Blackberry

My new favorite possession is the Blackberry I bought right before my birthday this year. I had been unhappy for some time with my then-current phone, so I decided it was time for a change. Sure, a Blackberry is pretty expensive, but I knew that many people had them and loved them. After looking at several different phones, I had pretty much made up my mind that the Blackberry was for me. I have Virgin Mobile phone service, and since they had a Blackberry for what I deemed an affordable price and an affordable plan, I got it.

The one issue for me with buying a phone plan is that I'm not particularly talkative when it comes to phones. I feel that texting can be much more efficient at times, since most things that I need to talk to people about only require a short answer. Plus, I can't always engage in a full-on conversation at work; that would be inappropriate. But for a question that doesn't require an immediate answer, and can be posted in a certain amount of characters, texting is perfect. So I was able to find a plan with unlimited texting and a fair amount of anytime minutes. I may not be talking for hours a day, but I at least need some to make all the calls I have to make in the course of the day.

The other major perk for me was the many applications that Blackberry offers to its users. Facebook and Twitter were a must for me, since I like to keep in touch with what's going on in social media. If someone posts to my Facebook profile, or else comments on the same feed I did, I can find out instantly on my phone. An icon appears on the desktop to let me know how many notifications I have, so I can check them at my convenience. And with a full keyboard, it's simple to post statuses and Tweets without having to sit down at a computer. (And since our Internet access at work is heavily blocked, if I want to post something online from work, I can easily do so from my Blackberry.)

One final perk that I have enjoyed so far is the camera feature. The camera on my old phone was good, but took small, fuzzy photos. This camera takes full-size photos with great resolution, and can store hundreds of them. Plus I now have a video feature that was not available on my old phone. These photos and videos are easily accessible, and easily shared via e-mail, text, or uploaded to Facebook/Twitter.

All in all, I'm glad I made that investment to get the Blackberry. There are still many, many things that I have yet to learn, but I try to figure these things out as I go along! The features I would like to better utilize would be the calendar (right now I only have people's birthdays and my mostly constant work schedule), Twitter (I post to and check Facebook almost exclusively right now; it's the one I'm more familiar with and used to), and the Internet browser. Until such time as I can completely master all the features, which I don't expect to be any time soon, I will just muddle through with what I know. For now, that's plenty, and I'm enjoying the new conveniences of having a "smart phone."