[aiharkness]

Stepped away from buying device from carrier. I don't buy my appliances from the electric company. Carrier is a carrier. If electric company forced me to use their device, I would learn to do without a refrigerator. Air conditioning would be tough. I might have to move.

Bought unlocked, unbranded Passport direct from Shop BlackBerry. T-Mobile, BYOD, no contract. Best decision I ever made.

As far as BlackBerry's mistakes, they made a bunch and they are still making them. I think their biggest mistake was letting the carrier's define and dictate the mobile business and the constraints on mobile, then letting Apple come along and show everyone it didn't have to be that way, all the while expecting Apple to fail while BlackBerry's ideas of constraints on mobile turned out to be wrong.

Now BlackBerry is stuck with a reputation, most users thinking the brand went under years ago, and the rest too embarrassed to have their peers see them using it, and BlackBerry devices running Android probably will not be enough to turn things around.