I used to want an iPhone. Not anymore.

I had wanted an iPhone, but as a freelance professional who relies on my handheld device to secure work and to keep up with the pace of the modern office while I’m on the move, I needed something a little less gimmicky and a little more suitable for business. Yet I still yearned for all of the fun applications that are available with the iPhone.

As do so many in sector, I work solely on a Mac. A PC almost never enters my life, so a Blackberry had always seemed relatively one-dimensional object to me. Now, the good people at Research in Motion have made a Blackberry for Mac desktop manager, making its debut this month, which enables the device to be completely compatible with Mac platforms. This means that many of the applications that iPhone users flaunt of are now fully workable on the Blackberry, even if you use a Mac system at work or in the home.

For me however, a lot of the bells-and-whistles features that are on the device, are merely icing on the cake.

The Blackberry 8900 is, to me, the perfect travel companion:

Its features include a 3.2-mega pixel camera, complete with flash, variable zoom, mechanical auto focus and image stabilization. Pictures can also be easily sent to friends or family via email or multimedia message, or posted to social networking websites including Flickr, MySpace and Facebook using the applications’ integrated photo uploaders. There is also video camera option that will shoot at 15 frames per second, a voice recorder, and a competitive media player that can view pictures, movies and play music through headphones and external speakers or through surprisingly decent built-in mini speakers.

Another fantastic feature is the built-in GPS with mapping software that can give step-by-step directions to your destination, find your exact location or identify local points of interest. The GPS can also be used with other applications or location-based services, including employee and resource tracking and social networking, for an enhanced navigation experience. Another useful feature of the GPS is Geotagging, making it possible to embed GPS coordinates into photos, then view those pictures on a map.

Best of all, the 8900 boasts an application called Documents To Go which allows you to edit and send Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents directly on the device.

To be honest, I have very little time to learn how to use things like this and a similar lack of interest. I just expect them to work, and the Blackberry Curve seems to have done just that. It was easy to use, simple to operate and painless to transfer to from a regular phone. I give it the thumbs up and am no longer envious of my iPhone-equipped friends.