What’s Cool about a Blackberry?

There’s a bewildering array of mobile handsets and smartphones to choose from these days. You can plump for an iPhone, a Nokia, an LG, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, or Motorola - each company offering dozens of models, each with its own specs. We’re here to fill you in on one of the big names in the market – and help you decide if a Blackberry is right for you.

Models

There are several new models available right now, each with its own style, price, and target market. The big guns are the Storm, which features a huge touchscreen, and the Torch, featuring a touch screen and a slide-out keyboard. These two carry fairly hefty price tags, but the cool thing is you have cheaper options with the same great functionality, just fewer bells and whistles. My 9300 is an entry-level handset that has everything I need for work, and it doubles as my camera and mp3 player too.

QWERTY Keyboard

You should have seen my mother-in-law type a text message on her old Nokia phone. She’s old school, and she never got used to predictive text, so it took her about a minute to write ten words. Now she has a Blackberry, and now she types like a jacked-up teenager. There’s no comparison with any other phone out there, the keyboard on the Blackberry is ridiculously easy to use. Each click just feels right. See if you can get an iPhone user to say that…

Instant Messaging

This has been the cornerstone of Blackberry sales over the years. All Blackberry users can contact each other immediately and securely over Blackberry Messenger. This is a huge advantage for business users and it helped carve Blackberry’s early niche. Push notifications and low-cost internet plans make this an extremely cheap way of staying in touch with colleagues and friends.

Multi-Tasking

This is a particular advantage that the Blackberry holds over the iPhone, which has recently developed a rather clunky system for multitasking. With Blackberry you won’t waste time waiting for applications to load again and again, each one simply picks up where you left off the last time.

Social Networks

Facebook and Twitter have extremely streamlined apps on your Blackberry, which means you can now update your friends and family any time, any place. And just think - you’ll never miss another embarrassing photo or unwanted friend request again!

What are the coolest things about my Blackberry? Well, I got it free on an upgrade, I’ve got both my email accounts on it, I’ve got my Facebook account on it, my messenger, my heavy metal collection, streaming TV over 3G, lightning-fast internet and the insurance is really cheap. They don’t call it Crackberry for nothing!