Disappointing.
I like a gadget every once in a while. Gadgets can be fun, good company and let's face it, some of my best friends are gadgets. Actually that's not true, but I've just woken up and I'm feeling a little psychotic due to lack of sleep. What is undeniably correct is that I like fiddling with gadgetty things sometimes. Included in that category are phones - but only to a certain extent. I'm not the kind of chap who waits for the next, most exciting new cell phone to be launched - mostly because I use my phone primarily as a communication device and very little else (calendar/diary and on-the-loo entertainment in the form of a couple of mind-numbing puzzle games pretty much sums it up).
I'm also deeply unfashionable, which in this very limited context means that I prefer my Blackberry phone (with its tactile keyboard) to anything which possesses only a touch screen. I don't get along well with touch screens. My current phone has a touch screen plus a keyboard, but even that causes problems. Simply by holding the bloody thing the wrong way - or brushing against the trouser fabric - when I put it into my pocket, I'm forever switching the Wifi or the cell phone network off, dialling people I have no wish to speak to, or opening a browser window which then sits quietly using up my data plan while gently irradiating my nearby testicles. Touch screens are a great piece of technological development, but they're also a royal pain in the arse - or testicles - for someone with sausage fingers - even using Windows 10 on my laptop (with a touch screen) is fraught with peril.
The other main issue that I have with touch screen technology is its inherent lack of robustness. Touch screens do not fare well during unexpected interfaces with hard surfaces of any kind. This fragility is magnified when the screens - as they all seem to be these days - reach to the edge of the device. Almost everyone I know with that type of phone has broken a screen by dropping the bloody thing, thus incurring exorbitant repair bills or the equally heavy cost of replacing the device. This, to me, entirely negates the coolness of such thingumabobbers and doohickees. My 'old' Blackberry phone (I've had it almost two years now), by contrast, is made of the toughest substance known to science: Blackberrium. I have, over the years , made a series of unintentional attempts to destroy various models of 'berries (as we aficionados of the genre - all three of us - smugly refer to them). I have failed.
I've dropped them, accidentally thrown them, run over them with a car and even immersed them in rivers for extended periods. No matter how clumsy I have been, the little buggers have come back for more. Come back fighting, with a "FUCK YOU!" kind of attitude. I admire that kind of bloody-minded approach to the universe. I respect their refusal to be beaten by a mere sentient being and his inability to develop reliable fine motor skills. I like to think that I'd be like that if I was a phone (if it wasn't for my arthritis and persistent irritable bowel, and that other problem with my...thing). I'd certainly be shouting "FUCK YOU!". In fact, I do so - although only occasionally - already.
It is, then, with a profound sense of dismay that I see that my trusty Blackberry providers (a good Canadian company: too polite to make a profit) are now offering their latest device with a "I'm going to shatter the instant I come up against the edge of something harder than yesterday's custard." style of screen. I won't be able to use it, I just know that I won't; I'd break it beyond repair within a matter of days of opening the box and deciding to only ever use about 1% of its computing potential because all that 'app' nonsense is a load of bollocks and best left to younger and sillier people. Consequently, I feel a little like the man painting himself into a corner of the room: will there be any options left for someone like me in a couple of years? Will I be forced to buy an enormous inflated ball within which I and my fragile, flat-screen phone can safely roll around the countryside?
I'm also deeply unfashionable, which in this very limited context means that I prefer my Blackberry phone (with its tactile keyboard) to anything which possesses only a touch screen. I don't get along well with touch screens. My current phone has a touch screen plus a keyboard, but even that causes problems. Simply by holding the bloody thing the wrong way - or brushing against the trouser fabric - when I put it into my pocket, I'm forever switching the Wifi or the cell phone network off, dialling people I have no wish to speak to, or opening a browser window which then sits quietly using up my data plan while gently irradiating my nearby testicles. Touch screens are a great piece of technological development, but they're also a royal pain in the arse - or testicles - for someone with sausage fingers - even using Windows 10 on my laptop (with a touch screen) is fraught with peril.
The other main issue that I have with touch screen technology is its inherent lack of robustness. Touch screens do not fare well during unexpected interfaces with hard surfaces of any kind. This fragility is magnified when the screens - as they all seem to be these days - reach to the edge of the device. Almost everyone I know with that type of phone has broken a screen by dropping the bloody thing, thus incurring exorbitant repair bills or the equally heavy cost of replacing the device. This, to me, entirely negates the coolness of such thingumabobbers and doohickees. My 'old' Blackberry phone (I've had it almost two years now), by contrast, is made of the toughest substance known to science: Blackberrium. I have, over the years , made a series of unintentional attempts to destroy various models of 'berries (as we aficionados of the genre - all three of us - smugly refer to them). I have failed.
I've dropped them, accidentally thrown them, run over them with a car and even immersed them in rivers for extended periods. No matter how clumsy I have been, the little buggers have come back for more. Come back fighting, with a "FUCK YOU!" kind of attitude. I admire that kind of bloody-minded approach to the universe. I respect their refusal to be beaten by a mere sentient being and his inability to develop reliable fine motor skills. I like to think that I'd be like that if I was a phone (if it wasn't for my arthritis and persistent irritable bowel, and that other problem with my...thing). I'd certainly be shouting "FUCK YOU!". In fact, I do so - although only occasionally - already.
It is, then, with a profound sense of dismay that I see that my trusty Blackberry providers (a good Canadian company: too polite to make a profit) are now offering their latest device with a "I'm going to shatter the instant I come up against the edge of something harder than yesterday's custard." style of screen. I won't be able to use it, I just know that I won't; I'd break it beyond repair within a matter of days of opening the box and deciding to only ever use about 1% of its computing potential because all that 'app' nonsense is a load of bollocks and best left to younger and sillier people. Consequently, I feel a little like the man painting himself into a corner of the room: will there be any options left for someone like me in a couple of years? Will I be forced to buy an enormous inflated ball within which I and my fragile, flat-screen phone can safely roll around the countryside?
You know what, I may get one of these anyway...
Maybe there will emerge a flourishing trade in the old, used Blackberries with proper keyboards. The ones made from Blackberrium - in which case, there may yet be hope for me.
Only time will tell.
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