Due to some, ahem, disagreements with my carrier over service in my neighborhood, I recently ported out and went back to the GSM world. Since this involved getting a new phone, I decided to take a good look at my options before pulling the trigger.

In the end, I decided not to get another blackberry. The best blackberry available was the Bold 9780, which is nearly identical to the 9700 (with the exception of more RAM and a better camera) I bought two years ago. If anyone's wondering why RIM is hurting... that's why. They're nearly standing still when it comes to hardware, and I just couldn't justify springing for a warmed up leftover. That said, I do know new RIM phones are coming this fall, and there's always a chance I'll be tempted back. I suppose that all depends on how much I like this here android business.

I ended up going with a MyTouch 3G Slide. I looked long and hard at the G2 and Sidekick 4G (a QWERTY keyboard was a requirement), but really didn't like the keyboard on either. In fact, it's safe to say I absolutely hated the Sidekick's keyboard, and the G2's slider mechanism scared me just a tad. The slide had a decent amount of RAM (512MB), a GPU, and the best keyboard out of the bunch. It also has a largeish battery and, therefore, decent battery life. Coming from a blackberry, I need something that's going to last, and the slide seemed to be the best of the bunch.

The slide also has HTC's Sense. This, IMO, is a bit of a mixed bag. I love some aspects of it, such as the facebook<->contacts integration, and the cool clock/weather widget. I dislike the fact that you can't uninstall any of it, so I'm stuck with the Stocks and News app taking up valuable space. On the other hand, if the naked Android experience doesn't provide integration with facebook and twitter, even installing the apps, I shudder to think about how ugly that must be to use.

In comparison, the BB's Facebook and Twitter integration runs deep. For everyone who complains about how slow RIM is to update those applications, trust me... it's better to have the deep integration than something that just sits on the surface. Actually, I'm just going to go ahead and say something that's probably no secret to anyone who's used both OSes... the BlackBerry just provides a better experience for Email/IM/Social apps than Android does, it just doesn't have the speed and slickness of Android.

Android does have some great points though... the application selection is fantastic (anyone else want to take me on in Words With Friends), the speed of a mid-range device is very competitive with anything else, and it's very flexible.

The kindle experience on the device is also surprisingly good. It'd be nice if you could jump pages just by pressing the trackpad, because the swiping of pages gets old in a hurry, but it's quite readable.

eBuddy is handling my IM needs at the moment. It's certainly not as nice as BBM, but really... what is? It does do the job, and it does support the quasi push that android has, so I can't complain.

It has some ugly points though... the market is kind of a mess, but at least Amazon's Appstore for Android steps in to fill that particular gap. Unless I'm mistaken, neither store indicates if an application can be installed to SD, which is kind of a big deal with some larger games. It's also quite absurd that on a device with 512MB of space, you only have 120MB or so free out of the gate. Free space on android tends to disappear in a hurry.

So the first 48 hours have been good. Will I still be here when the Torch 2 hits? I suppose the next two months will answer that question. I'll blog more about my experiences as I continue my migration.