Dear BlackBerry

Dear BlackBerry,

I love you.

I love you’re easy to use features. You’re quick response. The convenience key that lets me switch applications as fast as I need. I have loved you since I had the first BB, with the side scroll and the strange-at-first double letter qwerty keyboard. I loved my 8830 even more than I could imagine I would love a phone. I enjoyed that phone for nearly 2 years. Crushing google maps, downloading new apps and dealing with the adequate browser that could out Google an iPhone. Man do I miss those days.

I purchased the Storm the day it came out. I spent the weekend after playing with it, trying to love it. But it just wouldn’t happen. I customized it the way I needed it to be and the I wanted it. Touch screen is cool. I’ve avoided an iPhone because I didn’t want to give up my keyboard. I wanted an iPhone so bad, but it was on AT&T and my good friend couldn’t make or receive phone calls in his apartment in Battery Park. Manhattan. Really - you’re phone doesn’t make telephone calls in Manhattan - I don’t care where you are - this is the capital of the modern world here in NY. Your cell phone should work everywhere.

My Storm is faster than any iPhone with the browser, including the 3G. I haven’t used any special testing software to gauge milliseconds or nanoseconds - to the common eye it is significantly faster. Give me a first generation iPhone and you’re not even in the running. Verizon’s network is MUCH better than AT&T with everything that I have compared.

But RIMM, you disappoint. My Storm freezes. It displays the camera while I’m typing an email - for no reason. It gives me black screens - flashing sometimes, for who knows why. I try to change from side to upright - the accelerometer is slow to respond. I shouldn’t have to count and show my friends how long it takes to react.

Man am I pissed.

I did the upgrade that Verizon recommended. Worlds better. But still not good enough. Not good enough to compare with 3 years of faithful BlackBerry loving. This device is barely worth the Verizon name and is not anywhere near the value of a BlackBerry name. It is a really cool phone, but when I need to make a call/ text/ email and I have to turn it off, disconnect the battery, then restart because the screen is not responding. That is bush league. And BlackBerries should not be bush league.

I’m trading this back in for my Curve and getting an iPhone. I still hate AT&T and I would pay $1,000 for a Verizon iPhone. But the iPhone is cool, and it does work. And thats what I need in a phone I use for work. Not a fancy clickable touchscreen. Not even a touch screen. I need a phone I can depend on. To Google, to Map, to Email, to text. I can get all the fun stuff I want from an iPhone. But when I need it to work, well BlackBerry - the Storm just gets blown away.