About 16 months or so ago, I went into my local AT&T store with a mission: I was going to enter the 21st century and finally have a cutting edge mobile phone. I wanted a smart phone. I had always been one generation behind on the phones. When texting phones came out, mine was a plain-Jane calls only. When the camera phones came out, I had one without. By the time I got a camera phone, video phones were out. You get the point.
Trouble was, I am a hater. Apple is a four letter word to me. My iPod has scars that belied its infrequent use, (though now I like it, having filled it with nearly 40 days of Old Time Radio shows and gaming podcasts) as it had no battery life. Sure, it was a first generation iPod, but hey. So into AT&T I went and gave the sales rep a mission. I want a phone that does what an iPhone does, but isn't an iPhone. My main beef with the iPhone was the biggest feature...the touch screen. When I tried to play the various games, or surf, my fat fingering of the keyboard and the screen was frustrating. The auto-correct was an obnoxious know-it-all, but never suggested the word you were trying to type. So I was directed to the Blackberry Bold 9000. It featured a physical keyboard, and a tiny little track ball. It also featured suck.
There was rather little it could do. Apps were few, games fewer, and the browser would lock up often. I was pulling it's battery at least once a week. In short, mere minutes after I got it, I hated it. The track ball would act up, on and on. So when AT&T had iPhone 3 GS for 50 bucks, I was chomping at the bit. Sure, it may be only 75% of the new 4G, but it is like night and day. I hated the Blackberry, but love the iPhone. My two favorite things about it? I have the entire series of Firefly on it, and I can put PDFs on it, namely the Twilight Struggle and Paths of Glory rulebooks, games I play online, and have packed away. Separating rulebooks from the games is verbooten, so this way I have access to them while they are safely away. A few GURPS books, and I can roleplay anywhere. If I can just get the classic D&D or Pathfinder onto it...Even the hour and a half it took me to transfer over the M.U.L.E. theme ringtone I have didn't bother me...too much.
If anyone can use a slightly beat-up, perfectly functional (for a Blackberry) phone, let me know. Free to a good home.
