My Blackberry Bold

I have been fortunate to have a cell phone since the days of the clunkers. Never in my wildest dreams could i have predicted the evolution leading to today's smart phones. I have to begin this rant with a shout out to the website that started my addiction, http://crackberry.com/. I was looking around the web at smart phone reviews and was leaning towards the Iphone but after the reviews and thinking it would drive me crazy to type on a touch screen bouncing around in my truck. I found the crackberry web site had awesome reviews with video's from opening the box it was shipped in to some of the features of the BB Bold. The thing that I liked about their review was they told me what they liked and especially what they didn't like about the Bold. Since this was to be my first Blackberry I now had a list of short comings to decide if I could live with or not. I started looking at carriers and anybody with a Bold from AT&T had to pay $299.99 and got a rebate for $100.00. I'm thinking I want one but that a big investment for a phone. I googled Blackberry Bold and saw a link to http://wireless.amazon.com/BlackBerry-Bold-9000-Phone-Black/dp/B001JEOV8S/ref=bs_dp_ph_7 and It's price surprised me $99.99! I'm know there has to be a catch so I scour the info and its the exact same as the one from AT&T and now the entry fee is $200.00 less. I ordered it and signed up for a plan I could live with from AT&T and it arrived the day I was leaving to do a Seattle run. My wife had to drive 35 miles so I could have my new toy. I looked today and Amazonwireless has the Bold 9000 for $124.99, enough to make you wonder why AT&T charges more. The good folks at crackberry were right about the shortcomings of the Bold. 1.Browser ( I couldn't agree more it sucks but I use my laptop on the web.) 2.Battery (crackberry forums have alot of tips for this problem.) 3.Application storage space. I started searching for the cures. I started by reading the forums at crackberry again and decided to try a few browser apps and see if it improved the speed. No success and I tried at least 2 different recommended mini opera and viigo. My first pc on the web was so much faster with a 28k dial up modem. So i gave up and deleted those to save space. Now to the battery problem i went to www.amazon.com and searched for the Bold accessories and found a 2500mah battery for $26.99 including snail mail shipping. The standard battery for the bold is 1700mah. I wasn't sure I would like it because it came with a thicker back cover since it's almost twice as thick as the standard. It turned out to be a good choice I have had it fully charged and twittered for over 14 hours snapping pic's and posting them on Twitter and constantly reading and updating. This is at least 4 more hours than I could get out of my standard battery. The thicker cover will fit in the stock holster, but its a tight fit and the screen off feature doesn't work. I use a windshield mount while I drive, the thickness doesn't matter. The last thing I had to try to fix was the application storage problem and once again crackberry forums showed me how. I like to play with alot of apps and themes(free is my price)and found a solution. For $9.99 I bought the Aerize card loader from crackberry. The reviews were mixed but I couldn't find a better solution. So after they emailed me the link to install and getting it running on my Bold i was lost the documentation was poor at best. Eventually I figured it out. You had to uninstall the apps and reinstall them to get them off the BB's Memory and onto my 8gb micro card. The following is a review I wrote up for a guy that was gripping about the lack of storage space on his BB. I have the Aerize card loader from crackberry.com, it doesnt load apps from BB Appworld but if i can find the app somewhere else i can install the program on my 8gb mem card, luckily I got this before too many apps because I had to uninstall then reinstall apps to the card but i have a place now for almost unlimited app.You can save themes there too, over all its the best 9.99 i have spent on my BB Bold!!