My new toy!

I finally bit the bullet, cashed in my upgrade rebate and bought the dataphone I've been coveting: the new Blackberry Curve 8310 in Sunset Red. (Of course, I did this and a few weeks later T-mobile finally releases info on the G1, which incorporates all the features I orginally wanted. Oh well, such are the risks of being too grabby!)

Despite the lack of a touch screen and a sliding keyboard, I love my Blackberry. Now that I have one, I don't know how I lived without a full QWERTY keyboard for so long. There was little to no ramp up time for me to figure out how to use this phone, although all the phone numbers bunched up on the left side of the phone took some getting used to. (Hey, I'm left-handed. I want everything to be on the right side of the phone!).

I love the media capabilities of this phone. Do I miss that I can't take video? Not for a second. I have a fancy DSLR that can record oodles of video that I never use for that purpose. I've never used the video feature on any other phone, either. The photo quality is pretty good (although you need a VERY steady hand), but again, I don't take all that many photos with my phone. I am most excited about the MP3 player and the expandable microSD memory. I was finally able to reuse the old ringtones I created for my beloved Motorola V360 that I lost a couple of years ago. Now when my boyfriend calls me, I can hear 'Stare Too Long' by Corrosion of Conformity - which you'll never find on any ringtone service provider. Still, I appreciate the immense variety of pre-loaded ringtones that came with the Blackberry - specifically Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (my all-time favorite classical piece). Also, the phone actually came with stereo headphones instead of one monophone earbud. Handy!

I noticed that the batteries were draining REALLY quickly - a fully charged phone in the morning was dead by the end of my workday. I started carrying a data cable so it could be charged up from my CPU, but just changing one setting really saved my battery life: I keep the backlight brightness at 10 instead of 100 (even though the screen looks so sharp and pretty at 100). I also make sure I actually turn apps OFF instead of just backing out of them. Now a fully charged phone keeps a charge all day long - even with all the phone calls/email pushes/text messages/game playing/music listening I do, I come home with a phone that doesn't need to be charged until bedtime!

Of course, the Product Slut in me would be remiss by not talking about my most favorite 'feature': the color. It's the most perfect nail-polish-esque red. Online, it looks like it might be orange, but it's really a metallic red that I am completely smitten with. Even though I protect it with a silicon case, I can't resist pulling it off to show off the shiny red back. It's divine.

Maybe I can wait for the G1 to evolve a little more. After all, it's a functional black. Maybe by the end of my 2 year contract they'll have one in Sunset Red!