For me, Blackberry 8830 wins out over iPhone

I recently made a tough (for me) decision as to buy the cool, slick, Apple iPhone on AT&T or the new but not as cool Blackberry 8830 on Sprint PCS. I have heard from many friends as well as people I trust online such as Jeff Pulver about how great the iPhone is...but I wasn't sure it made sense for me. In the end, I bought a BB 8830...here is why. First, I compared feature sets taking into account the networks:

feature	iPhone	BB 8830
Phone access	X
Email access		X
Maps / Yellow pages		X
News reading		X
Web Browsing	X
Worldwide usage		X
Message typability		X
Multimedia access	X
Price		X
Cool intangibles	X

In the end, I made the following decisions:

• I will mainly use mobile wireless access for email, maps/yellow pages, and news reading and do not need a general web browser. Email (push + speed), Google Maps (GPS + speed) and News (speed) are all better on Sprint PCS. Google maps with GPS is just a better experience. Likewise, reading news at EVDO speeds on Sprint just can't compare.
  
• I need a device I can drop a foreign GSM SIM into..something traditionally good with AT&T and bad for Sprint but not for these devices.
  
• I don't think we have advanced enough in battery technology for an iPhone to take place of two devices...and it doesn't have a hard drive or work with my docking station like my 80GB Video iPod.
  
• The tactile feedback on the BB was easier to type for me with big fingers than the iPhone. If I am going to use it for email, typability is pretty important.
  

Finally, I couldn't buy the iPhone on cool intangibles alone..and I am really happy with my BB 8830.

Now, I will be prepared to be slammed by my friends and unknown Apple followers on the internet for saying I liked something better than an Apple device. But, I thought I would, at very least, offer my evaluation so some person may gain.

Ohh, and the price thing is corporate discounts on service aren't applicable if you have an iPhone. I like my heavily discounted Sprint service.

Weekend with Anna

So, today is my last day alone with Anna while Heather is having fun with her cousins and aunts in New York City. Anna has been an angel, she slept til 7 on Friday and Saturday and 8:30 today. The activities have centered around constant motion. She has crawled everywhere, walked with her walker everywhere, and chased the puppy everywhere :-). Friday and Saturday she slept for 2 full hours each morning and afternoon. She is waking up now, which means she will have only an hour nap this morning.



Unfortunately, Anna's morning schedule this morning did not lend itself to me getting to church. By the time I changed, bottle fed, changed, and fed her solids...it was already too late for me to get to church for the 9:30 and she was sleepy around 10:15 which meant no making the 11 AM.

I did make it out of the house twice this weekend. The first time we went to Suzanne and Aaron's to celebrate Aaron's 28th birthday. It was fun, but a bit late for Anna. We started dinner around 7:20 PM and I didn't get home til 9 PM after semi-rudely running out. Thats about an hour after Anna's bedtime. We also went with Uncle John to the farmer's market and ate at the great seafood restaurant. We met Mike and Jenn there and had a good time. We also bought a couple boxes of tomatoes so Uncle John can make us sauce.

Anna was great. If only Cassie would learn from her. Cassie has been trying her best to demand my attention. She has gone potty on the floor 6 times, carpet everytime. Last night 3 times even after waking me up at 12:30 AM and 2 AM to take her downstairs to go potty. Next time, I may have to board her.

LG appliances

Heather and I recently redid our entire kitchen. We are not huge fans of the stainless steel appliances, so our choices in colors were limited from there. We felt we either had white, traditional black, or high gloss black. We decided to go with the high gloss black. After a lot of staring at the different brands, we took LG because their price, function, and style best suited our desires.

So, we have now had our LG appliances all fully installed for 4 months. A french door refrigerator with ice on the door (LFX25960), a range complete with convection and 4 burners and a warmer on the cooktop (LRE30451), a microwave which is substantially styled different ( LMVM2075), and a not fully integrated dishwasher (LDS5811).





This morning, the appliance repair man comes to our house for the second time in those four months. The first time, the dishwasher was leaking on some cycles it was running...it wasn't locking and sealing shut. The very good appliance guy quickly replaced the mother board like thing and its worked perfectly since. This was a big scare since one of the remodeling reasons was the dishwasher, which leaked and ruined our kitchen and dining room subflooring.

This time, the refrigerator periodically freezes up when using the dispenser. It works otherwise, but until it resets itself in 5 minutes or so, all you can get is water out of the dispenser. So, we are two out of our four brand new LG appliances have had some problems. However, our experience with the first repair was so good, I wouldn't not buy them again. We'll see if thats the case after this repair where we have something we can't repeat on demand.

Incidentally, we did buy all the appliances at Home Depot and have the extended warranties on everything but the microwave. Their extended warranty is a flat fee ($60 for 1 yr and $90 for 3 yr I believe), and after all the discounts we paid less than $300 for the microwave...it was odd to think about paying 20% of that for an extended warranty.

Back to blogging..

I know I have missed blogging for quite some time...but I am going to make another effort. No promises. :-)