3 reasons why I am NOT getting the blackberry 9700

Do I want the blackberry 9700? Of course I do. Do I need the blackberry 9700? No I don't. Will I upgrade or purchase the blackberry 9700 off contract? NO. Here's three reasons why.

First of all let me start with the fact I love the trackpad and keyboard on the 9700. My trackball gets stuck once a week and its always at the worst times. I own a 8900 and though I have adapted to it, I feel that the keyboard is too small for me. I have always envied the keyboard on the bold because of its size. Now, lets to get to why I will not be getting this highly anticipated 3G blackberry on t-mobile.

1. 3G is great addition and to some is over due on a blackberry, but for me 3G is not a deal breaker. Not on a blackberry. 3G allows you receive data while on voice calls. This good but uh, I very rarely talk on the phone, and even more rare for me to hold long conversations. So for that perk of 3G I really don't care for. 3G also gives you faster web browsing. I'm all for faster web service but everyone knows blackberry has the worst, and slowest browser on any mobile device. As much as I hate Microsoft and Windows Mobile I have to say even Windows Mobile has a better browser than the blackberry. Even with my 8900 on wi-fi my blackberry is still slow and is no faster than my edge connection. So if my blackberry browser is slow on wi-fi then I don't see 3G giving me a faster browsing experience. So 3G on this blackberry does nothing for me.

2. Whats the difference in a blackberry 8900 and 9700? Basically a trackpad and different style keyboard. Is that worth $449 or an upgrade if you own a 8900? I don't think so. The 8900 and 9700 both have a 3.2mp camera, and both share the same processor. Even though the 9700 processor is overclocked to a slightly faster speed, I don't see this as a huge difference. Yes the 9700 ships with OS 5.0 but once officially available by RIM it will be on my 8900 as well. Bottom line here is the blackberry 8900 and 9700 are the same phone with a slightly different appearance.

3. Android 2.0. When Verizon announced the Droid and I got a look at Android 2.0 I got a gadget erection. Capacitive touchscreens are becoming standard on smartphones now and blackberry has only produced two. When blackberry decides to give us the best of worlds, capacitive touchscreen and qwerty keyboard, then I will consider upgrading. And lets do something about this ancient OS on the blackberry please RIM. In less than one year Google has moved there OS from 1.0 to 2.0 while RIM is steady taking baby steps with theirs. I still don't understand why RIM is calling this latest OS upgrade 5.0 when its not much different from 4.6. But anyway, android 2.0 new features are good additions on a up and coming OS. And might I add free google turn by turn gps looks nice, and from the looks of it I'm sure it will take a unanimous victory over blackberry maps app. And the Droid docking as a alarm clock is genus to me. I use my 8900 as a alarm clock every morning. I'm not a huge HTC fan but they did announce they are working on some android 2.0 devices and I'm sure t-mobile will be landing some. I love my blackberry but other mobile OS's are advancing so fast that blackberry will soon be left at the back, and I refuse to be on the bottom with a mobile device looking up to other mobile OS's. I'll hold out for some Android 2.0 devices to come to t-mobile.

I'm not saying you shouldn't buy the blackberry 9700, I'm saying if you have a 8900 I don't see a reason to upgrade.

So I Really Wanted To Like The Motorola CLIQ

So I really wanted to like the Motorola Cliq. All my social networks and address book integration with social networks is a dream come true. I love the concept of being able to tweet someone or write on their facebook wall from the address book. Plus I've been waiting patiently to own an Android device and call it my own. Well I played with a Cliq yesterday and from the jump I didn't like the keyboard. Blackberry keyboard's have really spoiled me. In 30 mins with the Cliq I didn't see a problem with the touchscreen which some people complained about. I must say the factory android keyboard sucks. I like the fact the Cliq vibrates when you touch a key so you know its registering your touch. I tried to add my twitter acct to the cliq but it didn't take, and the browser wouldn't load despite the 3G connection it displayed. This I blame on the T-mobile outage that was going on Tuesday. I love the concept of motoblur but after reading the review on Engadget it was clear that Moto didn't get this right the first go around. The Cliq puts ALL your facebook contacts into your address book and I'm guessing it does twitter the same. I have over 300 friends on facebook and follow close to 400 people on twitter, thats just too much for me. Hopefully a software update to motoblur will give you option of what contacts you want to go in your address book. The idea that motoblur shows you all your facebook and twitter in one stream sounds great, but like I said, close to following 400 people on twitter and all my facebook friends updating in one stream sounds like too much to handle. The fact that your twitter @replies don't show separately really sucks to. A huge problem I read was that the Cliq's widgets updates slow. WHAT GOOD IS TWITTER IF YOU ARE GETTING UPDATES FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS SLOW! Very disappointing to read. Coming from a blackberry hearing about the email integration of the Cliq disappointed me as well. I am an email junkie so any mobile device I use has to be on point with email, or least be able to handle it well. We all know that Android handles Gmail flawlessly, but I use gmail, yahoo, aol, and Comcast email addresses daily. Outside of Gmail any other pop3 acct you set up just doesn't get the same attention. Hopefully some software updates will make motoblur more customizable. My last problem with the Cliq is that its running Android 1.5. As of today Motorola has made no announcements of updating the Cliq to 1.6. More than that, With Verizon announcing the Droid which will be the first Android 2.0 device, a 1.5 device will soon be ancient. Motorola I want to see you succeed, and I think you will with the Droid, but with the Cliq I'm going to need you to try again.

Who won E3 2009?

So Who Won E3? As much as I hate them, my vote goes to Microsoft. Here is how I rank the companies in at E3 this year

1. Microsoft

2. Sony

3. Nintendo

Lets go go from the bottom up.

Nintendo:

Nintendo had the boring press conference at E3. They showed off wii motion plus, which they also showed last year, which did nothing for me. Wii Fit Plus was announced and really didn't seem like a plus. A new Mario game and Super Mario Galaxy was announced. Just what the world needs right, two more Mario games. Since the Wii's release in 2006 we have not seen my man Link get any love except for on Smash Bros. No Legend of Zelda announced for wii really pissed me off. Zelda is the main reason I roll with Nintendo. The wii's newest accessory was shown off and will be a sensor that will detect your pulse, how cool is that! I wish I was wearing one while watching Nintendo's press conference so I could know how close I was to dieing from boredom. Metroid M was given a very brief look and is scheduled for a 2010 release. Metroid Prime 3, next to Zelda Twilight Princess, has been to best game I have played for wii, so this was a big announcement, and the few seconds they showed was jaw dropping. Nintendo seemed to focus on DS gaming a lot. I don't own a DS, therefore I really didn't care for the DS part, tho I didn't notice DS is getting a new Zelda game, why not wii?

Sony:

Its no secret that Sony has taken a major blow financially since the release of the PS3. Earlier this year Sony reported a loss of a billion dollars and the way its looking now they might be in the negative for a billion dollars next year. I respect Sony for holding their head high as they make it seem that everything is going according to plan. The PSP Go was announced as no big surprise, but at $250 I wonder how well it will sell. Sony motion capture controller was impressive, but no match what Microsoft unveiled. Sony ended their press conference with God of War 3, which we all knew was coming and wasn't a surprise.

Microsoft:

Hands down Microsoft killed it! Where to begin? How about with the new features in Xbox Live! Facebook, Last.fm, and Twitter will be coming soon to Xbox Live, and a new feature that lets you and your friends watch videos together. Netflix instant que will now be available from the xbox instead of just your PC or Mac. I use to complain about Xbox Live costing money because I feel that online gaming should be free. But when you take a look at online gaming Xbox Live clearly gives you the best online gaming experience. Project Natal, which is Microsoft's motion capture hardware, straight blew me away. I haven't been that amazed by a gadget since Apple showed off the Iphone for the first time. The future of gaming is moving into the motion capture world that Nintendo and the wii started. Another surprise Microsoft threw us was no other than the infamous Metal Gear Solid announced for Xbox 360. No snake, no problem for me, as long as its Metal Gear. I don't mind taking Raiden on another adventure. Everything Microsoft announced was thumbs up, looks like the Xbox 360 will have another solid year this year.

patiently waiting for more Android

T-mobile quietly hit the 1 million sold mark on its flagship HTC G1 this week. This means 1 million people are currently experiencing the google Android software on their phones. But if your like me your wondering where are the "other" Android phones companies keep promising? Samsung, Motorola, LG, and HTC all say they having Android phones coming soon. Well six months after the birth of Android we still have just the G1. The HTC Magic was introduced at Mobile World Congress this year which will be the second Android phone released. Its currently only available in the UK starting May 5, though a soon US launch is rumored. More exciting to me is the fact that Android is currently being tested on sub notebooks. I would love to get my hands on a 8-10 inch android sub notebook for taking notes at school and around the house web browsing. Due to my hatred for microsoft windows operating system I refuse to purchase a PC. If an Android sub notebook or a under $1,000 apple sub notebook hits the market I'm ready to spend money. But once again we are still hit the "coming soon" title when companies are asked about these Android products. I know some companies are letting t-mobile be the first out the gate in fear that Andriod might flop and bow to the Iphone, but with over 1,000,000 units sold and the HTC Magic rumored to be on its way to the US Android is off to a good start. So when will we see a flood of Android products hit the market? 2009? 2010? 2011? leave your answer in the comments

Whats the best way to communicate with friends without calling?

In the year 2009 we have many different ways of contacting each other. We can text, instant message, email, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and for Blackberry users you even got BBM and PIN messaging. Social networking sites have become one of the most popular ways to communicate since text messaging now that so many smart phones have built in social networking apps. With these sites also available in a mobile version through WAP browsers on some phones, you can always stay in the loop. So lets break down these different ways to communicate without calling someone.

1) Text message- coming onto the scene in the late 90's text messaging in my opinion is the most used form of of non verbal communication because everybody has a cell phone. If you can say it in 160 characters then type it and send it.

2)Instant Message- When I came on the IM scene it was all about yahoo and aol. Now Google in its quest to take over the world is dominating the game with its unique Gmail service and Google Talk messenger. Instant Messaging is great for fluid thread based conversations.

3) email- this is my favorite form of non verbal communication, especially when you pair it with push email on a blackberry. Your not limited to words like an SMS, and with services like Gmail, you can attach a 20MB file. Other email service providers lets you attach 10MB. Emails also keeps a threaded convo and can be viewed from online anywhere with an internet connection. Email is the second largest form of non verbal communication to me because almost everyone has an email address.

4) Facebook & Myspace- I will put these in the same category since they are basically the same thing. Out of the two I prefer facebook because of no spam. These two social networking sites have been hot this decade, but I see people texting or emailing someone before they go through the process of sending a facebook or myspace message. However if you didn't have an email or mobile number for someone, facebook or myspace would be the next best option.

5) twitter- last but surely not least is the new team stepping in the game of social networking called twitter. Twitter came on the scene in 2006 and has really made a name for itself in 2008. Twitter in my opinion would be the third largest form of non verbal communication for two reasons: 1 its quick, you can easily tweet from your mobile phone, mobile app, or the site itself. 2 it reaches a wide number quicker. With twitter a message is emailed to you and if you have device updates on it will send it to you by SMS. Myspace sends you an email, but due to their greediness of wanting people to visit the site, the message is not displayed in the email. To retrieve the message you have to log into the site which is very annoying to me. Facebook lets you see the message in the email, but twitter steps it up by allowing you to reply to the SMS, which gives it a step on facebook and myspace to me.

So my question to all of you is what is your favorite form of non verbal communication? reply in the comments

Anyone remember the Motorola Timeport P935 2way pager?

Anyone remember the Motorola Timeport P935 2way pager? Man these were hot about 10 years ago. This is one of my favorite gadgets of all time. All the celebrities and entertainers had one. I remember seeing Jermaine Dupri in Orlando and he had two. Retailing at $399.99 (if I remember correctly) you were considered the shit if you had one of these. They came in black and silver and I dropped the $400 to get me a silver one. Pretty much anyone you saw with one was related to some kind of business. To my observation they weren't very popular in the consumer crowd. Though it was bulky, it had a nice design and definitely turned heads while it was on your hip. It was perfect back then for what text messaging is now. The pager had its own email address similar to blackberries, and you could text mobile phones from it. Loaded with calendar, contacts, and a few games, this pager was your organizer on the go. Along with your pager number you could get a 1-800 number with the pager that will allow the caller to leave a message, and a operator would send your 2way the message in a text. Its like having a secretary take your calls for you 24 hours a day. I used this for my company Throneholder Productions while I had the 2way because I don't like to talk on the phone all day. With the 1-800 number I called clients back when I had time rather than having my phone ring all day. My favorite feature on the P935 was the beam feature. With the infa-red ports of two 2ways near each other you could beam your contact info by simply holding the enter button on both devices for a few seconds. Other info such as calendar events and ringtones could be beamed as well. I really would love to see mobile phones pick up this feature. Sure you can send contact info by bluetooth, but how long does that take to get set up? With the P935 you hold enter for 3 seconds and your contact info is on the way. Think how quickly you could add a new person's contact into your phone. No asking how do you spell your name again? Or how is that email address spelled? Sad to say the P935 only lasted a few years, but while it was hot it definitely made its presence in the gadget world. RIP Motorola Timeport P935. Oh yeh, who could forget Memphis own Three Six Mafia 2way Freak of the Choices soundtrack? If you had a 2way you had 2way freaks! I did

my thoughts on my first Blackberry, the Curve 8900

So today is March 12th, which means I have now owned my Blackberry Curve 8900 for a month. Now its time to tell my likes and dislikes about my first Blackberry. Overall I absolutely love it and all my complaints I consider minor. The phone is sexy, slim, and the UI is sleek and fast. I mainly got this phone because I've always wanted to try a Blackberry, and I wanted something that will easily handle all my email accounts on the go. I didn't realize how popular Blackberries were until I got mine. On my trip to NY last weekend I swear I saw over 30 Blackberries. I mostly saw older models, a few storms, and plenty Bold 9000's. However, I didn't see anyone with my 8900. Every person who sat next to me on the flight to NY, and back to Nashville was rocking a Blackberry. Coincidence? Maybe. But here is what I love and hate about the Blackberry 8900.

Love about my Blackberry :)

1. Near push email to Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL
2. Apps improve the functionality of the phone (you can learn something here apple!)
3. Hands down the most customizable phone I have ever owned
4. Best IM messenger apps I've had since my Sidekick
5. Its a true smartphone, I'm a huge shortcuts fan
6. 3.2mp takes nice pics, best I've had on a mobile phone. I never really cared about camera's on my cell until I discovered twitpic
7. The Blackberry community is extremely helpful, specifically at www.crackberry.com/forums which is a lot more than I can say for the assholes I encountered at http://androidcommunity.com/forums/ while I was thinking of getting a G1.
8. Bedside mode is a genius move by RIM. Bedside mode kills the flashing LED light so you can sleep go to sleep peacefully.
9. The phone starts up in 7 secs! I've never seen a phone do this before.
10. Standby mode is another genius move by RIM. In standby you kill the battery usage of the phone while maintaining the ability to receive emails, SMS messages, IM, etc. which really saves battery power at the end of the day.

Hate about my Blackberry :(

1. I really wish when I reply to an email or SMS I could have a small arrow pointing backwards to let me know I replied
2. Can't save apps to media card
3. Can't download files over 2.7mb. I"m in the audio industry, I have clients send me audio files all the time and it would helpful to download these files on the go and here them.
4. The keyboard is just a lil too small for me, I often hit wrong keys but I will get use to it. I think I would enjoy the feel of a 9000 better since its bigger
5. Poor support for Macs, All I own is Macs and its sad that I can't even upgrade my OS without a PC.
6. Poor youtube quality, the 8900 screen is beautiful, just not when a youtube video is playing
7. RIM really needs a much improved notification system for alerts. Android has a great notification system as well as the Palm pre. Even my hated with a passion windows mobile phone did a good job of notifications.
8. No 3G. This for most people is #1, but I"m in Nashville and we don't have 3G anyway, but it would be nice to have it on the phone.
9. Can't add MMS pics to contacts, this seems like it would be a no brainer option for receiving a pic by MMS. Instead you have to save the pic, then go to pic, open it, and then save the pic to a contact.
10. You can only add two email addresses per contact, I have some contacts with more than 2 email addresses so I have to make two contacts for 1 person.

apple's new airport extreme supports two wireless networks at once!

Now that apple's airport extreme has dual band wifi radios, the $179 price tag seems reasonable to me. I will probably be picking this up with my new Imac in a few months. With the airport extreme producing two wireless networks at 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously, this can really help simplify my setup. I currently have two airport expresses. Since my wii, blackberry, and Ipod touch don't do wireless N, I have to leave my airport express network running on a G signal. Since my macbook and new Imac will be capable of using a wireless N signal, I'd rather use that for faster speeds and file transfers. With this new airport extreme, I can have one network running at N for my macs, and another network running at G for my blackberry, wii, and ipod touch. Two networks in one router is worth $179 to me.

my 3 favorite gadgets

On my way back to Nashville from Albany today my flight was delayed. Luckily I had my 3 favorite gadgets to keep me company: macbook, ipod touch, and blackberry 8900. Since I do a lot of audio work the macbook is a must for me. Loaded with Logic Studio, M-powered pro tools 7.4, and Reason 4, I'm always able to work on audio tasks on the go. Though the app store has taken a nose dive to me, the Ipod touch still remains on my top list. I have tried to use my t-mobile shadow and my blackberry for media, but they just didn't cut it. When it comes to media, nothing handles it like an ipod. The ipod touch has a beautiful screen thats great for viewing movies, podcasts, and even youtube videos. Other mobile devices I try to view youtube on (ex blackberry) the quality is very poor. The Ipod gives me desktop quality and the best youtube experience I have seen on a mobile device. My blackberry is the newest gadget I have acquired recently and I love it. My last phone was a windows mobile phone which I grew to hate more and more each month I owned it, but thats another blog. When it comes to email, nothing handles it like a blackberry, and with yahoo, gmail, and AOL now getting near push email service to blackberries its only getting better. Though the user interface isn't user friendly to me (took me half a day just to figure out how to change the ringtone) I still love the blackberry and learn more about it the more I play with it. I was real close to getting an Iphone but decided to hold out for t-mobile to drop the blackberry 8900 and I"m glad I did.