My Christmas Present

My Christmas present finally arrived today. I don't know what it is about shiny new gadgets that is so exciting.

I've been so busy lately, and always on the go, that it was becoming a problem that I didn't have all of my contacts' information with me all the time. Bobby has hijacked my laptop because he's regularly off at job sites and needs it, so I really don't have a computer of my own outside of work.

This usually isn't a problem - all our media is on Bobby's desktop (since my little 40GB laptop couldn't handle it all anyway), and I use GMail, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, so I'm fairly mobile as it is. The only downside was managing and not always having access to my contacts and calendar. What I needed was a smartphone.

I hate GMail's contacts. While there are definitely some improvements I could suggest for Outlook, I still prefer it to GMail's contacts. I was really hoping that Google would buy out Plaxo, or even just integrate Plaxo's service into GMail contacts. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen, especially if the rumors about Facebook acquiring Plaxo are true.

I had spent a decent amount of time deciding what kind of phone I wanted. The perfect phone just doesn't seem to exist. I like all the bells and whistles - 3G (or better!?), email/contact/calendar integration, GPS, Wi-Fi, full QWERTY keyboard, etc. I really like Bobby's phone, but it's kind of large and not very sexy. I love the touch screen, and that he can open attachments, but it's also pretty pricey. I really like the look of the Blackberry Curve, and everyone I know with a Blackberry seems pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, the Curve doesn't have 3G, so it's still on the slower EDGE network.

I was not interested in an iPhone. Sure, it's a pretty product, but of the two people I know that bought one, one has already given it away and purchased a Blackberry instead. The other likes it, but admitted that it really wouldn't be for business use, and mentioned some of the iPhone's drawbacks. Between not having 3G or copy/paste capabilities, and the fact that it's so proprietary, I just wasn't interested.

I decided that the Curve would be enough to fit my needs. I don't surf the web on my phone that much so I was comfortable with not having the 3G or Wi-Fi. Since we were going to be buying it outside of a contract I figured that worst case I could resell it on eBay and get something else.

I was glad to find that the battery had a slight charge to it when it arrived, because that meant that I didn't have to wait to switch my SIM card over and play with some of the functions. But the phone shipped to my house, and like I said, the computer that is really dedicated to me is at work, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to upload everything...