Do You Have a Blackberry?*

"Buy it 'cos it's Blackberry!"

I don’t. Why should I? I don’t even need one. Well, even if I need email to be sent directly to my phone, I’ll opt for an E Series, I always love E71 and E62. Especially, the latter, it looks beautiful in black. And cheaper.

So here is the thing. We know everything about all the Blackberry craze in this country. The latest data revealed by a gadget magazine says that the number of Blackberry owners in Indonesia has reached a staggering 300,000 people. That’s a lot. A big number for a country with such a low internet penetration (10.5% of population, in ASEAN only higher than Myanmar, Cambodia, Timor Leste, and Laos), which means low email usage. And, heck, why these people have a Blackberry anyway? Do you tell a friend of yours about your upcoming wedding via email? You don’t! You exchange emails with colleague about though on current issue? I’m not sure. You make appointment via email? You’ll use SMS. Or you need to keep up to date with your facebook notification? Ridiculous!

But, why I have to be so surprised? In our ‘keeping up to date with the trend is always good’ society, it’s always cool if not desired to know and follow the latest trend that everybody’s talking about. Indonesia have the highest sales of the Nokia communicator (Nokia 9300, 9500, and the E90). Even the E90 was first launched in Jakarta. Yes, I shouldn’t forget that. And again I shouldn’t be surprised with Blackberry insane sales in this country. That’s how mysteriously things work here.

But, here is the next thing, RIM (Research In Motion) the vendor of the gadget doesn’t even have a representative office in Indonesia. Great! It then leads us to another question: what about the after sale service? Nope. They don’t have one. Fantastic. You’re a big company selling 300k units something toys (and keeps counting fast) in a country and you don’t have any representative office or after sale service. I don’t get it. It’s funny. And strange. It’s funny and strange and the same time. Fortunately, Depkominfo along with the operators distributing the toys are working on it. Just hope that it can be solved soon.

So, while waiting, for anyone of you out there who have a Blackberry, I just want to give you some advices. First, make sure you use the push email. Just in case you don’t know what push email is, well….consult Wikipedia. You really don’t know what push email is? Why did you buy the gadget in the first place? Oh, see, I get it! You want to update your facebook status from your cellphone? I get it now! Second, if there is something wrong happens to your lovely berry, soon get a ticket to Singapore. There located the closest official Blackberry customer service. I know Roxy is always fine choice. It’s mobile phone paradiso. But they don’t have the official customer service. Let me explain this. You’re a consumer aren’t you? Which means you’re the king. You pay a certain amount of money to acquire the product and in exchange you get the guaranteed product along with the service needed. From what I know, you have the right to be served, well served when something goes wrong with the thing you buy. That’s what happened to me with me and my Nokia 2626. Third, and this is the most important, don’t put your gadget inside your pocket. It has no good. Always hold it in your hand. Or hang it with a lace around your neck. Or where ever you are act like you were texting something. The point is: show it off! That’s the main reason you have it right? Do whatever possible to make sure that people can see your expensive toy. If it makes you look arrogant, then be it. Otherwise, there is simply no reason of owning a Canadian-made toy, when for years you’re used to something Finnish or Korean.

Well, that’s all for today’s lesson. Hopefully, you learn something.

*This article is written by someone by someone who’s either jealous of not having a Blackberry or just totally bored.