How Do I Choose A Phone: Journey From A Nokia 1100 To Blackberry

Editors Note: Vivek Khandelwal is a friend, well wisher and our support for covering the IIT Bombay Techfest over the past 4 years. As he moves back to Delhi working fulltime for his startup Voicetap, something has changed for him. He finally decided to move from the famous Nokia 1100 to a Blackberry Curve 3G (9300). Here, he shares his experience and more importantly shares a perspective that we believe is important to understand when dealing with the overload of touchscreens in the market.

They say – As humans, one of our key characteristics is the resistance to change. I consider myself to be one of the several living examples. I hated changing my room during my hostel days. I hate changing my schedule. I hated changing cities. For the past 23 years, objects/ devices and patterns have been static for me. But there comes a time, when existential problems are attached with such behavior. My change of mobile handset was triggered off by the very precise reason.

Having known people like annkur who have lost their smartphones in cabs and change handset as frequently as the Vodafone super week offer, I consider myself old fashioned. I have used 3 handsets over the past 6 years – including a Motorola L 6 which lasted for good 3 years, a ridiculously famous Nokia Torch (1100) and now a Blackberry 3G 9300.

The shift from a phone which did not suoport polyphonic ringtones to a phone that reads Blackberry 3G was drastic, but it was real time navigation.

Yes – the change was drastic. How and why did I choose a BB ?

There are people in this world who would swear by even the cheapest Android phone and there are Apple phans who would stand by all severely cool things of an iPhone. Here is why choosing a BB for me was a simple decision –

1. I am not a touch guy. Yes.I find touch cool but only till the time, I am playing angrybirds. Yes I am a swype fan but I can’t type on touch. There are things one needs to accept in ones life – this was one of those.

2. Qwerty – I have tried qwerty keypads of HTC, Nokia E 71, 72 – nothing even omes closer to the Blackberry keypad. Period.

3. The App Argument –  There are blogs on the web that would convince you to buy an android for the sake of marketplace. iPhone for sexy games on the app store. But here is a fact that bites hard – Do we really need  million apps to choose from? Here are a bunch of apps that I frequently use on blackberry – google maps for navigation. Ubertwitter and the official facebook app. In the past two months I have installed and deleted over 20 apps – simply because after playing with them for the first time, I never went back to them.

All said and done – there are reasons for which you will buy an android, or an iPhone or a Blackberry or even a Symbian – but just ensure the reason for buying the phone is not angry birds.

P.S – If you are used to getting emails on a per minute basis and you like typing on QWERTY – you won’t find a better phone that supports 3g and has pretty much everything you need. Also if you spend a lot of time commuting – this phone is a bliss. This post was typed on the phone during a metro ride.

Note: This is a guest post by Vivek K, views expressed here are his own.