goodbye tmobile
So I’ve ditched TMobile. I’d been with them for years now.. since I was
just outta high school.. so since about 1997.. before Tmobile they were
Voicestream and before that they were Aerial. I still have the original
SIM card that is compatable with all the unlocked phones I’ve gotta over
the years.. still had them tell me I was the oldest account that they’ve
seen when I called.. and they did have the cheapest plan for a long
time.. but now they are getting to be more like the "people with credit
problems" phones… still awesome reception… but that’s about all it
had going for it compared to what’s out there.
So Shannon and I went phone shopping. She was with Verizon, but I
didn’t really dig them after checking them out. The cheapest 2 person
everything plans in KC is with Sprint.. 169/m for 2 lines, 3000 minutes,
and unlimted everything. Sprint doesn’t do MMS very well.. you can get
MMSs but you can’t send them.. well.. I was freaking out about that, but
then I realized that everyone that I MMS I can also email.. so.. there
ya go.
Sprint’s EVDO is amazing.. hands down awesome. If they could improve
the latency I think we’re talking wired replacement for a lot of
cirumstances… hell even with the latency it’s got it’s pretty awesome
for everything save like FPS games.
We both went with the Crackberry Pearl 8130. I got a blue and she got a
red. I didn’t want a bigger phone like the Palm (Al got that.. yes.. we
are of one mind 
.. so did Jon.. for FREE from work.. bastard) and I
wanted a solid platform that everyone in the world was using (so Symbian
or Palm or Crackberry or Windows.. but not Windows .. so nothing like
LG or Motorola or whatever). The Pearl is actually a little smaller
than my Nokia that I had… 2 meg pixel cam with LED flash, takes a 4
gig microSD, GPS (google maps and Blackberry maps are free.. Sprint’s
Telnav is $2.95 for a day’s use or $10/m unlimited), and all the
Crackberry messaging stuff.
The messaging is pretty awesome. At first I wasn’t sure.. no real IMAP
client? "OH FUCK! WHAT HAVE I DONE?" shot through my mind, but I tried
it out… If I had a BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) tied to an
Exchange server, it’d be pretty wicked.. but with v4.5 of the phone
software (available online if you read some forums.. not from Sprint)
and then BIS (Blackberry Internet Services) v2.5, you can get HTML email
and email push from any POP3/IMAP account.
IMAPs is the way to go here. Anything you do from your Blackberry is
updated in your server’s email instantly. The other way around takes
about an hour to sync up. So while I’m at work I’m just using Mutt over
SSH usually. And so after I delete some shit and all that all day, then
when I get ready to leave it’s all sync’d up. Thunderbird works too,
and I usually use that at home. Some people on the Intarweb say that
BIS is only 1 way sync.. that’s wrong.. it even says so in their FAQs..
it’s just that stuff you do on the Blackberry updates the server faster
than the server updates the blackberry, except for new messages, which
are very fast.. within 10 seconds, maybe 30 on a slow day, of it being
in your inbox. They use IMAP’s idle so they can be that fast.
That is all totally awesome.. Blackberry definitely has messaging
down… it’s just "their way". Push email is the shit… I get email
all day constantly and still have like 95% battery when I get home.
Because it’s only "checking" email when it knows I have something. Push
baby.. ya.
You can only get your inbox tho with BIS (everything with BES), and that
kinda sucks.. but.. does it? I mean.. for me, it doesn’t… I barely
switch folders on my desktop, and then it’s only to file things. There
are full blown IMAP clients for blackberries.. like 2.. but they are
pretty klugdy things compared to Blackberry’s built in messaging. I
guess to be completely independent on the road I should have one of
these apps on there for emergencies, but I haven’t cared to yet
So far the only apps I added are AIM, google maps, and facebook (lets
you do everything in an app, not the browser.. way faster). Well and I
added Docs2Go which is free from Blackberry.. allows you to read word
docs and stuff like that. I had Opera Mini on there, but every time you
open a link it goes in the default browser anyway, so screw that.. I
removed it.
Anyway.. very happy with this phone and the service has been good too.
I actually think I like the voice quality on the Nokia better, but this
is good too.. just different… that’s my only bitch.. otherwise this
thing is fast and very configurable.