Blackberry -vs- Treo

I am not the most tech savvy girl in the world, but I realized earlier this year I had a serious need for a PDA (no, not public displays of affection - I get enough of that). I needed a mobile unit that would let me get my phone calls, emails and text messages all in one spot. I also needed a good calendering system as Chris and I kept booking gigs (concerts, cultural events, parties) on top of each other - so we needed to sync up.

After lots of research, including polling of friends and business associates, we chose the Treo 650. To make the most of it, we both bought new phones and signed up on a family plan through Cingular. We thought we were so smart.

The first week was nothing but love with this new technology. It was like being at a Macy's shoe sale every day of the week. I loaded in my contacts and updated my calendar - oh the fun I shall have learning how to use this thing.

Then the calls started dropping and the Web would never connect even though I was paying $40 per month for the service. Add the screen freezing up on me constantly and I was ready to throw this piece of crap off the roof of our building. Of course, it did not help that we had serious billing issues with Cingular, but that is a story in of itself, so I will keep on topic today. You should be ashamed of yourself Palm - this was not ready for public consumption - especially not at the price tag we had to pay.

Five months later and the calls are still dropping, the Web is shotty at best (kills me how slow it is) and the screen freezes regularly so I have to pull the battery out to jump start it. Technical support at Palm? Nope - they are not interested. They place blame on Cingular and Cingular - places blame on Palm. Whatever happened to the buck stops here? Won't someone be accountable?

Chris and I were lamenting over our error in judgement at dinner one day and I mentioned moving over to the BlackBerry. Most of our friends either have the BlackBerry or the Treo, so we have a 50/50 chance of having a better experience.

I started checking out the features on the new 8700c, shopping for the best price as well as a new cell phone plan as I hate Cingular as much as I hate Palm right now. Then I read the article in eWeek about the patent suit Research In Motion (makers of the BlackBerry) is embroiled in with NTP. Seems there is a very good chance that Research In Motion is going to lose the email capability which is something I need to start using regularly. Darn. Just when I thought I had a good alternate. I am finally getting used to being 'connected' and it looks like I might have to keep my Treo afterall.

So it leaves me thinking life before all this modern technology came into the picture isn't sounding so bad right about now...

Note: I am not linking to either Palm or the Treo 650 as I do not want to encourage additional product sales for them. Unless of course, they pony up some decent tech support for me, then we can talk.