- actually, that's an understatement. I hate the device. It's a piece of garbage. It's slow, unreliable (I'm on my third one and waiting for number four to arrive in the mail because the trackball broke on this one), and doesn't work well. I'm so glad I only had to sign a 1-year contract with Alltel for the device. Especially since they only come with 1-year warranties (2-year contracts on 1-year warrantied devices should be illegal... but those poor Canadians, 3 years is the normal contract there).However slow, unstable, and unreliable of a device the BlackBerry is, none of that is nearly as bad as a behavior I've now observed twice. "Battery Too Low For Radio Use." The first time my battery went almost dead at church and the BlackBerry shut off it's cell phone part. It didn't turn back on until it had been plugged into the wall charger for *20 minutes* - any other phone I've ever owned will work instantly when plugged in. Today, however, took the cake. I unexpectedly spent the night at my uncle's house last night - the weather was very dense fog and I saw no reason to risk hitting a deer or something when my uncle is always asking me to spend the night at his house. Of course, I woke up with a dead BlackBerry (even though I set it to radio off ["airplane mode" on other phones] before going to sleep). I didn't have the charger but I have a generic USB car charger (gives a standard 500mA USB port vs. the BlackBerry charger's 700mA output). I plugged it into that before driving home.
It took the phone just over 20 minutes before it let me turn it on. As in, get to the main menus (also add the BlackBerry's 5-minute startup time after those 20 minutes - so 25 minutes until I could see the phone menus). Guess what? "Battery Too Low For Radio Use" - this continued for the remainder of my approximately one hour drive home (I made a couple stops but left the car running just to keep it powered). Once home, I switched to the wall charger and still had another 10 minutes or so to wait until it let me actually use the device as a phone.
Now, imagine that I had a terrible accident and needed to call 911 NOW. The device should be designed in a way that I can plug it in, turn it on, and USE IT. No "battery too low for radio use" nonsense. IT'S PLUGGED IN. This is unacceptable design. And it could cost easily someone their life in an emergency situation - every second counts in many situations.
No other phone I've ever seen will leave you stranded like this. They all just let you plug them into power and just use them. Even Motorolas which won't let you charge off a normal USB port will let you plug in a USB cable and use the phone - it just won't let you charge it.
Basically, do not buy a BlackBerry. It's that simple. Not only are they expensive, slow, and unreliable - they'll leave you stranded unable to make a phone call even when plugged in in an emergency situation.
1 comments:
I haven't tried it, but calling 911 should force the radio on for the emergency call. You can also do the "Wireless Update" trick where you click on update then it will give you an option to turn on the radio.
"Of course, I woke up with a dead BlackBerry" -- why not just turn the phone completely off if your not using it and want to conserve power?
"Basically, do not buy a BlackBerry. It's that simple. Not only are they expensive, slow, and unreliable" -- no problems with my bold 9700.
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