BlackBerry Pearl
It was love at first site when I met this BB. Her slender frame, sensible predictive text/full keyboard compromise, bright colour screen, built-in camera and mp3 player, and that pearl, O that salacious pearl. I even downloaded a program (before “apps” we called them “programs”) that could fine tune its colour. I made the pearl glow pink. It was truly a smart phone.
How things have changed. That pearl, once my favourite thing to rub with my fingers (after your mom, of course), became a nuisance. It got gunked up with schmutz, and would make erratic choices about where it put the cursor. As though the phone was saying: “Let’s call her instead. No really. Trust me.”
When it was time to give her up, I was more than a little heartbroken. Me and this Pearl had some good times. But then I remembered the cardinal rule of computing: trackballs are stupid. I kissed this dumb phone goodbye.