The tale of a Blackberry

[indent]I must be the only technophile on the planet without a Blackberry. Or its equivalent. Everyone around me has one. I have a mere cell phone.

And last week, I resolved to remedy that and move into the world of 21st century communications.

Rogers was offering a good deal on some Blackberry models, and that prompted me to decide it was time to get one; it was time to move up to the digital data side of things.

Not being one for old technology, I wanted the newest, the shiniest model: the Blackberry 9000, better know as "The Bold." And why not? Why get yesterday's hardware when you can get the most up-to-date? Latest is sexy: oldest isn't. And the "Bold" is sexy.

It has a colour, high-res screen, built in browser, tools, maps and a GPS, and a bunch of other features. I really wanted the GPS because I've wanted one for a long time and simply not succumbed to the urge to get a standalone one. This would combine both in one neat package. It is also faster than previous Blackberries, so I'd be just dashing along the information highway while others lagged behind.

Rogers' website says this about the BB90000:

Quote

Oooo - doesn't that just make you want to own one, right now? Bold. Premium. Advanced. Awe. Words sure to hook the geek like me. I went into the local Rogers store, Friday, and got one, as eager as a kid on Xmas morning to play with it.

The salesperson asked me what plan I wanted. I had the literature with me and puzzled over it for a few minutes. The lower-end "data" plans seemed aimed at people with low-demand usage. But the upper end - 1 GB or 3GB per month - although small by my standards, were rather expensive. I told the salesperson I mostly wanted it for email, and ended up with the "unlimited email" for $15 a month.

Unlimited. Interesting word, that. The dictionary defines it as:

Quote

Rogers apparently uses a rather different meaning that seems curiously like my definition of "limited." I'll come back to that.

I chose the "unlimited" email plan because I would use the email most, after the phone. I assumed (wrongly, it turned out), that if I wanted to get online and browse, I'd simply be billed extra for that service. Like with my phone.

So I took possession and raced home to read the manual and start playing. Well, there's the first hiccup. The manual is about as basic as a see-Spot-run school-kid's reader. It has less technical info that the label on a pillowcase and nothing at all about any of the hundreds of techie-style choices and options inside a Blackberry - things you can reach by menu, but are afraid to change because there's no information about them anywhere.

We had a friend here for the weekend and she has a GPS and does geo-caching with it. I wanted to compare the GPS on the Blackberry and learn how to use it and maybe participate. I expected to be able to open a local maps and see the GPS coordinates as I walked or drove through the town. Nope. Latitude and longitude remained steadfastly at 0.0.0.

The Maps feature didn't work, just produced a blank screen. I got an error that told me to contact my service provider because my service wasn't set up for BIS or BES or whatever initialism it used. Ditto with the browser. I couldn't even use Rogers' own service to download ringtones. I thought it was nothing - just some configuration or setting change I could make, if not through the Blackberry then through the desktop software provided. There's precious little help in the enclosed manual, but I was pretty sure I could configure it myself online. Wrong, of course.

I was looking forward to the browser feature, because I figured I could use it to check on the status of my blog and forum when I was travelling, to make sure they were online and working properly.

I managed to get my Sympatico and my domain email addresses configured so they'd be forwarded to the Blackberry. But not the municipal email. I tried a dozen times, a dozen ways. The IT guy gave me all the help he could, but frankly he was stumped. I entered everything required and it still wouldn't work. I tried Friday night, then several times more on Saturday. All in all, at least two dozen attempts ended in the same failure.

Hiccup number two is in the desktop software. It's horrendously slow, hung, and crashed. It took longer to load than Call of Duty on DVD and has even less help in it than the manuals. But it couldn't get me online to activate my town email account, either I had to use CTRL-ALT-DEL to get out of it because it froze.

So Saturday afternoon, I went back to Rogers. There another staff person checked my records and saw that I had the $15 a month "unlimited" email plan. Yes, I agreed, I wanted to use the device for email, mostly. That was the plan recommended to me by the staff person the previous day.

I foolishly thought unlimited email mean just that" Unlimited". And I'd have to pay extra for browser or other data access. But no, what it means is that the GPS, browser and maps functions don't work at all. It's not a matter of paying more when you use it: you can't use them, period. And, of course, the email plan it is NOT unlimited, because that plan limits access to enterprise server email. No one knew that at the store. So what I had was a high-tech phone with some email access, but none of the things I really wanted.

This took about 45 minutes for the staff to figure out, much of it on hold trying to reach their own support line.

So I had to upgrade to a $30 a month data plan, thinking it would solve my problems. That took several more minutes and explanations, until it was finally activated. I had doubled my cost.

That upgrade bought me GPS and Maps, as well as access to the browser, but I still couldn't activate my municipal email. So we went back on the phone, this time to Blackberry's support people (well, mostly their 'hold' service). After another endless wait listening to vile "on hold" music, I received the explanation that "unlimited" email doesn't mean unlimited: it means access is restricted to some email services (see the definition of 'unlimited, above)'.

And no, I also learned a 1 GB data plan didn't buy me the access to just any data: it still denied me access to the enterprise server emails. In fact, even the 3 GB plan wouldn't give me that access.

I bought this Blackberry primarily to get municipal email forwarded to me. All the rest is mere chrome, a new toy. So what did I need to do to get access, I asked. That got me transferred (after another wait on hold) to a sales office rep who told me the plan necessary to get enterprise access - listed nowhere in any of the literature at Rogers, and a complete surprise to the staff who had never heard of it - was another $15 on top of my $30 plan.

So I went from $15 a month, to $30 to $45 in under 24 hours; triple the cost*, for get what I had expected to get with a simple email plan,. None of this is explained in any of the literature available for the consumer to browse. And all of it news to the staff who were trying to help me sort this out.

So in the end, I said no thanks and returned the device. Frankly I was less-than-impressed by the documentation and the software - enough so to make me cautious about the product itself and bout future Blackberries. But I am leery of dealing with Rogers again for this sort of service, fearing I'll get caught in one of these ugly situations where there's no help, no documentation and hidden fees that appear like goblins in a funhouse ride when you try to actually use a service.

I'll look at some other options in the future, but probably not a Blackberry. Maybe a Google or Apple phone? And likely another service provider, too (although my personal experience with Bell doesn't give me much hope they will prove any better).
~~~~~
* On the mandatory three-year contract, that's $1,620, which would buy a nice laptop with wireless capability and plenty of air time at any Hotspot you want. Or you could fly to Mexico and spend two weeks in a five-star luxury resort. Or it could buy one beautiful, custom-made ukulele and a bottle of really nice wine to celebrate it with. I have to think about these things, because I now have $1,620 more to spend now I won't be giving it to Rogers.
[/indent]