I’m pretty happy right now. You might think I got a new toy or something (and there are some toys out there that would qualify) but mainly I just got my old and busted toy fixed.
As some of you know, I depend on my Blackberry 8700c – it’s my phone, my PDA, my email, calendar, tasks, contacts, SMS, picture browser, web browser, etc. I’ve had it for a while – another friend of mine was able to snag one for me FREE at the RIM Launching event in San Francisco – Thanx guys!
Not only do I depend on the absolutely cool unit, I love it as well. I love having one device on my belt (well, other than my SwissTool), having everything together, and having access to everything all the time – not to mention updating info/contacts and having immediate access to corporate and personal email.
However, recently I’ve had horrible cell phone reception. The blackberry data service (EDGE in uppercaps vs edge in lowercase) worked fine, and I could always send/receive phone calls, but while I’m talking to someone I had horrible volume problems and every 2nd or 3rd word was interrupted/dropped or otherwise lost, so I did a lot of “what?” in most of my conversations. And I don’t mean the type of “what?” I would say when I hear someone saying “I’m going to crawl through the phone and pull your nose hairs until I get the info I want, Mr. Hall” I mean instead of that sentence I would hear something like “I’m (burble) to cr(burble) through (burble) own and pull (burble) airs until I get (burble) all”
I attribute the bad cell stuff to the incessent dropping that the unit has suffered under my hands. I’m guessing the internal antenna has become dislodged or something so that the signal strength isn’t so good. Also, the “water damage” indicator underneat the battery cover (small square that’s either red or white) says RED, meaning, it’s seen it’s share of moisture and the phone is no longer covered by insurance. I don’t know how much I believe that sticker, but still, the manufacturer has to protect their interests too, I guess.
So now for the happy-happy-joy-joy part — I GOT A REPLACEMENT PHONE! YAY!
And ooooh, the new one is chrome instead of dark grey. Kind of looks better methinks. Plus, the CPU seems faster, but that might be because I haven’t loaded it down with all my data. Also seems lighter, but maybe it’ll get heavier when I load more email on it.
Here’s how it happened – another coworker needed a blackberry, so we ordered a new 8700c. However, the person does NOT need a phone plan with it – just the blackberry. And since my blackberry works fine as a blackberry but not-so-fine as a phone, this awesome person agreed to swap devices with me so I could have a WORKING PHONE.
THANK YOU BLACKBERRY GODS!
(plus, this person has promised me her McDonald’s Monopoly codes. How much better could this person get?)
