2 Years of BlackBerry

Today marks the 2nd year since I bought my first BlackBerry.


2 years ago on this exact day, and roughly the same time in fact, I bought my first BlackBerry at Serangoon Nex shopping mall. It was a BlackBerry Bold 9000 (non camera variant) which I intended to use while doing my National Service. Being my first BlackBerry, it took a while to get used to it, and explore what it could do. After a few weeks with it, I fell in love with it. The way unified inbox worked, bringing in items from SMS, Call logs, emails, WhatsApp, BBM, Facebook, and Twitter. The awesome physical keyboard that was absolutely a joy to type on. The way you can precisely select text and scroll using the trackball. The way you can use keyboard shortcuts almost like you would a computer keyboard. The sound the speakers produced. It was freaking awesome. The navigation of the OS was fast and precise using the combination of the trackball, end call, home key, and back key. Smartdial was super convenient. I could go on and on. There were so much I love about it.


But at that point in time when I got the Bold 9000, the Bold 9780 had been out in the market for a while already. But I was a BlackBerry noob back then, and just went with the cheapest, thinking that I would only be using it for the period of my National Service only. But little did I know, I ended up loving it, and realising how well it suited my needs. I got a Bold 9900 + PlayBook half a year later when it launched here in Singapore.

After a while I decided to try out other BlackBerry models, to see how they were. By my count today, I have used a 7230, Bold 9000, Bold 9650, Bold 9700, Bold 9780, Bold 9790, Bold 9900, PlayBook, Curve 8900, Curve 8520, Curve 9300, Curve 9320, Curve 9360, Storm 9530, Torch 9810, Torch 9860, and of course the Z10. This is just for different models, and not including the multiple device of the same model, camera and non camera variants. Counting unique BlackBerry Pin, I probably have more than 30, but really, I lost count.

Which really shows how much of an addict I am. I also had devices from other platforms during this period, such as iPhone 4, iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, LG Nexus 4, Xperia Sola, Lumia 610, Lumia 800, and Lumia 520. (What can I say, I’m a huge mobile junkie) But I always went back to my BlackBerry device after a while. Nothing did worked as well for me compared to BlackBerry devices. I know, because I have tried all other major platform out there.

Even before the launch of BlackBerry 10, I always had faith in the company’s products. Even though BBOS was an aging platform and didn’t have as many apps as compared to other platform, their devices always had a focus. There are things within their products that makes me go “How the hell did I go without this for so long?!” Little surprises here and there that I didn’t even knew I needed so much. Features that made my daily routine so much easier, and could not live without now.

Now that BlackBerry 10 has been out for a while now, with Z10 and Q10 launched in multiple countries, and the Q5 in Dubai, I am more confident in the company than ever. I see a lot of potential in BlackBerry 10. It is still not quite there yet, but at the speed and direction that they are going, I have no doubt that they will be there sooner rather than later.