Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Replacing your Blackberry with another Blackberry?
I have spent some time reviewing the new Verizon Blackberrys that are running the new 7.0 operating system.
• They are much faster than the Blackberry I purchased 6 months ago.
• The browser is very usable. Finally, Blackberry has a browser that you can use to surf the Internet.
Two concerns remain:
• Will Rim, the company that manufactures Blackberrys be in business a year from now? The financial press reports Rim is not doing very well financially.
• The Blackberry Applications Library still pales in comparison to the applications library for iPhones and Androids. Will the Blackberry Applications Library ever catch up?
Browser Suggestion to Make Your Current Blackberry More Usable
I have tried the Opera, Bolt and Firefox browsers to see if using a different browser makes a difference in surfing the Internet. Here is what I discovered:
• Opera did not seem to make much difference in my surfing experience. (http://www.opera.com/mobile/download/blackberry/)
• Bolt is now my new Internet browser. The initial load of the program is longer than the Blackberry Browser, but once loaded, Internet pages loaded very quickly. Changing the preference to a split screen made the web content visible without using the magnifying glass all the time. (http://boltbrowser.com/dnld.html#BOLTbb)
• Mozilla Firefox is not available for the Blackberry, but is for iPhone and Androids.
Paying For Your New Phone
The Blackberry website has a trade in program where they will give you credit for your old Blackberry if you buy a new Blackberry. (https://tradeup.blackberry.com/en/us/web/home.html)
If you want to get cash for your Blackberry, you can sell it on the website Gazelle. http://www.gazelle.com/?utm_campaign=Brand&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=gazelle
Another Lesson on How Not to Treat Your Cell Phone
By now, we are all familiar with the indicator built into your cell phone and cell phone battery that changes to a pink color if the cell phone has come into contact with water. The most common methods of contact with water are dropping your cell phone into the toilet or forgetting to remove your cell phone from your pants pocket before washing them. Add a third method to your list: If you store your laptop in a backpack and leave the backpack outside in hot humid weather, it is possible to damage your cell phone from exposure to humidity.
Android Upgrade Report
Many Verizon customers of Android cell phones were in for a not so pleasant surprise when they recently upgraded their cell phones to the newest Android Operating System. Before the upgrade, you could individually customize sounds for voice mail, texts, and emails. The newest upgrade took part of that customization away. While you can still customize ringtones, you won’t be able to designate different sounds for emails, texts and tweets anymore.