Who else has a Crackber ..... er ..... Blackberry? Check in here if you do.

[Stinky The Clown]

Sparkly and I have had Windows Mobile smart phones for a few years, but we recently traded up to Blackberry Storms. It was that or iPhones, but the Blackberry seems to be more serious a business machine. Also, in this area, Verizon is rock solid and AT&T sucks, even as they doubled their towers when they took over Cingular. Anyway ..... we got 'em.

I am addicted to mine. It happened very fast, too. Two weeks ago I was heading back by car from a business meeting in Pennsylvania. On the **road** I found myself listening to the turn by turn GPS, talking on the speakerphone and checking e-mail.

I was checking e-mail in my car at something north of 80 miles per hour.

I pulled over to the shoulder and stopped the car.

I had become what I had come to despise.

I am now working on changing my behavior.

I am okay listening to the GPS talk to me.

I am okay using the speakerphone to talk (it even dials by voice command).

I WILL NOT CHECK E-MAIL WHILE DRIVING. (I hope. I'm still working on it.)

We know our president is also addicted.

How about you?

[texastoast]

1. That would be yes

Must have Blackberry. My sweet minicomputer I carry at all times.

[adarling]

2. i am addicted

to my iphone though...i think its alot better than the blackberry ; BUT Yes i started one day to check my email on my phone...and pulled over...its quite terrible

[Mosby]

3. I've had mine for three days and I'm addicted.

Question--is it normal to use 40-50% of the battery in a day? I have an 8830.

[Lex]

8. I have an 8830, and I charge it up every other day.

I use about the same amount of battery, but I use it a lot each day.

[Stinky The Clown]

20. Yeah, they suck a lotta juice

I was told in no uncertain terms to allow it to fully discharge before recharing to full. Do this three times so the battery "learns" its full capacity.

It sounds like an old wives' tale, but there it is.

Mine is much better now (a month old). It goes two days between charges on light use and a full day when I use it a lot.

There have been a lot of complaints about battery life. but my partner's iPhone does not do any better.

My old smartphone could go a week on a charge.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

23. Storm's battery is user-replaceable, isn't it?

I read IPhones have to be shipped off somewhere-- reminds me of my old Palm Pilot.

[Stinky The Clown]

26. Yes, that's correct

The iPhone cannot be opened by the owner to replace the battery. The Storm (and all BBs) have user-replaceable batteries. The batteries in my Storm are 1400mah Lithium Ion batteries. I think there are some 1700 aftermarket batteries now available.

[Mosby]

24. I think that applies to NiCad batteries only

cell phones use lithium ion batteries now.

[Stinky The Clown]

27. Yeah, see, that's what I thought, too

The (helpful but exceedingly dweeby/nerdy) guy at the phone store told me about the proper way to charge them to overcome battery memory. I thought that only applied to the old type (LMh??) batteries.

I had occasion to speak wit h a Verizon tech support person and she repeated the same thing about overcoming battery memory being needed for the Storm.

So I don't know. But I did it.

Sorta.

[NV Whino]

4. I have one

but I'm a cheapskate. I don't do Internet on the Blackberry. It's a phone. I use it as a phone. I love the calendar (which I sync with my computer), the voice dialing. I use it hands free with a Jawbone headset.

[Lex]

5. For work it is invaluable for staying in on-the-fly contact with clients.

When I got it, I didn't know how valuable it would be for communications with clients, downloading all sorts of documents for work (pdf, spreadsheet, graphs). I can forward my work phone to my Blackberry when I'm away for a few hours from my desk.

All my political RSS feeds, news feeds, and other instant information, all on my BB. It's a broadband internet connection, after all.

Not to mention stuff like updating Netflix, renewing my library books, etc.

[EOTE]

6. I love my 8820.

I get it through work and it does everything I need. It's a rarity that I'll check it (and I'll certainly never compose) while I'm driving. It lacks a touch screen, but I find sometimes those can be a bit of a nuisance, especially how I like to keep things in my pocket so much.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. Did you find the interface intuitive? I've heard widely varying opinions from

from people who would normally have very little trouble with new technology.

[Stinky The Clown]

18. It was okay. Not hard to figure out, even at the start

The iPhone's interface, however, is better, I think. But maybe that's because I use a Mac.

I actually found the old smartphone (WinMobile) easy to use because I also know how to use a PC.

The Blackberry interface is proprietary to Blackberry. It is what it is. Nothing special, but nothing hard, either.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

9. iPhone 3G here

And I've heard the "not a serious business machine" line a lot. But where does it come from? What is it a Blackberry can do that's more conducive to getting business done than an iPhone 3G offers? I do receive Exchange email from work on my iPhone; I know that was more problematic with the first iPhone. I'm not slamming Blackberries, they seem like great devices. But that doesn't mean the iPhone is inferior in any way.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. My partner has the iPhone

We're a mixed company .... PCs and Macs. The two partners (me being one) on Macs independently chose the Blackberry Storms. The one with the iPhone has a PC. Go figure.

My primary reason was the network. AT&T sucks here. I was with them when they were Cingular and when they were AT&T. I could not get a cell signal in my house. Nothing. My wife had Verizon and she was fine at home. I also had a lot of dropped calls. After the switch to Verizon ... no dropped calls and five bars at home.

So that was really the issue ..... not the hardware quite so much. Although I did find the Storm to be a better phone. Better voice quality both incoming and outgoing. My speakerphone is far better than hers on the iPhone and I left myself voice mails from both. I sounded much clearer from the Storm.

I am not slamming the iPhone. The two are quite similar in capability. I actually like the iPhone interface better (cuz its Mac) and there are more gee whiz apps for the iPhone than for the Storm.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

28. Makes perfect sense. Thank you. n/t

.

[TornadoTN]

10. Blackberry Addict Checking In! - Blackberry Storm

I've owned several models previous to this and loved them all. I'm absolutely thrilled with this one! It's constantly attached to me - and whats worse, it's seamlessly connected to my Facebook.

[sailor65]

11. Blackberry Curve

it's my evil master and I hate it.

[ThomWV]

12. "I was checking e-mail in my car at something north of 80 miles per hour." Says it all.

[benld74]

13. Had one and loved it, now Smartphone pushed, and it sucks

[AzDar]

14. God, I love mine.

It completes me. (It also had me at "hello".)

[JuniperLea]

15. I must not have the addiction gene

I only check it once when I get home from work, once in the morning before work, and periodically over the weekends.

If a client crisis arises, and I don't respond to email quick enough, the boss will call me.

[HeeBGBz]

16. Blackberry Pearl

I just don't know what to do with it yet. It turned out to be my only connection to the internet on inauguration day and for that I am grateful.

[NYCGirl]

19. I adore my iPhone, and this guy at the Inauguration loves his, too:

http://baileymarkham.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/technolust-%E2%80%94iphone-love-gone-mad/

[flvegan]

21. Motorola Q here. Same thing.

[XOKCowboy]

22. Raising hand...

I will check my email at stop lights but that's it. I never text while driving and I rarely initiate a call when I'm driving. I don't like even talking on it while driving. I believe it's not your hands that are the problem but your mind and when I'm driving I want all of my attention on staying alive.

That being said I love my Crackberry. It's invaluable in my business and it helps pass the time. Whenever it rings that usually means $$ for me.

[ieoeja]

25. Got it. Ignore it.

Immediate supervisor wants 100% of his staff to receive 100% of available information 100% of the time. I would estimate less than 1% of work related email I receive is actually for me since I get copied on everybody else's stuff as well and we are a large global organization.

Due to this policy most employees now frequently fail to respond in a timely manner to important issues. Because they are ignoring their emails as well. Which is the only sane thing you can do when you receive an "urgent" email every few minutes 24x7.

[Stinky The Clown]

32. Noise

That's what that is.

With all due respect, your supervisor sounds like an idiot. So do the people who label every e-mail they send as *urgent*. In fact, when I get *urget* e-mails I purposely ignore them, just out of sheer cantankeraneousness.

[Taverner]

29. Yes

[rcrush]

30. I have the Jesus phone.

Ijesus 3G.

[bigtree]

31. no

still happily without even a cellphone.

(My phone still looks like one.)

[ipfilter]

33. Just got my Blackberry Curve 8320

last week. The term "crackberry" makes perfect sense to me now. It's a mini computer that also happens to be a phone. If I were forced to use it by a company I would probably hate it, but for personal use it's great.

[hootinholler]

34. Just got one Tuesday...

Replacement for early adopting the samsung Glyde, which would have made me happy if the touch screen actually worked.

Anyway, the only thing I don't like about it so far is that it wants me to use outlook for the calendar application. I like the old palm calendar, and use thunderbird for email. So if anyone knows of a calendar/contact manager that is supported that's not outlook, please speak up.

-Hoot

[Stinky The Clown]

35. You have the Storm? Or another model?

You can buy aftermarket apps to allow it to synch to other than Outlook. I have a Mac. There is an app for syncing to a Mac, too, but I have read they're not ready for prime time. There are other apps out there, too.

Try crackberry dot com (It is actually a serious site)

I'm so outdated I still have a live PC just for browsing and my Outlook. I started with a Palm Tungsten T5 and Palm software on the PC. Then I changed it to use Outlook, which I actually prefer to the Palm stuff.

The new BB Storm syncs just fine to Outlook.

I'm waiting for an Apple app so I can synch to my Mac.

[hootinholler]

36. Yes, it's a storm

Long story and many returns for service got it for me.

I don't want to use outlook because it's M$, and a worm target, but maybe I'll bite the bullet and use it for the calendar.

Thanks for the crackberry site, I'll check it out tonight.

-Hoot

[Stinky The Clown]

37. I do **not** use Outlook for e-mail. **Only** for contacts and calender

I use Thunderbird on my Mac for e-mail. Since mail to the BB is independent of your desktop program, it doesn't matter what e-mail client you use.

There's a setting someplace on the BB (I am told) that will automatically send a copy of anything you send to your e-mail so you have a record - eliminates the need to sync with your mail program at all. I have NOT found this setting, however.

[leftyclimber]

38. No, but I had one for a year BITD.

I worked for the Blackberry folks for a while (think back when they looked like big pagers with keyboards)and was required to carry one. One year of being on call 24x7 was plenty, thanks.

That experience made me a cell phone/pager/portable email dealie Luddite. I refuse to own one.

*I* get to decide when I'm available, not the other way around.

[Dem2theMax]

39. The car is the one place in the world where I can get away from the world.

And I'm keeping it that way. Forever. LOL.

After having to answer phones for a living, the LAST thing I ever want to do is talk on one. Let alone read emails.
Emails were fun at first. Now answering them takes more time than I have. GPS? I can read a map. I kinda like having to use my brain instead of having a computer do all the work for me.

I live in California. I am SO happy that we have new cell phone laws. Now I have a good excuse to not answer the darned thing. LOL.

Yes, I'm weird. Technology has it's place in the world. But I will never let it take over MY world. ;)

[XOKCowboy]

40. The last time I was in LA and used GPS...

to get from the airport to the convention center it took us all over the place. It finally got us there but I'm like you. I'll take maps every time.

Then there was the time in KC where I used GPS to get out of downtown and it kept wanting me to turn right into the side of a building!

[TheCentepedeShoes]

41. I can just about manage

my rather simple cell phone
We got a new plan with a 2nd phone a couple of years ago (reason not relevant now although it's probably better to each have one anyway)
After a month he took the newer, fancier phone away from me 'cause I wasn't making it do all the nifty things it could
Not sure I could handle a huckleberry, er mulberry,er...