Should I Go To The Dark Side (iPhone?)

My contract is up and I am sorely tempted....

To move to the iPhone when I have been a dedicated Crackberry user from the early days of the Mobitex network and rare connectivity. From the machine that was really a glorified Beeper to the advanced tool Millions know and rely on and of course are addicted to.

I actually spent a personal day out of the office yesterday - I went up to Canada with some friends and had a great time enjoying the Olympic pre-activities. If you are going anytime in the next 4 weeks - Vancouver is a blast. But I digress.

I counted the number of times I actually looked at the blackberry. I have it set to buzz when new mails or texts arrive. I am not a huge fan of the voice side of the device but accept it. Also I broke the back of the machine (a Bold 9000) within weeks of getting it. I also had the people I was with count me. We did several checks during the day - it became a bit of a game. I was astonished that by the time I arrived back home here are the statistics.

Inbound Calls - 8
Outbound Calls - 10 (plus 4 that the others needed to use because their voice plans didn't support calls from Canada).
Inbound emails 170
Photos taken - 85 (with Blackberry only - many more with my other camera).
Outbound new mails 10
Outbound replies 30
Number of times looked (from 0700-2400) 142. (Give or take about 5%)

I guess this makes me very sad or addicted or probably both.

So returning to whether or not I should move to the Dark Side and get the iPhone. I know a lot of people who love it. However there is the real darkside to it. The cost.
Data Roaming charges are frankly appalling. $15 per MEGAByte. So I asked a colleague to show me his data usage for the iPhone in the USA. On average he was using for apps and email about 200MB a day. Extracting about 80% for the email. (My BB data usage is about 250MB for the emails a day and I rarely use if for surfing). So at that level 20MB a day it would cost me $600 per day in roaming charges. OUCH!!!! And this is just for Canada.

The numbers for Europe and Asia are also pretty hard.

So I considered alternatives. Getting Pay as You Go iPhone agreements in different countries. I am regularly in 4 countries (UK, FR, DE and US) it becomes too hard. The sheer laziness of me (and others I am sure) to swap out SIM cards (and of course its not exactly easy) makes it just too hard for benefit.

Thus since there is no data plan that works for me anywhere on this planet - i am left with very few options. t-Mobile has a great plan for international roaming for BB. $59 all you can eat email. AT&T is $10 more.


So this is where I will sit for now - I am not going to be going to the iPhone.

So today - I will be off to get a new Blackberry Bold 9700.

I will just have to carry on eying with a degree of envy those cool apps on the iPhone....

Cheers