Why My Next (Smart)phone Will Not Be a Blackberry

I have had my trustworthy Blackberry Curve 8330 on Verizon for a year and a half now.  I loved it for the first year and consider myself to be a Crackberry addict.  However, in recent months I have become disconcerted with several aspects of RIM’s OS and came to the glaring realization that I only loved my Blackberry so much because it was my first Smartphone.

When I first got my Curve, I became enamored with getting emails instantly, being able to access Facebook on the go and being able to access the web anywhere.  Now, all of a sudden email was a form of communication that I used often and well – the quality of Blackberry physical keyboards is something I know will not be matched on my next device.  Facebook was no longer a one a day login thing – it was all the time.

More recently, I have had the native app lust and all the essentials (forget the raw 150k numbers) are available for my Blackberry – Opera Mini, Ubertwitter, Google Everything, yammer, Slacker Radio, Pandora, Foursquare, WordPress, etc.  I am always multitasking on the thing and the processor lags all the time (something that I will consider neutral as any device from two years ago would suffer from the strain I put my phone through).

As two years – an eternity in technology – comes to a close, and I am nearing eligibility for an upgrade (April 10 is the day), I am convinced I do not want another Blackberry.  Sure some of my gripes – unusable camera quality, laggy processor, locked down GPS wold be fixed with an upgrade to a newer Blackberry.  However, Blackberry doesn;t even come close to setting the standard to what one can do on a phone and I love that stuff.

Take browsing for instance.  Everyone knows RIM’s browser is dated and RIM has shown that they are taking steps in the right direction.  But frankly, I lust at the possibilities of Mobile Safari, Android’s stock browser, Dolphin, or Firefox and a more real (even without flash for who knows how long) browsing experience on my device.  I just simply can’t do a lot of things thatI could do on another phone.  Mobile Facebook – forget it.  Pay a college tuition bill – forget it.

The crappy browser is why I’m so dependent on native apps anyway – the industry and web standards are evolving for better mobile-optimized sites so that all the stuff that I needs apps to do, I could do on my browser.  As John Hermann of Gizmodo writes, “The hope—and it’s a realistic one—is that certain categories of web apps will supplant native apps.”

Screen resolution is another thing that is killing it for me – while some HVGA screens are still acceptable (iPhone, Droid Eris), I want a larger screen especially on their current flagship offering, the Bold 9700 (the Droid has WVGA 854×480, the Nexus One WVGA 800×480, all Windows Phone 7 Series Phones will be WVGA).  The whole experience is far better for me with a bigger screen.

Finally, Blackberry’s user interface (UI) is just unforgivable.  Why can’t I email someone from their call history?  Why can’t I move photos on my device memory to my sd card except for one by one?  Why doesn’t the contacts app pull Facebook contacts’ email addresses?  Where’s the integration that I’ve come to expect by relying upon giants like Google to have uniform stuff between apps and services?  These simple things I could accept two years ago as status quo, but after realizing that no one else goes through this, I don’t want to either.

To simplify, I’ll do lists

Pros (of another Blackberry)

• Great Physical Keyboard
• BBM
• Build Quality (tons of drops)
• Familiarity factor

Pros (getting another phone)

• Browser
• UI
• Integration (Note iPhone OS, HTC Sense, Motoblur for good examples)
• Potential for greater Screen Resolution
• File management

Believe me, I’ll miss my Blackberry and it’ll be an adjustment to switch.  However, it seems clear to me that as a consumer who doesn’t need any of the enterprise features on a Blackberry, I’ll be going with something else come April 10.

Stay tuned for a breakdown of the rest of the decision making process by clicking “Entries RSS” on the bottom of the page.  Feel free to ccomment and suggest articles, topics, or how-tos!