I qualified for one.  The best part about the phone, was there was a huge non-Samsung developer community putting out ROMs (images of the phone’s operating system) that were tailored to increase performance, or add additional functionality.  There were even 2.3 (Gingerbread) ROMs released, which gave you added functionality such as Wi-Fi internet sharing, amongst others.  This euphoric Android world came crashing down though, when the phone started to not ring when I would receive phone calls through the night, on weeks when I was on-call.  Or, it would reboot mysteriously whenever it felt like it.  I was upset, although it was difficult to be upset, since I had almost 100% caused my own problem.  This was about a year or a bit more after I got the phone, so I couldn’t even get it back to stock, and ship it back to Samsung for a repair, or replacement, or anything.  I needed a new, and reliable phone.

I talked to Rogers (my provider), and because I was on a business plan, they were able to process an upgrade for me earlier than they normally would have.  I could have chosen any phone I wanted, for a price… but I felt that since I had already spent $100 about a year ago on a phone, that I needed to choose one of the cheaper (if not free) SmartPhones that they were offering.  Most were Android based, which I didn’t want again – and as tempting as their offer of the iPhone 4s for $150 was, I just couldn’t justify paying the money (although in hindsight, maybe I wouldn’t be typing this blog post right now if I had…).  I noticed that they had the Samsung Focus, a Windows Phone 7 (not Windows 7 Phone…) for $20.  I chose it, and it arrived a few days later (as a side note, it actually ended up being $0 when my bill finally came in).  This phone is awesome.  It came with Windows Phone 7 OS on it, and immediately there was an upgrade available to the 7.1 (Mango) release.  It literally does everything, and fast.  It has great social network integration, as it actually integrates Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In directly into the OS.  To add to its awesomeness, it comes with a trimmed down, but still fully functional Microsoft Office suite, and a fully Exchange 2010 ActiveSync enabled Outlook client.  Trust me, check out some of the “Smoked by Windows Phone” videos on YouTube… you won’t be disappointed.  Anyway, you may be asking yourself why I gave up such an awesome phone, if it does everything…, well… I discovered it didn’t do everything.  It doesn’t tether.  Not wired.  Not wireless.  It just doesn’t.  I called Rogers repeatedly from the first week I got it, all the way until I stopped using it about 2 weeks ago, asking about the tethering, and the answer I kept getting was that it was coming…  It never came.  Finally I got into “I’m the customer” mode, and called them for a battle.  I got one of their “Managers” on the phone, and was told flat out – we can’t do anything to replace your phone.  I was offered a RocketStick for free, as long as I was willing to pay the $15 dollars per month to keep it active, and have it share my 6GB data plan, but why did I want to put out an additional $15 a month?  So, I refused, got a used BlackBerry 9700, and they worked with me to switch my plan to one where it would work for BlackBerry, or any other phone I decided to hook up (this was due to the BlackBerry requiring the special RIM service connections).

Now, I’m happy.  Not overjoyed, not ecstatic – but happy.  Which I can say I haven’t been for a while when it comes to phones.  I still have all the apps that I used regularly such as Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Shazam, and LinkedIn – but on top of that I have great email, and great instant messaging with my wife using BBM (Blackberry Messenger).  I still want a new phone – ie. The BlackBerry Torch 9810 (which subsequently my mother-in-law just got as an upgrade with Telus for $0), but with the 9700 I don’t feel like I can’t do something that should be a standard function of a SmartPhone.

Thanks for reading my rant.  Hopefully at some point I’ll post about a new phone… wish me luck!

Jay

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