i know no one is reading my blog cos everyone thought it is dead. but anyway here i am again.

i just got a BLACKBERRY. yes you may ask me why the sudden interest in this fruit. its because i see my friends and relatives holding on so dearly to their blackberry, made me very curious as to why there is such a strong attraction to this phone.

i have an iPhone with lots of functions lots of apps, very useful to me in more ways than one, that is why i am such a die hard apple fan. that is why i hold on so dearly to my iPhone.

Initial judgement on the phone.

• keyboard very difficult to use - i heard many like bb cos of their physical keyboard and now i wonder why and i cant even see what key i am pressing.
• navigation of the phone is also very slow with the trackball - very primitive (talking about those non touch base BB as all of my friends/relatives are using it.)
• very complicated settings, no help from the manual that came in the box
• completely lost with what i am suppose to do with the BB PIN and registrations stuff like that
• most disappointing of all is the requirement of the BIS service to fully utilise the phone. even a sim card with 12GB of data plan cannot utilise the phone. the BB store is lock unless i get the BIS plan. making matter worst, the FULL BB plan from Singtel of 3GB cost additional of $20+/mth and the cheaper alternative 1GB plan for a mere $5+/mth is a limited version of the BIS. this is SINGTEL's BULLSHIT. STARHUB/M1 has the 1GB plan for $10+ which provides you the full BIS experience. another point to note about this additional 1GB/3GB plan is that looking at this phone, it is nearly impossible to finish 1GB of DATA so getting 3GB for the FULL EXPERIENCE is kinda wasting the money as the data will never be fully utilised. getting the 1GB plan is sufficient in the DATA part of the story but you will miss out in the FULL BB EXPERIENCE.. So in this aspect, i would say, firstly BB is evil to limit the BB experience this way by restricting users to sign up to their service, secondly SINGTEL wants to get more money out of you by giving you no choice but to sign up for the $20+ plan to get the full experience.

as of now i have yet to sign up for the BIS, still trying to see if it is worth my money..

my 2nd hand BB BOLD 9000 has cost my $140 for machine and additional $138 for camera removal, new keyboard, t.ball replacement and servicing, totalling up to $278 i believe i could have gotten a brand new Android phone had i top up a little more money. but there are no Android phones without camera, as my main objective is to get a camera-less phone for work..

weird as i am feeling it is COOL to be using a BB and less cool on an iPhone as everyone seems to have one nowadays. will continue to survey this phone to see what the hype is about.