putting the knit in shizknitz

It’s been a little less than a week since receiving my BlackBerry Pearl. I LOVE IT. Do you hear me? I LOVE IT.

My long time friends remember me longing, wanting something more in my phones. My PDA’s. Remember the The Palm VII? Casio E320? The Palm that came with the wifi card? I’ve gotten my hopes up each time, that I stopped waiting for “it” to come out. But “it” has now arrived, and its all in my Pearl. First off, the PITA it was to order it.

My contract was up with T-mobile. This is the best deal you can get - go to the retention department as if you are cancelling your account, and they will work with you. I got a fan-tastic deal (altho Hiroko did even better! GO GIRL!) and they threw in 3 day shipping for free. Unfortunately, due to some serious mail delays I got it a whole week late (no worries, I had them throw in something else for free for the inconvenience).

The email setup was so easy, I don’t even know how it happened. I know this sounds hilarious, but I never had to re-enter my pop/smtp settings anywhere. I decided to use the device for email for casual use - so that I had it to respond if necessary, but otherwise to keep ontop of it while I was away from my computer. Being student body VP and what not, I get an average of 50 emails a day not incl personal emails through Gmail. Both setups were seamless.

I use my calendar, tasks, notes synchronized with my Outlook. Its beautiful. The tasks are synchronized into my calendar so the task reminder comes up in the BlackBerry like the calendar.

Gchat, SMS’s and emails all come into the main “Mail” section, so its easy to see your alerts.

Mp3 support, and I modified my own MP3’s to make ringtones, in fact I gave my friend Erik “Promiscuous Girl” by Nelly Furtado and JT. Photo quality is great. I’m sure you’ve been seeing my random photos I’ve been taking with my BB which get Emailed (not SMS which there is a charge) to a Flickr Email address which posts it on my Flickr page and on my blog at the same time.

That thing called Sure Type or whatever - is AWESOME. It’s that pseudo-qwerty thing going. It recognizes the word you are typing so you never have to double click for a letter. It remembers unique words, so you train it as you go. I found emails simple to respond to.

The unit is light, small, but two annoyances: “the creak test” - when typing, there seems to be some give in terms of the battery in the back. A more solid feel would be preferable. The ball sometimes moves when the phone rings, esp in your pocket. It turns OFF the ring but doesn’t answer the phone, even when the keypad is locked. WTF.

Even given those two issues, I have to say that I LOVE THIS UNIT.

Now I must go study. Or go to bed.