Cool to see that RIM is going public with the much- blogged-about-already Pearl, their new multi-tasking (music, camera, expansion slot etc.) device. As a devoted 'berry-man (skip the Chris DeBurgh jokes please ;-)) and having FINALLY recently upgraded to the 8700 (more on that whole story later) I am really pleased to see them getting with the multipurpose program.

But why, oh why are they sticking with the awful phone-not-QWERTY keyboard? Unfortunately, that call means that I, for one, won't be buying. That dinky thing is a nasty way to write an email.

Shame.

Tags: blackberry, rim, pearl

I sampled the new service at a downtown location yesterday. It was easy to get online by getting a userid and password via SMS to my 'berry, though I couldn't figure out how to change either after the fact (e.g. am I stuck with the wacky randomly assigned thing in the future or can I change it?). The service was also a wee bit slow - not the connection, which was both broad and "excellent" for the time I was connected, but the speed whereby pages were being served up was very slow. Not sure what might be behind that.

All in all, it was handy and since it's free for the next 6 months, great value too :-).

Update: Sitting here at my Second Office (the *$ at the northeast corner of Yonge and King here in the Tdot :-)) back online with the Hydro service. Around me, people are having problems getting passwords and userids: upon entering their mobile numbers and hitting enter, the next page deosn't load, so they are getting nowhere. This also happened to a friend yesterday. For me, since I already have login info, I got in right away.

The signal is strong, and I am loaded and viewed a couple of YouTube videos just for the heck of it, and the Slingbox is streaming well to boot. Although, I did turn it off since there's only so much "Backyardigans" an adult should have to watch in one morning, and I had my fill at home ;-)

And as a final note, just as I went to publish this, my connection died.

So, my overall rating? Early days, so I am going to give them some slack and assume that they will work these niggles out. This is "beta" so it is not necessarily indicative of where this system will end up.

Tags: toronto, wifi