PPrune Pop,
For work reasons, I had a Windows Mobile based HTC device when most of my collegues raved about the Blackberry especially the 8110 Pearl. About a year ago I declared the HTC in a "bring out your dead" round when the guys were collecting them back in & was given a Pearl 8110.
After a year I still loathe it & would cheerfully let it fall out of my pocket onto the drive to be run over by the car (I'd reverse over it just to be sure), but then I'd only be given a replacement 8110...
I guess it comes down to what you are used to & what you want it to want it to do. In my case, email on the Windows device was via Outlook and it enabled me to do everything with email, calendar & tasks that I could do on my laptop. The email support on the Blackberry is good, but plagued by annoying little bugs (like the fact that if you decline a meeting invite it doesn't remove it from your calendar so you find you get prompted to go to meetings that you said you wouldn't attend).
The password security drives me up the wall, the Pearl uses some sort of stress reader to choose the most non-optimal time to force you to change the password. Lara Croft may be ok at choosing a new password whilst the walls of the temple are crashing down around her & poisonous snakes are climbing up her leg (hmmm....?) but I can do with being able to say "Not now"
After a year I'm still finding the keyboard a pain when typing emails, and trying to configure the Pearl is so non intuitive, I get collegues asking me how I configured mine to do something they want to do.
Finally I find the Blackberry Manager software a pain to use so getting stuff on & off it is painful. I could bluetooth pair the PDA to my laptop & exchange files but my Pearl 8110 won't let me do that.
Where the Pearl does score is in battery life in general use, but colleagues tell me that running apps does tend to up the battery consumption.
These are all minor niggles, and I recognise that most folks around me love their 8110s which work well for them. There also might be people who take what I've put above & identify that the issues can be resolved, but I don't see answers to these problems which means that any solutions are counter intuitive.
Personally I find it frustrating to use something that is so close but ruined by minor little quirks. What I can't deny is the fact that so many people use them & find them brilliant.
Just one aside, we did look at work at taking an application off the Windows devices & porting it to the Blackberry. Whilst it could be done the advice we were given was to wait & go straight to Android.
As you say, you're not parting with cash for it immediately so I'd say get it & give it a try to see how you get on with it. If it were my choice I'd take a look at Android & then make a call on Android or going back to Windows Mobile.