Here’s a quick unedited unboxing of the BlackBerry Bold 9900 by AT&T.  It’s rough, I didn’t get a chance to edit it but enjoy my Spielberg level video.

I have to say, I know a lot of people are down on BlackBerry these days but this is a great device.  It’s slick, responsive and incredible to look at.  The battery lasts for at least 2 days and the keyboard is a pleasure to use.  I’m truly suprised at the level of responsiveness of the touchscreen as well.  If you’re traveling internationally I highly suggest using a BlackBerry to keep your data consumption down to a minimum.

My only single gripe at this point is that Google and BB have not yet been able to get the read/unread status of your email in order.  No matter what I do I can’t get the bloody email to sync its status.

Anyways, if you’re considering getting a BlackBerry I recommend this one.  Go get it.

I’ve been an iPhone 4 user since June and 1 of the things I’ve missed from my Android days was dictating SMS and email by voice.  When Siri was announced and subsequently launched I was trying to convince myself I don’t need the 4S.  Well I don’t, but the Siri commercials and potential things I could use it for are huge.  So when I saw a video about SpeakToIt a few minutes ago I got really excited, not for me but for my Android using friends.  It’s similar to Siri in many ways, it uses natural voice commands.  I was able to compose SMS and send them, I added events to my calendar and checked the weather.  I will say it’s not nearly as polished as I imagine Siri to be, but neither was Siri until it got bought by Apple and got the Steve shine.

Anyways go check it out, you can search for SpeakToIt in the Android Market or visit their website www.SpeakToIt.com.  By the way, this isn’t a paid post, I’m truly impressed and wanted to share with all of you.

Josh Brooks “The Boss” at Postcard On The Run talks about his app that takes the pictures on your phone and turns them into physical postcards and mails them for you.  I’ve been infatuated with this idea for years and think it’s absolutely ingenious.  I have so many family members that can’t, won’t or don’t use the web and emailing them pictures is useless (if they even have an email address).  So Postcard On The Run fills the huge gap.  They have an app for Android and iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) that will take your pictures and turn them into a postcard, allow you to write a note by typing or with your finger, to make it more personal.  You can also include a map of where the picture was taken.

Josh also has some other amazing features that I can’t talk about yet but will be built in soon that will make it an even better app.  I’m so impressed and want to wish Josh the best of luck.

This blog post is quite late but none the less still appropriate.  I’ve had the BlackBerry 9780 for a few months now and want to share my thoughts on it.  This isn’t going to be a traditional review like most others, I’m just going to tell you what I like and dislike about it.  But essentially I liked it and would recomend it to someone who wants a good BlackBerry but doesn’t want to spend the big bucks to get the new 9900.

First off for the positives:

• It’s a BlackBerry so it obviously has a good keyboard.  It’s not the best I’ve used, that would go to the Nokia E6 or E71, but it’s pretty darn good.
• I like that it has a flash I can use as a flashlight (torch for my British friends) with the proper app.  But that’s something that should come built in to the phone from day one, it shouldn’t need a 3rd party app to be done.
• The screen is really nice, well at the time it came out I really liked it, it’s a bit dated now but none the less it does the job without a doubt.
• UMA is a life saver in my home/office.  It’s on the T-Mobile network in the US that seems to work everywhere but in my house even though the coverage map says it should.  So UMA makes it useable allowing voice and data to go over my wifi versus the TMO data network.
• Reception is surprisingly good though in my home even without the UMA, I’m still able to make calls but they do break up sometimes, where as on my Android phones I can’t even make a call.
• The feel of the 9780 is a bit bulky but very solid in my hand.  You won’t forget it’s in your pocket like you might with a BB Curve but if you like to FEEL your phone this is the way to go.
• Most importantly for me is the email, it is race car fast and always shows up.  If email appears on my iPhone or computer before the BB I think for a second, Is the BB broken? Yes it’s just that fast.
• Data consumption is minimal on this beauty, just like every other BB I’ve ever used.  I only used 35mb of data even installing new apps and syncing my expansive address book.  On other phones I can easily burn through hundreds and hundreds of mega bytes of data but the BB has never gone above 35mb.  This is key when traveling and potentially roaming in foreign countries where you are charged on a per MB basis from your carrier.  I personally use a Tru sim when I go abroad.  It’s literally saved me almost $40 on 1 single week long trip.
• Lastly and almost most importantly is battery life.  I’m a sucker for a good battery, something that will go the whole day, into the night and maybe even into the next work day.  Having kids I feel it’s a necessity to always be reachable and the excuse “my battery died” doesn’t help when your wife is calling frantically.  It’s also important when you’re jumping from airport to airport all day with no time to stop and play the iPhone game I like to call “Where’s the closest outlet?”.

I only recently heard the news that Steve Robertson is taking over as the new Tru CEO.  I have a long history with TruPhone as they used to be known and want to take a few words to let people know who might be reading about them for the first time who and what they are.

TruPhone started somewhere around 2005 as a mobile VOIP company that morphed over the years into an international roaming sim company as well as an app service for making VOIP calls with a little IM mixed in there.

I’ve focused a lot on their international sim over the years because that’s what has interested me the most.  It’s basically a sim you can get a US, UK or Australian number with and use it in over 220 countries world wide.  In the last year they’ve launched a BlackBerry sim as well which I’ve now used in at least 5 countries that I can think of.

Their big kicker is that you get better rates then if you used your local sim roaming abroad and I’ve always found this to be true.  I’m a big advocate of saving money and making my life easier and their sims have done just that for many many people.

I hope Steve can continue on this path and expand take Tru to the next level.  I know it’s hard and Tru in many cases is doing what no one else has done before.  Good luck to Tru and to Steve and I look forward to seeing big things in the next few months.

I’ve been writing about Truphone since 2007 and I suspect using it even longer.  I was called the biggest Truphone fan by Ewan MacLeod back in 2007 or 2008.  I wish I could remember when they launched but boy oh boy was it amazing back then. Fast forward 5 years (I’m guessing) and you know what I’m using now?  A Truphone (now called Tru) sim and you know what, they are a legitimate MNO, mobile network operator.  They have their own towers and everything, small as it may be, it’s growing.  Well their sim card has evolved and changed and I think I’ve had every iteration of it.

Just days before I left for MWC ’11 back in mid February I was graced by a new sim card.  At the time, from my understanding it was 1 of only a dozen or so in existence.  Well the beauty of this sim card was not that it could make calls, use data or send/receive SMS but that it could do all of that IN A BLACKBERRY.  Yes that’s colossal news.  It’s the first time that I’ve known any international roaming sim to support BlackBerry use.  I could be wrong though. Anyways, I was in a BlackBerry phase and couldn’t imagine going to Spain without using my BB as usual and this sim made that possible without incurring ANY roaming charges.  This was amazing, I tested the sim before I left the US and it worked great but the real test was going to be on the ground in Barcelona and low and behold it worked just as it was supposed to.

This new sim in my opinion opens up a whole new angle for Truphone, they can now go after the business user who is tied to a BlackBerry.  I had a very nice set up for the week I was gone.  I had my Phone.com (a client) phone number forward to my US Truphone number so I could receive calls like normal.  I got all kinds of business calls while I was there without ever skipping a beat in service.  And to make calls I used a combination of my Truphone sim plus I was running the Phone.com Mobile Office app which allowed me to make calls using just a tiny bit of data via my Truphone sim.  It is a setting in the Mobile Office app that sets the app to call back your phone versus calling through.  It’s not complicated and saves a ton of money.  I had the best of both worlds using Phone.com and Truphone. One of the nicest parts about the Truphone sim is that you get 2 phone numbers, 1 US number and 1 British number.  I used my Phone.com number for business but was able to give my UK number out so friends in Europe and England could call and text me on it for cheaper then to a US number.  Europeans are much happier to call a UK number and Americans feel the same way about calling a US number.  And in my testing I could receive text messages on both Truphone numbers. There are many more benefits to the Truphone BlackBerry sim but I won’t go into all of them.  I will say thank you to Truphone and give their service and sim card 2 very big thumbs up (as usual for them).  It worked for me flawlessly and I can’t imagine traveling without it ever again.  If anyone travels abroad much I would even suggest transferring your regular cell number to Truphone and just use their sim all the time.  Check the rates in your country but it’s definitely something to think about.

So I’ve had the Sprint LG Optimus S for a few weeks now.   My first impression was this is nice and small. Then I started playing with it and I couldn’t stop using it. I made it my own for a few weeks and took it everywhere with me. I don’t always do that with review phones but I really like the Optimus.

A few weeks later my wife’s best friend needed to get a new phone and service, I had my Optimus with me at her house and let her play with it, she was coming from a really old smart phone. She loved the color, simplicity but depth of Android 2.2 and everything else about the device. Within a week or so she and her husband had switched from their previous carrier and they both got LG Optimus’s.

The low down is that the Optimus has great battery life, it was able to last a full day with out having to top up the battery during the day which is a big deal for me. It runs Android FroYo 2.2 which includes some amazing features including turning your phone into a wifi hotspot. The camera is adequate, nothing to write home about but it does have a dedicated camera button to activate the camera as well as take the shot.  Being Android the Optimus has access to the tens of thousands of Android apps on the Android Market.

The biggest thing on most peoples minds is the price. The Sprint Optimus is one of those phones that may change Android forever. It is a reasonably specked phone but what’s game changing about it is that it’s only $50 from Sprint at the time I got it. Now it’s selling for $20 at Sprint. What’s great is that that’s what you pay when you get the phone. It doesn’t look like there’s any mail in rebates. The reason this is a game changer is because it is a very capable Android smart phone in a price range that many people can afford. I would imagine this is very appealing to parents buying their kids a phone as well as young and old alike who want a phone to do it all at a reasonable price point.

I have personally recommended this phone to a handful of Sprint customers and even got a few friends (I mentioned above) to switch carriers just to get this device. It’s that good. Yes if I’m telling my friends to get it I really do feel that way and am not just paying lip service to Sprint or LG.

Have you used it? What do you think? Let me know.