This past week, I experienced what techno-phobes must feel when they receive a laptop loaded with features, more than they can imagine they would want or desire to learn. It was an instinctual revulsion, a sense of “wrongness” that permeated every interaction with the “new” 8700c Blackberry that AT&T mailed me–at my request, no less.

An Aside: Through this whole story, AT&T support was great! Thanks to AT&T for their awesome support!

As I opened the package, hooked it up and transferred information from my old SIM card to the new device–and if I didn’t, no problem, since I could just sync with my Macbook’s addressbook–I continued to feel it…this isn’t for me, it’s not right.

At first, I thought it was the lack of a camera. As everyone was voting, they captured their act of freedom with video and still images…but I couldn’t do that with my new Blackberry. An 8700c, I received it for “free” as part of my 2 year re-enlistment with AT&T. As I researched it more and more, I like to think it was the best technology had to offer in mobile communication devices–for the year 2005. I ordered a case for it ($14) from Amazon, and it arrived last Friday. But my disenchantment continued, even as I signed up for Blackberry services at $30 a month and realized I couldn’t archive media (images and video) on the Blackberry easily.

The benefits of Bb? Installation of Twitterberry, which actually enabled me to Twitter. Installation of Mobile Gmail, which enabled me to check my email on the fly. But then, I realized something horrible…I didn’t get that many tweets and the flood of emails I expected to handle slowed to a trickle when received and dealt with, one at a time, punching the built-in keyboard with my thumbs, one slow idea at a time, old lessons I learned from a Palm Tungsten C came back to me…and the pain in my wrists and arms intensified.

With the slow realization that I continued to crave a regular phone, one with simple pleasures of punching a few numbers on a too small keypad, the ability to take a photo, record a video and email it to Flickr or Picasa, I pulled my SIM card out, like removing the key from a wind-up toy, and carefully placed it in an old phone from 3 years ago. Like an old friend, the phone lit up, grateful to be found useful. I embraced the iPod Touch as my mobile wireless device to check work email, abandoned my camera, and dropped the diminutive phone in my pocket…I didn’t miss the Blackberry once over the past 3 days.

When the Blackberry’s replacement arrived today, waiting on my doorstep like an abandoned child in a brown box, I picked it up with some reluctance. Would my new phone measure up to the simplicity I craved?

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