February 2009

I really appreciate good design and a good user experience, companies that really take the time and effort to make the experience good. I get annoyed at manufacturers that are sloppy about “the little things.”  I’m willing to put up with things like bulk or not-as-shiny form factor for a devices that works well.

Things that are important to me on a phone:

+ User Interface.  I care a lot about how a phone’s menus and interface works.  Simple, clean menus that are laid out logically without superfluous flash.  I never wanted a Razr phone because I really disliked Motorola’s interface and their fonts.

+ High customization.  I like granular customization options, ie. individual contact ringtones, font sizes, menu option orders.

+ Phone form. It doesn’t have to be skinny and shiny, it just has to feel good in my hand and not ridiculous when it’s pressed up against my face.  I’ve been a fan of candybar phones and never had any desire to switch to a flip phone.  I want a phone that I can toss into my bag and not be worried about it breaking or marring easily.

+ Battery life. A phone with multi-day standby time is pretty ideal for me - having to charge my device every day would be pretty disastrous because I never seem to remember to bring chargers around with me.

Things I like about my Curve:

+ UMA support.  The Blackberry handles the switch between radio and wifi pretty seamlessly.  The UMA is really handy at home since my bedroom in the back of the apt gets very poor cell reception. For me, UMA >> GPS on a device.

+ Sturdy form factor. This poor phone has been dropped a bunch of times (and a brief dive into a bowl of water) but is still ticking without any apparent lasting damage.  The keyboard is also pretty good to type on (I have slim fingers - those with larger might not agree with me.)

+ Autotext. I really like the flexibility of autotext in the Blackberry OS that allows me to create my own auto-corrections. tyu = Thank You! in a split second, very handy.

+ The Browser. Yes, I said it, I like the browser in OS 4.5.  It isn’t really important for me to be able to see image-rich websites on my mobile device. When I look something up on my phone, it’s usually because I want to find information quickly. A primarily text-based browser solves this need quite well.  The sites I visit most regularly on my device - Google Reader, ESPN, Friendfeed, Twitter etc -  have mobile sites that work just fine for my habits.

This last bit may be very indicative of how I’ve use internet on my mobile devices thus far. I don’t really use a browser for browsing. I keep a list of bookmarks of the sites that I regularly visit; I’d say that 80% of my time in a browser is on one of these sites.  Now, my iPhone friends say that all changes when you get a device with a gorgeous screen and browser like their iPhones.  Hard for me to say that it won’t happen but I don’t think that browsing the web will become one of my Top 3 uses for the device. I will probably still prefer to view my device as a tool, not necessarily something that will fill every minute of my downtime with something to do.