I just saw a piece by Jonathan Alter on Newsweek that responds to the talk surrounding Obama’s BlackBerry use: that it poses a security risk and he will be forced to surrender it upon inauguration. Alter argues that in order for Obama to be successful in the presidency, he will need to remain connected to the outside world — not just his cadre of advisers, officials and the like.

This is beneficial because sometimes Washington becomes an echo chamber of sorts. Sometimes, the people with the best view of things are outside the Beltway, and the president needs to hear these people. Wouldn’t succumbing to the Washington way of thought and blocking out the outside world come at an antithesis to what Obama’s preached his entire campaign?

Stephen Wildstrom at BusinessWeek has also opined in support of Obama keeping his gadget rights, adding that BlackBerry traffic is “encrypted to standards that meet Federal Information Procession Standards for sensitive but unclassified information.” He also says that the president-elect should already know how to handle classified and sensitive material, so he likely wouldn’t be thumb-tapping out senstive stuff on his BlackBerry anyway.

I see additional reasons why Mr. Obama should be able to keep his device. With the country moving into such an uncertain period, having some type of instantaneous communications with his staff and cabinet. Being able to make quicker decisions is something that I think would be very beneficial.

Yes, I can understand the security concerns. But come on, this is the 21st Century. A leader these days should be able to use the technologies around him if its going to make him (or her) a more effective leader.

What do you think?

How much does a new cell phone cost? How much do you save by committing to a contract? If there are savings to be had, how substantial are they? These would seem to be simple questions. They should be simple questions. But the strange, sneaky games that phone carriers play make it startlingly tough to get answers.

I was reminded of this when I checked out pricing for the BlackBerry Storm earlier today and found Verizon trumpeting a price that involved filing paperwork and waiting for a $50 debit card to show up in the mail. Rebates and gift card offers should be treated as gravy, not subtracted from the price you pay–they’re a hassle even when you get ‘em, and it’s far too easy to forget to file for them. So I decided to do a little more digging at the sites of major phone purveyors to see just how clearly they say what customers are going to pay.

I picked the BlackBerry Curve for this experiment, since it’s available in similar versions almost everywhere, and checked out how much it would cost at Amazon.com, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. (I didn’t attempt to factor in the cost of service plans or determine which deal was best–I’m a journalist, not a masochist.) After the jump, the ugly results.

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At the moment, RIM’s BlackBerry Storm reigns as the most intriguing smartphone that hasn’t quite been released yet. That’ll change on November 21st: Verizon Wireless announced today that it’ll begin selling the first touch-screen BlackBerry on that date. Sign up for a two-year contract, and you’ll pay $249.99 for the Storm and get a $50 debit card in the mail, assuming you remember to do the paperwork in time. Which, if I were buying a Storm, I probably wouldn’t.

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Extended warranty merchant SquareTrade has released a study on iPhone reliability, based on data from folks who have bought warranties for iPhones and other phone models. The news is mostly good, but not entirely so. To summarize:

1) iPhones are significantly less likely to malfunction than BlackBerries or Treos during their first year, with 5.6% of owners reporting trouble (11.9% of BlackBerry owners did, and 16.2% of Treo owners did);

2) SquareTrade’s extrapolation indicates that they’ll also be less likely to have issues during the second year;

3) The most common iPhone problems relate to its touchscreen, followed by software/features and call quality;

4) iPhones are more likely to suffer accidental damage inflicted upon them by their owners, through actions such as being dropped–SquareTrade says it’s an “incredibly slippery” phone.

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I’ve written several times about RIM’s BlackBerry Bold–mostly with an an impatient edge in my voice, since I first got to try one way last spring and thought it would come out on AT&T at around the same time that the iPhone 3G arrived in mid-July. AT&T took longer to decree the phone ready for prime time than anyone expected–a good thing, apparently–but it’s reached its comfort zone. The company has announced that the Bold will go on sale on November 4th; it’ll cost $300 with a two-year contract.

To recap, the Bold is the next-generation full-sized BlackBerry: It’s got 3G data capability, an excellent screen (the same resolution as an iPhone, but more dots per inch). improved software with what looks like a decent browser and new media apps, and, yes, a very real physical keyboard. I’ve lost track of the number of BlackBerry users who have asked me about it over the past few months, and the number of times I’ve told them to hold off on jumping ship to the iPhone until they were able to try out a Bold. My gut is that there are a lot of BlackBerry users who have no desire to give up their clicky little keyboards, but want a hipper phone–and therefore there may be a big pent-up demand for a phone like the Bold.

The Bold has taken so long to make its appearance that it risks never getting a chance to be the newest, coolest BlackBerry: Verizon will be shipping the BlackBerry Storm soon, too, and its touchscreen makes it a more strikingly different type of BlackBerry than the more evolutionary Bold. I haven’t tried the Storm yet. But no matter how cool it turns out to be, I think there’s going to be a very large market for BlackBerry devices with real QWERTY keyboards for a long time to come.

Much more to come on the Bold once we get our hands on one for a full review.

The T-Mobile G1, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and now the BlackBerry Storm. The iPhone-like touchscreen phones are coming at us fast and furious. And while the Storm doesn’t look to be the mythical “iPhone killer” that folks like to talk about, it’s the most interesting iPhone rival from a hardware standpoint.
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Another week, another new touch-screen phone that has an awful lot in common with the iPhone 3G. But the most interesting things about RIM’s BlackBerry Storm aren’t the ways it’s similar to an iPhone–it’s the ways it’s different. Starting with the fact that it’s a BlackBerry, with all the wireless synching goodness you’d expect. It will be on Verizon–a major plus for lots of folks–and will be a world phone that does CDMA at home and GSM around the world.

The Storm is the first touchscreen BlackBerry, but its screen features haptic feedback that gives a clicky feel as you type on the virtual keyboard, which sounds interesting, at least. (Most of the BlackBerry fanatics I know are e-mail warriors who really, really want a phone with a physical keyboard–it’ll be fascinating to see if the Storm’s simulation of one is good enough to convince them to go touchscreen.)

I’m also happy to hear that the Storm comes with DataViz’s Documents To Go Office-compatible suite preinstalled–though I’m also curious to see just how easy it is to edit documents on a phone without a real keyboard.

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The T-List is changing a bit: From now on, it’ll be a weekend roundup of the week’s biggest stories. And the past seven days sure provided more than their share of fodder, some of it downright bizarre. Continue reading this story…

How much data do I download from the Internet a month? I have no idea, and it’s probably not all that much. But I’m still concerned about Comcast’s plan to cut off customers who are a little download-crazy.
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It’s been months since I’ve seen a good story about the battery inside a gadget spontaneously bursting into flames. So today’s news of Nanos overheating (again!) manages to make the top of the T-List.
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It’s a little eerie to hear Steve Jobs say that an Apple product is anything less than incredible. But he’s apparently giving the troublesome MobileMe a dose of tough love. This and other news after the jump.
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