So Happy Together: My CrackBerry and me

After nearly three years of faithful service, my trusty Verizon flip phone bit the dust. I opened it one day and the plastic around the hinge cracked. Courtney, who used to have the same phone, assured me that I couldn't just live with it because the plastic would continue to crack until the metal joint the connected the top part with the bottom part fell out. Oh dear.

I'd never felt the need for a fancy phone; as long as it made calls it was fine with me. But recently, I've become completely dependent on an application on my computer called iCal. It's a great tool for managing one's schedule - I can assign different colors to different events, import information from Facebook, make notes, attach websites, and basically indulge my borderline OCD to my heart's content. The problem was that, unless I had my laptop with me, I couldn't add anything to my calendar or even check it. So I decided that I needed a phone that I could connect to my computer and thus load my calendar onto it. This decision narrowed the pool of possibilities considerably. Macintoshes are notoriously finicky about with whom they will associate, and of all of the phones available through Verizon, only the BlackBerry would provide what I needed. So be it. I ended up with the BlackBerry Tour.

After a brief getting-to-know you period, during which I flipped through an instruction manual the size of a novel and watched a DVD about my new phone, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on how to use at least the most important features on this thing. It's much bigger than my other phone, but aside from that I really can't think of any other cons. Obviously, first and foremost, I can load my calendar onto it, adjust my calendar, then transfer the changes back to my computer. Ditto for my address book. Another thing I particularly like is that I can load music onto it. Now I don't have to carry both an iPod and a phone when I go out, and when you're walking around a city all day, every ounce counts. An added bonus: When I go running with my BlackBerry, I have not only music but a camera with me at all times, which was not the case with my iPod. The pictures I take are not of outstanding quality, but they're more than sufficient. I can also access the Internet directly from my phone, and my email account is synced so that I get email messages in both places. (This is actually a blessing and a curse.) If I want to write an email message or a text message, I have a full keyboard to use instead of only the nine number keys, making typing a great deal easier and faster. They keys, however, are pretty tiny and take some getting used to. And ridiculous as this is, I'm endlessly tickled by the fact that I can set any song I want to be a ring tone instead of having to choose from the inevitably annoying, overly electronic-sounding options available on the phone. (Currently it's "Boy with a Coin" by Iron & Wine, a song I like so much that I sort of don't want to answer it when it rings so that I can keep listening.) I'll admit readily that it's not nearly as cool as the iPhone, but I'm sufficiently impressed by what it can do.

Am I addicted yet? Don't think so. But I may be on my way.