BlackBerry Cool

Well, it must have good fast email that I can use my exsiting email accounts with, yahoo and gmail. It must have SMS and IM for all the major IM applications. It must surf the web fast and get to almost any page I want.

A camera would be nice, but not a deal breaker. MP3 player, not to concerned about that, I have a nice MP3 play, and a camera for that matter.
Has to be a good phone, with and without a headset.
Bluetooth is pretty high on my importance list now that I have used a bluetooth headset.
I think expandable memory and flexibility in what it can do and run would be important too.
Oh, it has to look cool. And have a full keyboard preferably, although I would consider a keypad like the 7100 has if it has the same suretype logic. It can not be too big, must fit in my pocket on my cargo pants.
It needs nifty assesories too. I hate not being about to get a neat case or headset because there is nothing out there for my device.
Oh, how can I forget…. COLOR SCREEN (do they make anything without it?)
Controlable volume on sounds and on calls. The 7100 was too quite.

- Stability (doesn’t crash)

- Usable in the move (no touch screen, no mini joystick) Trackwheel is best so far

- Good keyboard

- Good battery life

- Small size. Thin is especially good.

- Flash based (no disasters when battery finally dies)

- Syncs with desktop

- Coverged messaging (voice mail, SMS, MMS, email, IM) all end up in the same place.

Smaller, thinner, lighter, but maintain the full QWERTY keybard and excellent battery life.

Are we ready … heeeeeeeeere we go.

First, off, any smart device that is going to succeed needs to be a phone first. Not a bulky mammoth of a belt weight, but a lightweight phone with smartphone features. Compare the difference when talking on a 7130 and a 7250 or Treo 650. It’s night and day. A 7130 feels like a phone is supposed to feel – easy to talk on, with complete access to calendar, address books, tasks, and notes. It should be operable with one hand, like a phone needs to be.

Necessary features in a phone, in order of importance.

1. Sync ability – over the air or over a cable, with support for Outlook, Groupwise, Yahoo, Google Calendar, etc. (somehow, a device like the Sidekick can do over the air calendar sync out of the box with a $20 one-time charge – but the Treo 650 needs Exchange Activesync to only do inbox/calendar sync? That makes no sense.)

2. Data plan price – How can Treo 650 data be $15 on Sprint, or Blackberry data be $39.99 on Sprint? How can the Treo 650 data plan be $15 on Sprint, or $44.99 on Verizon? The plans have to be consistent, and inexpensive, regardless of device.

3. Keyboard on the device – some sort of entry method of some kind. The keyboard on the 7130 is fine (although a little hard to use while driving)

3. Bluetooth for headset, handsfree, OBEX, data transfer, dial-up networking support, car sync, keyboard, and every other device – Can you imagine if you could only use USB with certain devices, even if every device had a USB port? That just makes no sense. If it’s a universal standard capable of doing everything, LET IT DO EVERYTHING.

4. Universal charger port – how many times do I need to buy car chargers for a new phone? Something should be compatible in this world. Even manufacturers change (see heading under : Motorola). Can’t we standardize on some kind of USB charger that doubles as a DC charger or AC charger with an attachment dongle? (And NO usb “trickle charge” – that idea kills me.) If it had a USB charging port, then you could probably even plug in a jump drive – BAM, you just added 2 gig of memory to your device. Just like that.

5.Headphones jack support. Can’t we just get a normal headphone jack to listen to music in this day and age? Why do we have to pretend with this “headset jack”?

That’s my list … and I’m stickin to it.

Honestly I really like my T-Mobile 8700g for the most part (I even sold off my ipaq). It has all the necessary features (when linked to a BES).
- Email, SMS, IM
- Wireless PIM Sync
- Bluetooth support (could be expanded though)
- QWERTY KB.
- EDGE Network
- Tethered modem capability
- Magmic games

I wouldn’t mind the following though to be added on:
- 3G or better – EDGE is nice but always could be faster
- SD Slot – for memory or peripherals.
- Wifi – built-in or see above
- GPS
- Camera and MP3 player would be nice but only if the SD slot is included for storage.

The perfect device will run off my body, and not require batteries. It will run off my thoughts, so I do not have to vocalize and disturbe others when I am riding the subway. It will not include music, nor a camera. Also, it will include a GPS unit, and will be able to sync up with my livejournal/myspace account and inform the interweb as to my very next move, before I take the first step in doing it.

I’ve been through a lot of devices. I redefined my needs several times.

Currently the deal breaker is the end of day profit. The device that brings the bigger ROI, either in time or money.

For this example, just came from a gathering, a birthday party for a friend’s kid. In this my 8700v was the center of attention of a small bussiness mans group… the comparision was a Nokia 6680 from a store owner…
He showed a 4 column excel sheet, using Quickoffice… that he couldn’t use in the field due to the device small screen and (lack of) ease of use.
I showed them how I iterate with my collaborators… sweet.