My month ran up, and I had to make the decision – deal with the phone for 2 years, or just return and hope to find something that suits my needs better.. and the choice was pretty simple. I went to ATT and returned it, no questions asked – and reactivated my Pearl for the time being.
Now that I am back on my BB, there are some things I must give the iPhone credit for. The GPS/Gmaps integration is terrific. Being able to delete/read my junk mail via IMAP in Gmail – awesome. Very good call quality, as well. I don’t have any regrets, however.
Sure, my Pearl barely can run Gmaps anymore and uses cell tower triangulation. Sure, it doesn’t want to use IMAP w/Gmail.. and yeah, calls aren’t great. But most of these are going to be fixed with probably any new device, so I will make do in the short term. Oh, and yeah I was back to a crappy camera. Oh wait, I there was no change in crappiness, except now I had a flash again, and could upload photos directly to FB again after taking a shot – or send right to Google Talk, or BBM, or even Twitter, if I gave a crap about Twitter.
What’s next?
I went into ATT with the intention to change from the iPhone to the Curve 8900, and if that didn’t work for me, I could return it in a month. Well ATT wanted $300 for the device in store – which I laughed at – and left without. Last I checked my 2 years of servitude would provide me the 8900 for $99 according to their website. However, it seems I don’t have any upgrade eligibility after signing the iPhone contract that is now nullified. Hmm. ATT might be getting a phone call very soon. It shouldn’t take 4 days to revert me to my old “free agent” status.
So for the moment, the 8900 cannot be had at a price I am willing to pay. That leaves me no choice but to strongly consider the BB Tour, over on Verizon – which was released the day after I reverted to my Pearl. As it turns out, as well, I could get my service for $70 on VZW too – instead of the $85ish I pay at ATT. That’s a good chunk of savings.
That decision is still pending. For now, I have my “connection” back and can stop using SMS again.