At the end of the Boxee board meeting this past week, co-founder Tom Sella pointed to my Google phone and asked me 'can you type a three or four paragraph email on that?'
I thought about it and honestly answered 'no, I can't.'
My colleague Eric is also trying to switch from Blackberry to the Google phone and he said to me yesterday that his email replies have suffered in the transition. I told him that mine have as well and I am compensating by reading email on the phone and tagging it for replies later. I am doing more browsing on the phone and less on the desktop. But I am doing more email replies on the desktop and less on the phone.
Last night after a long phone call on my Google phone I noticed my battery was low. So on the way to dinner I took the sim card out of the Google phone and put it in my fully charged Blackberry.
That's what I have in my hands now as I type this post on the eliptical trainer at the gym.
The quandary I am facing is the one I've always faced in the Blackberry vs iPhone debate. I cannot type nearly as fast on a screen as a keyboard. I've given the Google phone a month. That's about as long as I've ever given the iPhone
I could carry both the Google phone and Blackberry and swap the sim when necessary. I think I may do that since both have wifi connectivity and are useful as 'iTouch' type devices.
We will see. But here's how I look at it right now. The Google phone is a better mobile device for me than the iPhone. Multitasking, streaming vs file based audio, and a spare battery are key for me. But what is not yet clear to me is whether the iPhone/Google phone style device is better for me than the Blackberry. There are big compromises to make with each choice and I fear that the ability to type something this long on my mobile device may trump everything else.
As always I'll keep you posted.
