Going it Alone with my Blackberry Curve

I just got back from a short vacation in Las Vegas with my family and I decided to leave my laptop at home and fly solo with my Blackberry Curve on the Verizon Network. As much as I like to always travel with my laptop, I would only be away for a short period of time and wanted to see what it would be like to rely on my Blackberry for accessing my email and the web in case I had to get in touch with clients. With the fall right around the corner, I needed to be in reach and be able to email my clients if they contacted me. As we all know Blackberry's are great for emailing and I was able to stay in touch and respond to several key email requests while I was away. While in Las Vegas I was able to look up some of the attractions using the web browser on my Blackebrry without a problem-with fairly quick response times on the Verizon network. Using Twitter on the Blackberry to keep up with things was fairly straight forward but on occasion the application did freeze my phone. Now that my Blackberry Curve is about 1 1/2 old you can sense that the processor in the Curve is under-powered, which at times causes the phone to crash. About the only thing that I wasn't able to do on my Blackberry Curve was to complete a PDF form that I needed to email to a colleague of mine. All in all, the Blackberry Curve really performed well and makes you question at times if you really need to carry your laptop when traveling. I knew that I would not have the need to do word processing or edit a spreadsheet on my vacation so going it alone with my Blackberry Curve proved to be the way to go. I would be interested in your experiences using your smartphone in lieu of toting your laptop or netbook with you.

Moving to the Blackberry Curve

With my 2 year contract up with Verizon it was now time to take the plunge and move up to a Smartphone. As much as I would have liked to have a iPhone- I'm just not sure that the ATT's coverage is as good in the mountains of New Jersey as is Verizon's coverage. So I stayed with Verizon and waited for the release of the Blackberry Curve complete with a 2 Megapixel camera. After using it for a week I am very impressed with its features and functionality. I have been a long time Palm user and have enjoyed the ability to enter contacts and keep my schedule up to date. My first challenge was to move my contacts and calendar from my Macbook. Research in Motion makes PocketMac available for Mac users which allows you to Synch your tasks, calendar, and contacts from your Mac. After initially having a false start, I did some research to find that there was a new driver for the newer Smartphones. Once I installed the driver I was able to use Apple Synch technology and I was able to move all of my contacts and my schedule to my Blackberry Curve. I now have a very powerful phone complete with internet and email capability along with my contacts and schedule. I can now synch my Curve with my Mac with confidence.

The Curve is a very powerful smartphone with its true strength in the area of emailing. It was a cinch to set up my email accounts on the Curve and within seconds I was receiving my emails from three different email accounts. The Curve easily opened my PDF's and Word attachments which I could zoom in to read. My only disappointment is that the latest version of VZNavigator-Traffic Enhanced, which I recently blogged about does not currently run on the Curve. When I called Verizon they informed me that it would be available but there was no time frame given for its release. While I can use the older version of VZNavigator there are a lot of missing features which I really enjoyed using. Having a larger screen on the Curve makes using the VZNavigator much more enjoyable. So far using the Curve has been a very pleasant experience and having access to GPS, internet, email, contacts and schedule in one package has really been wonderful!

GPS Navigation on your Mobile Phone

I came across this article today and had been thinking of doing a post on my use of VZNavigator service on my cell phone. I have been a user of VZNavigator for nearly two years and would not be without it. VZNavigator provides turn by turn navigation on my GPS enabled cell phone and is a service of Verizon Wireless. While the screen is small, VZNavigator uses the most of the real estate and provides great visual feedback as you are driving. VZNavigator provides you with a high quality voice with full text to speech as you proceed on your route. If you make a wrong turn VZNavigator will quickly recalculate your route and get you back on track. VZNavigator provides you with the distance to your destination and how much time it will take you to get there. While there have been times when I thought about buying a standalone GPS unit I have deferred the purchase thinking about one more gadget that I need to feed. Having my cell phone on me all of the time gives me reason to continue the service. It is convenient and works. In addition to providing turn by turn directions you can search for points of interest and have VZNavigator map where you are. In the past couple of months VZNavigator has included tighter integration with the web which allows you to access your Favorites as well as add new addresses to your Favorites list via the web and have it synch with your phone. This is a powerful feature and one that makes it easier to enter new addresses to navigate to. I usually go to the VZNavigator web site at the beginning of the week and enter any new addresses via the web site and then synch it with my cell phone. While VZNavigator costs me $9.99 a month I for one feel the service is well worth the expense. It is incredible how empowering it is to have GPS on your phone and have access to it 24/7.

JANUARY 2, 2008

According to a survey conducted by Leo J. Shapiro and Associates, US mobile phone users ranked their desire for GPS navigation on their devices higher than Internet access.

In the survey, 24% of respondents wanted their next mobile phone to be GPS-capable, and only 19% wanted Internet access.

Mobile phones today occupy a small share of the GPS market.

Only 6% of GPS-device owners had a GPS-enabled phone, compared with 51% who had portable GPS devices and 39% who had GPS devices in their cars.

But global positioning systems may bypass the early-adopter stage.

"Our research is finding the purchase and use of GPS-enabled devices is not confined to segments of the population in which 'early adopters' are generally concentrated—the young, highly educated or affluent," said Owen Shapiro of Leo J. Shapiro and Associates.

"Today's GPS-enabled devices are being widely adopted among the middle-aged and elderly," Shapiro said.