So I've narrowed it down to two new devices: BlackBerry 9000 Series and iPhone 3G.
Many of my friends have the iPhone and they really like it. What's not to like? It's well designed and it puts hair on bald men. The last part hasn’t been proven yet though. It definitely has the cool factor with the easy finger gliding and smooth screen transitions. For me though, there's been a love/hate relationship with this feature packed and well marketed product. One of the shortcomings for me is that it does not tether, at least legally. Tethering is when you can use a phone device to act as a wireless modem to connect your laptop to get online. There are hacks to do this with the iPhone, but you risk getting penalized by AT&T when they see the spike of data traffic on your line. Also, the battery and speed are going to be compromised since the iPhone is not currently designed to support the tethering feature.
I really like the web browser and it’s the closest thing to a native desktop. However, Flash support would be nice. There’s many sites out there that are done in Flash, including mine and I’m sure the powers that be are looking into supporting this widely accepted web format. Regardless, lack of Flash support is not huge points lost. The browser is very easy to read and view with the different zoom in/out options with a few gentle swipes of the fingers. Visual Voicemail is also cool and makes things easier to jump to any message of your choice.
Many nice features all due to a great user interface. However, here are two things that are steering me away from the 3G iPhone: No Cut & Paste and bad battery performance.
I don't know about you, but many use cut & paste feature everyday without realizing how convenient it can be. I'm disappointed that the new 2.0 version still does not support this important feature.
The biggest issue though is the battery life. After reading many reviews and talking to users, some people claim that they are lucky if the battery isn't dead by the end of the day. One of my friends uses email, music, web browsing, a few calls, and his 3G iPhone is dead by 5 or 6 PM. He has a workaround though. He carries the wall charger in his pocket at all times. He said that when he gets in the car, he plugs it right into the car charger. I’d love to hear from anyone who didn’t have to charge their iPhone so much after normal, every day use.
InformationWeek reported that the 3G iPhone is actually worse than the original iPhone battery. Even then, Apple does have some recommendations for improving battery performance on the iPhone by turning off certain features. Unfortunately, this seems a bit counterproductive if you're afraid to use features you bought the phone for because you may not have enough juice, such as turning off 3G. Breaks my heart a bit, but I'm crossing my fingers to see if Apple addresses these issues on an otherwise great product.
On the other sideline is the new the BlackBerry Bold by RIM. It will be released in a couple of months, but there are lot of excited crackberries that are frothing at the mouth to get one. It tethers, emails, web, music, videos, 3G, iTunes syncing, turn-by-turn directions, built in Facebook and Flickr support, and it may be able to leap tall buildings. Here are a list of complete BlackBerry Bold features. Many of these features are similar to the iPhone, with a few extras.
Before, the BlackBerry wasn't exactly the most beautiful of gems to take home to mom; it seemed too bulky and the buttons a bit tiny and strange. I also couldn't get with the whole interface; it didn't seem too user friendly to me, but I kept hearing friends tell me they love theirs after getting used to it. With the Bold, RIM has gotten a much needed facelift, listening to the market and taking a page from the design team of the iPhone.
Even though the Blackberry Bold hasn't been released to the public yet, there's a guy over at CrackBerry that managed to buy one on eBay and do his own little review of it. Definitely worth reading if you're in the same boat as me or just curious to see it.
I'm going to have to wait just for a bit longer to see how the BlackBerry Bold holds up. It looks rather promising and their devices have a good performance history, especially when it comes to the battery life. If it doesn't impress me like it has so far, you will see me with an iPhone in one hand and a charger in the other :)
Keep in mind, according to early rumors the Bold is planned for AT&T only. Boy Genius Report is claiming September 2008 release for Verizon. If they don't release the Bold for Verizon, there will be a similar model to the Bold called the Niagra which will be released in May 2009. Also, there is a new model called the Thunder due out in September 2008, which is BlackBerry's touchscreen answer to the iPhone.
If you'd like to read some more, here's a review of the BlackBerry and the iPhone.
We sure do live in interesting times with all these nice toys.
We sure do live in interesting times with all these nice toys.
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