[rambo47]

I have moved away from BlackBerry multiple times and always came back.

Went to Nokia phones for multimedia capabilities back in the days of the BB 7230. Tried a bunch of different Nokias and did the same thing each time. I tried to make them more "BlackBerry-like". The only rational thing to do was go back to BlackBerry.

When the Palm Pre first came out I left AT&T and my BB Bold 9000 (which I won in a contest right here at BlackBerry Forums!) and went to Sprint. I used Treo smartphones way back before discovering BlackBerrys, and while Palm's execution slacked off terribly, their concept of a conversion device for phone + organizer was revolutionary. Especially because it was geared to the consumer, not the business user as BlackBerrys had been. They had games, other fun apps, and even did email. At the time it was really quite something, marrying the excellent Palm Pilot organizer to a cell phone. But by the time the Treo 650 was the hot model the platform had major stability issues. That's what led me to the BlackBerry 7230 and the 7105t (an all-time favorite of mine). So I had this soft spot in my heart (and probably my head!) for Palm and I bought into the hype of WebOS and the Palm Pre. I lasted just long enough to get my mail-in rebate for the Pre and promptly put it on my shelf. I ran (not walked - ran) to the nearest Sprint store and bought another BlackBerry. My relief was palpable.

More recently I bought the Samsung Epic 4G for Sprint. Very interesting device, does tons of stuff, and has a gorgeous screen that looks like a mini plasma tv. Android is fun. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting some cool new app for Android. I loved the skymap and droidsat (for pinpointing the positions of all known satellites). But the Epic was too big go be used/carried comfortably, has releavitely short battery life, and just didn't do email like a BlackBerry. I gave it a good 4 weeks or so before putting it on the shelf next to my Palm Pre and re-activating my BB 9650.

I have no brand loyalty to RIM and BlackBerrys. I continually try the latest thing, and I will probably continue to do so. But BlackBerrys just get it done for me. And while no platform is perfect, nothing else is as good for my needs. Not even close.