[aiharkness]

It's hard to say.

Here are some things you will want to be aware of: The blackberry is really an end-to-end system. The device is the hardware interface to the blackberry network and services. You will need a blackberry-specific data plan to use the blackberry services, and this includes the RIM-developed social apps you likely will be interested in. The good news is this data service is not on top of another mobile data plan, but instead of. But you will need it to use the RIM/blackberry data services.

Another thing is the blackberry is purpose built to be very secure. This may or may not be a problem for you, but you may find you can't do certain things or things will not be as straightforward as what you have been used to.

You'll find the browser and media apps are not as far along as the smartphone competition nowadays. If that isn't as important to you, then it probably won't matter to you.

What the blackberry excells at--in my opinion--is communication, whether voice or data (email, BBM, etc).

Lastly, if you do get a blackberry, forget what you know and take the blackberry as it is and don't assume it's another phone-PDA like you've used before.