My BOLD Adventure

Yesterday I received my new phone from Blackberry, it was the shiny, sleek new Bold 9900 (I know it's been out for a while but I have been unable to upgrade till now).  After trying to use the switch device from my 8700 and having it fail due to some of my Apps not being compatible I went old school and manually transferred everything over.  This got me thinking about the past and my road with cell phones to today.

When I started with my first consulting company they gave me a Motorola flip phone with the high capacity battery and a pager.  This was simply amazing when I got it as I had never had a cell phone before. I used it a lot for work and a bit for personal use to but the phone was always so hot if you talked for to long on it.

After I left that company I started with a new company and was given a much smaller flip phone as I was "the IT guy" and was on call 24/7.  It worked well for the longest time as I used it for only a phone.  No texting, no internet just a phone.  Then they purchased another company that had a handful of BlackBerry's for the executives.  I quickly rounded them all up and hid them as I said there was no way that technology was every going to be used in a company that I was doing IT for.  About a year later I was invited to a BlackBerry launch party from my friendly Rogers sales rep.  It was for the Blackberry 8700.

  

After the event we were told that everyone in attendance would receive one of these devices for free.  After seeing the demo's and the device in action I must admit I was quite excited.  So when I finally got my 8700 I quickly signed up for a personal plan and then set it up to receive my work and home email to it.  There were a few things I found annoying but the ability to answer my emails while sitting in a car wash or while out with my kids was so amazing that I was hooked on this device and was never going to give it up.  I was fairly hard on my poor 8700 and did go through a couple of them but all in all it was a great mobile device.

Next up was the Blackberry 8900, it got rid of the annoying scroll wheel and gave you a mouse ball in the center.  This device was great until the mouse ball stopped working.  I did have to replace it a couple times as well but the advancement in the technology and what I could do with the device was great.  Again it was more than a phone, it was a mobile device that allowed me to stay in touch with everything while I was on the go.

My next upgrade was to the Bold 9700.  I had this device until yesterday.  I only needed to replace it once as I broke the USB adapter piece so I could no longer charge it.  It replaced the annoying mouse ball to the track pad.  I find the track pad is much more responsive and less chance of breaking.  This device was great, the GPS, Apps, the link to a BES server and all the utilities that I had downloaded for it turned it from a mobile device to a mobile office.  I was able to do most things with the Bold so I didn't need to be always in front of a computer.  I then got a Playbook and with the two of them sync'd together I have been able to travel without a laptop and do everything with my two devices.

The combination of a Playbook and Blackberry gives me full mobility and allows me to work on almost everything I need to do without having to sit in front of a computer or needing internet access as I can tether them together and use my phones data plan.

This brings me to my newest device, the Bold 9900.  It is a combination touch screen and keyboard, so far I am loving this device.  I have avoided touch screen phones as I don't really like the feel to them and I really like my QWERTY keyboard to type emails and texts, with this combination it is the best of both worlds.  I can still type very quickly and when I need to I can use the touch screen for browsing or zooming in on stuff.  Although it was not an easy flip over RIM does have multiple ways to flip phones.  I activated it on my BES which allowed me to get all my emails, calendar, and contacts.  Then I setup my appworld ID and was able to switch devices and reinstall all of my Apps.  It was a bit more work but it worked well and that is where I am at now.  I have my new device fully functioning and have been working with it for the last two days and really loving it.