Love Gmail but not on the blackberry

I gave up using Outlook & Entourage a few years back and moved on to Gmail.

It’s the best for my needs especially on a Mac. It’s fast and I’ve fallen hard for all of the keyboard shortcuts, Google labs, archive and conversation threading. 

Over the last month or so I’ve gone back to the dreaded two phone combo – the Verizon Blackberry Tour and the iPhone. I hate the idea of two phones but I just need the voice reliability when i’m on a train in nyc or when i’m running around SF. And I hate when I miss inbound calls from my family. 

So here’s the thing I’m realizing. Gmail on the blackberry is awful. In fact it’s so bad that I’m convinced it’s a user error (me!). 

I’ve tried the Gmail app for blackberry based on a few recommendations. But there are three huge drawbacks with that app:

1. It’s painfully slow

2. It polls email every 15 minutes

3. you can’t copy and paste sections of email. 

I’ve also tried using the native Blackberry mail app with imap. That doesn’t work for me either:

1. It doesn’t do two way sync sometimes or it takes forever.

2. blackberry introduced this thing called the ’enhanced gmail plug in’ which provides the ability to archive or star mail but this is what it looks like on my BB Tour. 

The way they’ve done threading/conversations is impossible. I can’t see the sender in those threads without clicking on them.

I’m hoping I’m wrong about all of this and some kind soul will help me figure out how to use gmail on my blackberry. 

[end of rant] 

(i’m tempted to ditch both phones and just get a HTC Incredible but the lack of international roaming has held me off)