For the last year and a half I’ve relied on my Treo 650 for mobile phone service, web browsing, corporate and personal email, ad hoc photography, and the occasional game. It’s served me well in the US, India, and Europe; I’ve even used it to blog.
But it looks as if I’m going to be switching. Amazon.com‘s collaboration infrastructure is based on MS Exchange, and VPN access is rigidly controlled. An IMAP client (even with SSL) doesn’t cut it. But they do support Blackberry‘s enterprise services, and so I think I’ll be getting a Blackberry – specifically, a Blackberry 8700c. It looks like a nice device: it’s a bit lighter and slimmer than the Treo, with a better keyboard. I have no idea how the web browser and email client compare with those on the Treo, nor how well they’re integrated with the phone client. Can I easily dial a phone number in a web page or email message? Is it possible to access both my corporate email and my personal IMAP server? I’ll find out.
The two obvious gaps are (1) fewer applications, and (2) no camera. The first probably doesn’t matter (quality is more important that quantity), but the second…? I seem to remember talk of BlueTooth-enabled digital cameras, but a quick web search suggests that only two came to market, and both have disappeared. Oh, well. So much for convergence.