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I miss my BlackBerry

Filing stories, answering calls and mails, and chatting was much easier with a blackberry than with other smartphones

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Mansi Taneja
It’s been few months since I started using Samsung Galaxy Grand, after being loyal to my first smartphone -- BlackBerry for almost three years.

I didn't ever want to leave my BlackBerry which had become my companion for day and night, though I was quite dissatisfied with the never working internet on the handset (no, it was not a mobile operator problem).

The ease with which I could write my stories, respond to mails and calls, chat on BBM, even while driving, made me a BlackBerry fan.

But, I had to take a hard decision and part ways with my handset when my one-year-old son mistook it as his favourite toy, which we also willingly gave to please him.
 
Here enters Samsung, a touch phone with a wide display screen, which one can see in every other person’s hands nowadays. The internet experience is amazing, one can open a website in seconds, watch videos/movies seamlessly, search on google becomes so easy but it all came with a price, probably a lesson – Stop using your phone while driving.

You have to lift the mobile cover (which comes with the phone only) and swipe your screen before you can answer it making it difficult to attend to calls while driving. Similarly, difficult to respond to messages/chats/mails while driving as you have to give little bit of attention towards screen otherwise a simple Hi can become Ho, Sir can become sit, Eat can become ear and list goes on. And not to forget, the most strenuous part -- writing a story from my mobile phone, which my profession demands every now and then.

The struggle with touchscreen is still going on even after months. And with every mobile handset company focusing on bigger touchscreens phones, I really want BlackBerry to make a comeback, which is struggling to make its ends meet.

With competition from the likes of Samsung and Apple, the struggling BlackBerry has put its smartphone business on the block and is in talks with Cisco Systems, Google Inc and SAP about selling them all or parts of itself, according to a recent report. Few weeks back, it had also entered into a preliminary agreement with a group led by BlackBerry's biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings, to make the company private for about $4.7 billion.

Whoever buys the ailing company, I just wish they would first focus on making better handsets for people like me. And believe me, there are many who would love to shift back to BlackBerry.

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First Published: Oct 07 2013 | 1:31 PM IST

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