Greg Diaz’s parents were not too keen on the idea of their son getting a BlackBerry in college.
While Diaz, a fourth-year history student, may not be a white-collar executive just yet, his classes, job and law school applications keep him as busy as any CEO.
The kind of high-performance phones once found only on the belt loops of busy executives are now showing up in backpacks and classrooms as college students all over the country set their sights on previously unavailable technology.
The BlackBerry Web site offers a host of reasons that college students can benefit just as much from their phones as could any businessperson, boasting such features as sleek new designs, cameras and built-in music players.
It also has a Facebook application available for download so that BlackBerry users can have constant access to the social-networking site.
Diaz said he was not interested in most of the latest youth-oriented features, and that he went with a traditional BlackBerry design.
“It really helps me manage my time and multitask,” Diaz said.
“I got it when I was in the process of applying to law school and I needed Internet access at all times. Some of the schools would need an immediate response to their e-mails,” Diaz added.
As an office assistant in the legal department of a major corporation, Diaz likes to be available to his employers on a moment’s notice.
“There have been times when someone at the office has e-mailed me and needed something immediately. Had I not gotten ahold of one particular e-mail, they wouldn’t have been able to get to some files they needed,” Diaz said.
Despite rave reviews from customers like Diaz, a major BlackBerry service outage on Monday affected an unspecified number of customers in the U.S. and Canada, forcing even the most chronic multitaskers to find another way to juggle their many-faceted lives.
Katy Lunny, a second-year chemistry student, said she doesn’t think college students’ lives are busy enough to require the kind of technology found in BlackBerrys and iPhones.
“My dad has a BlackBerry and he needs it because he can’t bring his work computer home. But it’s totally unnecessary for students,” Lunny said.
While Lunny said she wouldn’t be opposed to owning a BlackBerry if her career ever called for it, she said cell phones should be used for making calls, not checking e-mail.
“My friends who have them don’t even know how to use most of the features. They just check e-mail and Facebook all the time,” Lunny said.
But Diaz said his life is busy enough to warrant an accessory as expensive as a BlackBerry.
His family wasn’t initially convinced that he needed a BlackBerry either, but Diaz did his research and convinced them that it was a necessary and worthwhile investment for him to make.
“I knew the BlackBerry was a tank of a phone, and I had already gone through four Verizon phones in six months,” Diaz said.
After a great deal of comparison shopping, Diaz finally found the BlackBerry he wanted on sale for $300 last November.
In addition to his selected phone plan, the $30 data package that allows constant Internet access leaves Diaz with a monthly phone bill of about $100.
Despite the high cost of such an expensive phone for a college student, Diaz said he doesn’t feel like he has been taken in by youth-oriented advertising.
“They don’t even make commercials for the kind of phone I have,” Diaz said. “I looked at the iPhone, but they are more for show. It looks cool, but you pay (more) for how it looks than the technology,” he added.
While Diaz said he believes he would never have needed a high-end phone while he was an underclassman, first-year undeclared student Jill Corey said her iPhone is incredibly helpful to her at school.
“I see how it’s marketed as a young person thing, but I am really happy with mine. It has the capacity to go with me into a career, and it will keep getting new applications so it can evolve with me,” Corey said.
Corey’s mother is a businesswoman and a BlackBerry user, but Corey said a BlackBerry would have been too much of a business accessory for her lifestyle as a student.
“The iPhone is a younger thing, plus the BlackBerry doesn’t have an iPod. And since my camera broke, I just got an iPhone instead of buying a new camera,” Corey said.
“Since it’s a phone, computer and a camera all in one, I know I am going to get my money’s worth out of it,” she added.
With reports from Bruin wire services.