My first smart phone was a Blackberry Tour. It was probably still the best Blackberry on the market when I "upgraded" to an Android two years later. That's the reason I didn't buy another Blackberry.
When I owned a Blackberry, they had the market cornered. Everyone who had a smart phone, which wasn't many people, had a Blackberry. I really think that the primary reason for their demise is because they were very late to the touch screen market. The reason why they couldn't recover even after they got a good touch screen phone onto the market is because a person has to know how to *use* a Blackberry. People get mad at me for saying it, but Apple and Android really dumbed down the technology to make it usable by more people, and I find that seems to be a common theme in 21st century technology. I fell prey to it at first, but I have since seen my folly.
My first Android phone was a Droid 2. It wasn't a touch screen. It was simply much more powerful than my Blackberry Tour. And it had a bigger screen. My second Android phone was a Samsung Galaxy II. This phone did have a touch screen, but I wasn't willing to give up the physical qwerty keyboard yet. It was also the biggest piece of junk I've ever owned. I smashed it with a hammer when the contract finally expired, and that wasn't nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be.
I finally decided to go without a physical keyboard on my third Android, which happens to be my current phone. That was a huge mistake.
I have come to the realization after using a device whose sole method of peripheral input is through a touchscreen that I really hate touchscreens. I think touchscreens are "neat", but beyond that, I think that it is impossible to be productive when using a touchscreen. My text messages are full of errors, and I care too much about the English language. I frequently accidentally touch buttons on the screen which causes strange things to happen. I bought a set of dishes on Amazon because I somehow managed to navigate through adding the item to my cart and going through the checkout process while the phone was in my pocket. I needed a set of dishes, so it's all good.
But the biggest frustration is trying to navigate crap. I'll be honest. I need a stylus to be able to use the touchscreen effectively. I hate accidentally clicking on the wrong link and having to wait a minute or two for crap to load so I can go back to the last screen. I hate drop-down menus, too, and that seems to be the new norm given the fact that people are realizing how hard it is to type effectively on a touchscreen. Let's not even talk about trying to enter a freaking case sensitive password with at least one capital letter, one number, and one special character.
I have made up my mind. I went away from Blackberry for no good reason than I wanted the newest and greatest technology. Smartphone technology has now stagnated considerably. They have fallen into the same trap as PCs. They started by dictating content based on the capabilities of the device. After some time, the content started to dictate the capabilities of the device, and that's really the only reason why a person would need to upgrade anymore in this day and age.
Because of all of this, I'm going back to Blackberry for my next phone. I had already made this decision before I learned that Blackberry now makes a phone that comes with the Android operating system installed. I'm not afraid of the Blackberry operating system. I actually kind of feel bad for leaving it behind because knowing all of the tips and tricks helped to make the Blackberry almost as productive as my desktop computer. However, I will probably opt for the Blackberry Priv anyway. The truth is, I really don't expect much from my smart phone. All I really want is the ability to do things quickly, and that's something I cannot do with a touch screen.
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