Oh, and for those of you considering the HTC G1 or the Motorola Droid, they are both awesome and fairly well built. My boss came in today and handed me a G1 (I call it a JFGI phone, lol), said "There ya go. 30 minutes, I want it completely disassembled, then I will inspect, then completely reassembled. If you miss a screw, you're fired. You break any piece of it, you're fired. If it doesn't work 100% and I can tell that it has been taken apart when you are done, you're fired. Good morning!" That phone is a beast, but fairly well-built. Has a lot of small internal parts that can easily go to pieces, but it's encased well and held up fairly nice when I dropped it, lol.
If T-Mobile didn't suck, I would probably go with a sidekick, but since they do and I ain't paying for an HTC or a Droid, I think this BB is great for what I want/need in a phone. Time will tell how it holds up.

 

To delete multiple messages, open your messages, hold down on shift key (aA), scroll over the ones to delete then hit the menu button (Blackberry logo) and select delete.

Go here for all sorts of info for beginners http://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-how-lecture-series

Their message boards are pretty good, too http://forums.crackberry.com/

 

In your inbox (email, texts, etc) roll the clicker over the date up at the top. Hit the menu button (with the dots) then go down to "delete prior messages". And yes, Sprint is muuuuch cheaper. I looked into switching about a year ago, and any comparable plan from ATT/Verizon was 30-40% more a month.

 

I have never had to delete all my messages.

 

Personally I wouldn't have a smart phone for myself if it wasn't required for work. However, the last one that they gave me (after a Treo, a Blackberry, and some other touch screen that I hated) is a HTC Imagio. It is full touch screen and works quite well. It won't order pizza for you or read the game scores, but it connects easily with both my work email/calendar/contacts through our Exchange Server as well as my personal email. It does a decent job with the web (although I really don't use the web on a phone much) and actually works as a phone (hey what a concept). A 5 megapixel camera (no flash) and good MP3 playing means it does everything I need. The on screen keyboard works very well for me (an old guy with fat fingers and completely useless thumbs).

 

Yeah, I figured that out after a good long while of playing with it, took me a few hours to figure out how to just send a regular text message with this thing! Now, if I could only get my color ID working, lol!

 

I've got the same plan mentioned in the OP, except I've got a Palm Pre. I love the plan (just found out I've also got unlimited mobile to mobile, any mobile phone, any carrier, in addition to the 400 minutes I get monthly) and love the Pre even moreso.