BLACKBERRY THAT IS NOT SO BOLD

BLACKBERRY THAT IS NOT SO BOLD

 

Syamreen Shafei, a classmate since the Bukit Bintang Boy Secondary School days, bought me my first handphone to mark our partnership in a venture dated back in 1995. That was my first handphone, a Motorola. It was the most fashionable phone and the only flip phone then. Having lost my ‘mobile-phone-ownership-virgin’ to Motorola, I stood strong with Motorola against my girlfriend in 1996 who was a hardcore Nokia loyalist. My loyalty towards Motorola was neutralised by her but being hard-headed and abit chauvinist, I refused to use a Nokia (and pleased her) but changed my phone to an Ericson instead. Unfortunately, the Ericson phone didn’t performed well and I became a Nokia customer in 1997… so happy was her. Now, I refuse to use any other phone but Nokia, akin of me refusing any other girl but her.

I had a good relationship without polygamy with Nokia for 11 years until I was introduced to a Blackberry. I was fascinated and was first introduced to the Blackberry while performing my haj in 2006/7. Most of those in my group was in constant communication (with home, friends and office) and closely-informed of Malaysia news via the Blackberry. I bought my first Blackberry 3G phone immediately when I came back from haj. It was the 8707g model and I used it as my main phone and the Nokia as a second phone (I have a few phone numbers). I was contented with the 8707g Blackberry until the roller-ball located on the right side of the phone malfunction. Maxis said it will take between one to three months to have it repaired. I was flabbergasted and disappointed with the long duration of repair especially when the phone is barely 6 months old, you will never get this service with Nokia. After the 8707g was repaired, I never used the phone again and gave it away and made my Nokia Communicator E90 again as my principal phone. I should have just being content with Nokia.

Maxis recently launched the latest Blackberry Bold, said to be the best of Blackberry 3G phones to rival against the apple iphone but with a keypad and Nokia practicality. Wanting a change away from Nokia (11 years!!!) and without a haste, I gave Blackberry a second chance… so forgiving was I. I booked the Bold a month in advance and proudly took delivery on the first day it was officially launched. Yes, I was impressed with the sexy black outlook and silver frame lining. The tits used to move the cursor was smooth and is much better compared to the roller ball in the 8707g. I experiment the phone applications and was pleased with the phone.

My first impression on handphone is not as accurate as my first impression on people. After using it for a month, I have to conclude that the phone is not as good as what it seems and I should have just stick to Nokia. I was not the only one being misled by the Blackberry Bold but everybody who have heard of the phone. Most of my friends and even strangers who saw me using the Blackberry Bold will ask me if the phone is as good as it look. So I will have to repeat my predicament and dissatisfaction with the blackberry bold to everybody everytime I was asked.

The Blackberry Bold phone usage and standby time is only 1/3 of Nokia. the Blackberry can only last till noon before the battery wears off. The item details in each contact are fixed. Amongst others, there is only one mobile number to store for each contact and only one email per each contact too. Unfortunately most of my friends are with at least 2 handphones and some with as many as 4 which i had to create a separate contact to store their mobile number.  When the phone is locked, the callers’ name does not appear when the phone rang making it impossible to recognize who is calling. The most unacceptable behaviour of the Blackberry Bold, is the breaking down of long sms into many smses jamming the inbox. The Blackberry Bold often hang too and had to be rebooted everytime, almost a few times aday. The bulk sms-sent (sms send to more than a dozen contacts) will always fail and had to be re-sent almost everytime too. The bulk-send smses will takes triple the time taken if the bulk smses were sent with a nokia phone.

The only KEY BENEFIT of Blackberry is the realtime push email, the only reason I am still using the Blackberry as my main phone. The realtime push email service enable user to receive emails similar to an sms. Once NOKIA improves their push email function from 15 minutes push-delay to realtime.. anytime, I will just be with Nokia all the way.