A BlackBerry User’s Lament

In my feature on the future of the BlackBerry, posted yesterday, I wrote that, “While Research in Motion (RIMM) has taken a few steps to open up the BlackBerry to outside developers, the BlackBerry remains what it’s been since RIM’s two-way pager was upgraded in 2002: a very effective, and mostly reliable, device for voice calls and e-mails, connecting with a powerful back-end server in the corporate data center.”

The “mostly reliable” clause is key. My own experience of the last 18 months using a BlackBerry Curve is not promising in this regard.

Briefly, I’m on my third handset. The first two bit the dust because the charging port, on the side, loosened, meaning the unit wouldn’t charge unless I pressed the plug tightly into the port. When I got the second unit replaced at my local Verizon store (do not get me started on the pleasures of sitting around in the Verizon store, waiting for unhelpful employees), I got a unit that reset itself continually, particularly when I was traveling. Every eight minutes or so the thing would shut down, go dormant for several minutes, and then go into a start-up sequence that took another several minutes. You can imagine how much fun that is when you’re trying to keep up with e-mail and voice mail while driving from L.A. to San Francisco, for instance.

When I took the handset to the friendly, yet inept folks at Verizon, they informed me that the handset had outdated software and needed a full system update. Skipping over the obvious question, “Why the hell did you give me a phone with old software?” I moved on to say, “OK, go ahead.”

“We can’t do that here,” I was told. “You can download the new software yourself.”

Apparently she didn’t notice the steam coming out of my ears as she wrote down the URL for me, and informed I’d need a cord to connect the unit to my laptop. Luckily, Virgo Publishing has a crack IT department, and they offered to update the software for me. A few days later I got the BlackBerry back. Despite the new software, it still resets on a regular basis, though not as often as previously. It also emits a high-pitched beep, during voice calls, for no apparent reason.

In the face of a survey showing that 30-40 percent of BlackBerry users would rather have an iPhone or an Android device, RIM’s sales position has been that BlackBerrys, while no longer the coolest kid on the smartphone block, offer the most reliable and secure way to access corporate e-mail while on the road. Judging by my frustrating experience, that’s hardly the case. And if that claim goes away, what does RIM have left?