I already know I am going to catch hell for writing this one. You see modern technology is no longer an area of acceptable opinion, it is now in the realms of politics and religion. Quite sad really.
In the few days since I got the Blackberry Classic I have had many conversations that begin with the line, “why would you want to use a Blackberry when the iPhone is much superior?”
Here in lies the problem with modern web based journalism in the tech arena. It concludes that since it isn’t an iPhone or an Android, then it is a joke. This assessment couldn’t be further from the truth. It is like saying that if someone votes Democrat or Republican, then in turn they are a bad person, when it has nothing to do with the strength of their character. This dichotomous viewpoint hurts us all and is more polarizing than the vote cast at the ballot box altogether. But I digress…
Reviews of the Blackberry Classic were, well…. not so good. Often based off the measurement that it was…. “not an iPhone.” However, therein lies the beauty of this phone.
I picked it up because I look back on the days where I could run through the airport and fire off emails and texts without so much as even looking at the screen. At heart, I just love the keyboard. A part of me yearned for the fact that the Classic doesn’t do a ton other than emails, texts and… wait for it… act as a phone. If you want to play games, forget about it. If you want to replace you camera with it, forget about it. That is the beauty of it.
Said quest for a return to the golden age of having a good cell phone came when I started to find that, as much I wanted to believe otherwise, cameras on phones just aren’t close to having a proper camera, even a small one. What makes a camera like the Nikon 1 V3 so great is that it wasn’t made to be a phone, it was made to be a camera. Now there are always advantages to having a camera with you (i.e. on the phone), but as time has gone by, I am more willing to watch those experiences with my own eyes, rather than document them with a phone just because it has a camera.
Which brings me back to my initial point. I got a Blackberry Classic because I missed having just a phone. Yes, I still have an iPhone, it is fun to have options for things like vacations. However, The Classic is my go-to phone because it helps me get work done and nothing more.
Moving forward, our jobs as humans should be to not hate something quickly because the internet says it’s uncool. In doing so, you are limiting the amount of possibility that exists to you. Whether the review is genuine or a secretly paid bias (see John Oliver’s segment about Native Advertising here), it is still just one person’s opinion. However, if you take the time to look further into something, whether it be phones, tv’s, heck even camera gear, you may find that your needs differ and that said item is important to you.
At the end of the day, the difference between a person with an iPhone, Android or Blackberry is not determined by the phone in hand, but rather the hand that holds the phone.