I’ve had my blackberry now for a few days so it’s definitely time I give a review!  

When I first laid eyes on my new Blackberry, a few different things ran through my head.  It’s small size is awesome, the chrome looks really sharp, and that black trackball looks WAY better than the white ones.  But really, when you compare it just based on appearance to the iPhone, who wins?  The iPhone is really a sleek looking phone, it’s full touchscreen looks really nice, and it’s simplicity really does look sharp.  As far as blackberry’s go however, I would definitely say this is the best looking blackberry they have made.  

I turned the screen on and I was really impressed with how crisp and clear it looks.  The colors are really sharp, blackberry has definitely stepped up their game in that area since I had my Pearl.  I went to the menu and started scrolling around, I was interested in finding out what new features and applications I now had at the tip of my fingers.  At first I was a little disappointed, it seemed like it pretty much came with just the basic stuff.  I went to the new blackberry app store right away.  I was really impressed with this.  Searching, downloading, and managing your downloaded apps couldn’t be easier.  I definitely give RIM two thumbs up for this.  I downloaded Pandora, Twitterberry, Personal Assistant, YouMail Visual Voicemail, Facebook, ad Viigo.  Download speeds were very quick, and all my new applications were easy to set up and use.  The only thing I had an issue with was Twitterberry.  It made me LED light get stuck on, and I had to do a battery removal to reset my phone and fix this issue.  No big deal though.  

Next I set up my email.  This is where Blackberry soars above the rest.  Set up is so easy.  All I had to do was enter my email address and my password, and BAM!  Email is good to go!  With my iPhone, major sights such as Gmail and Yahoo worked this way.  My work email was a completely different story, I needed to input my incoming and outgoing mail servers as well as some other information that I definitely didn’t know off hand.  With my blackberry none of that was necessary.  

Having a real keyboard is such a wonderful thing.  I did get used to my virtual keyboard on my iPhone after a while, but I definitely couldn’t type nearly as fast as I can on my blackberry.  Replying to emails on my iPhone took almost twice as long as they do now.  The only thing I miss is the automatic correction of mis-spelled words.  Sometimes it was annoying though because I would say “ur” or “lol” and it would try to change my words when I didn’t want them changed.  So while it was nice, it definitely wasn’t perfect.  The keyboard is extremely easy to type on.  The small keys are perfect for my little hands, and the fact that the alt characters are in red makes them really easy to read and find.  The black trackball is a small change but definitely a nice touch.  I remember the trackball on my pearl looking kind of dirty after a while, I won’t have that problem with this phone.  

The Browser.  Obviously, at this point in time, there really is no phone that can compare to the browser of the iPhone.  Having Safari on my phone was really awesome, especially since I browse on my phone quite a lot.  The BB Browser definitely isn’t bad though.  It is a little slow, but nothing frustrating.  It’s easy to navigate and use, I don’t mind it at all.  It’s definitely much better than the browser that was on my Pearl.  

As far as not having 3G, I haven’t been effected by this. I had an unlocked iPhone 2G, so I didn’t have 3G on there anyways.  I personally think the speeds of my phone are just fine, and I really don’t have any complaints about speed at all.  I figure once T-Mobile makes more areas 3G accessible, maybe then I will consider upgrading to a 3G device, but at this point in time I see no reason to.  

The personalization options on the blackberry seem to be endless!  While there are a few available on the iPhone, changing it’s settings seemed to make my phone run slower.  The themes for the blackberry are fun.  It changes icons, colors, and all the different screens you may encounter when using your phone.  It really makes the phone a lot of fun, and you can make it more “you” which is always nice.

In summary, I couldn’t be happier with my new Curve.  Some people think I am crazy for having switched, but honestly the BB is much more useful to me than the iPhone.  The iPhone is really great, but it kind of gets boring after a while.  The app store on there is great, but all the applications these days that are free are usually stupid games that I’m really not interested in playing.  Anything useful usually costs at least $5.