Blackberry 8320 has arrived

Many of my initial dislikes are fading away now the machine has been upgraded from the OS4.2 that it came with to a more up-to-date OS4.5 using software of dubious provenance (or rather firmware intended for Orange Romania) -- excuse me, but why the fuck do I have to do this? Once installed the whole thing started feeling better and less like I wanted to dash kittens against a wall.

What bothers me is how such good harware can be hampered by a User Interface chimp stuck in a mid 90's timewarp. 4.2 was ghastly, 4.5 is better but it could be a whole lot better still. Who designed these user icons? Absolutely terrible! Still, better designed fonts with correct grey-metrics make it readable at small point sizes using smoothing, browser is better (though it still needs work), email client is better and cleaner interface, the software is more responsive and the whole things holds together pretty convincingly for a phone -- even feels smart for a smartphone -- which is rare. The camera, despite being 2mp, is actually OK. Good for my shots rummaging around the house.

Big bonus and one of those what the??? moments is its pretty much auto setup for UMA so I can have voice-over-IP calls using UMA while I am out of my mobile range (my location is away from the cellular network for most of the time) -- now, all of a sudden, the mobile phone has become a reasonable means of reaching me -- this completely did my head in when it was out of cell range (as we are here) the cell radio was switched off and still voice mail and calls arrived! (Better check the billing on UMA calls though)!

Despite the VoIP being a huge fuck you to the rest of the world that seems to have gone iPhone gaga -- I still maintain this is an evil device for collaring the workforce; but its actually one of the few geek orientated mobile phones that makes sense for someone like me who is most of the time out of cellular reach.