Confessions From The Smartphone Divide

By Ryan Kellett

I have a confession to make: I don't own a smartphone.

These days more than ever, my trusty flip phone feels like an embarrassment when friends ask why I'm lost in the city or colleagues ask why I haven't checked-in over the weekend. Worse still, I am now petrified of how phone disparity can tear people apart.

So when I got a chance to test the Blackberry Tour on Verizon, I had high expectations. I now could geo-tag photo uploads, access Facebook on the way to New York, bang out email on the commute home and look-up maps of where to eat. Finally, I would be able to join the smartphone gang -- technology's equivalent to the cool kids group.

But when I showed-off the new top-of-the-line Blackberry to friends, I got a universal sigh. They'd play with it for a few seconds and hand it back saying it was "nice." Even my own mother said it was just like her several-year-old Blackberry, just thinner.

As it turns out, the smartphone class has a pecking order of appeal. iPhones stand somewhere near the top in sleek and sexy. Blackberries are seen as the workhorses, silent and unattractive. Android phones are for the geeky and open source.

So with the underwhelming show of support from friends and family, I started disliking my Blackberry for all the wrong reasons. It's a solid smartphone that feels good to hold as well as type on, but I couldn't help but dwell on how the world-phone capabilities were unnecessary for the average consumer and multimedia would be so much easier on an iPhone.

I was looking for more than functionality in trying a smartphone; I was going for a lifestyle upgrade. But I also realized that "cool-factor" isn't a good enough reason to switch to a smartphone. It's superficial and downright wrong to think that your phone can change your personality and maybe even worse to think you bought the hype.

So, I'm back to the flip phone, except this time without embarrassment.