This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Mike Shoemaker. Original Post: Blackberry Pearl 8100 Review Feed Title: Unruly Rambling (ruby category) Feed URL: http://www.shoesobjects.com/blog/rss.xml?category=ruby Feed Description: My thoughts on software, technology, and life in general Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Mike Shoemaker Latest Posts From Unruly Rambling (ruby category)

This past week I gave into the urge to pick up a PDA like phone. I wanted a device that was a phone first but offered other features such as true HTML web browsing and the ability to efficiently do email and chat. The blackberry lived up to all of these requests and much more.

I was able to set up my Gmail account in approximately two minutes. All I had to enter was my email address and password, it knew how to hook itself up from there. There was no entering SMTP or POP servers. Also, unlike pull technologies where you have to retrieve your email, the blackberry has push technology where the email just shows up with a short sound or pulse vibration.

Google talk, my preferred messaging platform, works in much the same fashion. I did have to download the client though. It is amazing how well you can keep up chatting with someone on a computer. The QWERTY keypad on this device is quite efficient after the initial learning curve of an hour or so.

Finally the blackberry device has the ability to do both WML and HTML web browsing. While some HTML sites look a bit stretched out, most are very usable. Even though the WML sites are faster to load, I tend to stay away from them since they require more clicks to poke around. I dislike clicking next 14 times. I'd much rather wait a few more seconds and download the entire content and then scroll through it. Speaking of scrolling, the trackball on this phone makes scrolling and navigating links a breeze. Roll the trackball on to a link and then press it to invoke the hyper link, that's it. All things considered, this is the first device that I have used in this category that was done right. In my opinion it's usability makes it the Macintosh of phones.

NOTE: This blog entry was typed entirely on the blackberry.