Mac +/- for Macs & Mac users, plus or minus, more or less.

I've got a Blackberry 8830 through work, so I can become the expert on Blackberry for the university.

Never used one before. Never had any smart phone before, though I used a Palm for years, and a Newton before that.

I really, really hate this phone. If I hadn't purchased an iPod Touch a few weeks before getting the work phone, I'd probably only dislike it. But I have seen the Promised Land of interfaces, and Rim could not find it with a map.

Documentation is very scarce in the box. I am a tech guy, I can spend time learning it, because it is my job to do so. But it has left me completely convinced that the typical mode of set up for this device is for the user to hand it to his or her IT person and say "Make this work."

Mark Space's Missing Sync syncing is unreliable and very very slow. And it is insulting that we have to buy software to make it work at all--the free from Rim pocketmac sw was a complete failure.

Reading anything on the tiny, overly busy screen is a pain.

It comes pre-configured with an (in)convenience button that goes off randomly, leaving my pants repeating "Say a command!" at random times.

Oh, and it's broken now, with a scroll button that only goes up, left and right. No, I didn't drop it or spill anything on it. Hopefully I can get that fixed at Alltel tonight.

Blech.

Technorati Tags: Alltel, Tech, UVa