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happyeveryday · Feb 13, 2009, 12:38 PM

Anyone has used both before? Or has bought iPhone then switched to the Bold? I'm currently on the fence and i love my iphone, but the battery life with data is so much better on the Bold, and i can keep Blackberry Messenger and/or MSN on on the Bold the whole time but have to reconnect everytime launch Palringo or IM+ again on iPhone. The thing that i'll really miss from iPhone will be the huge hires screen, the multitouch and the slimness.

What are your thoughts on switch to the Bold from iPhone?

Maflynn · Feb 13, 2009, 03:50 PM

Depends on how you want to use the the phone. If your needs are primarily email and battery life, then the Bold is probably a better option.

I like my iPhone for its flexibility and ability to handle a lot of different tasks, while I wish the email client was a little better and the battery life a bit longer, I want a device that's more flexible and that's where he iPhone beats the BB hands down.

happyeveryday · Feb 13, 2009, 04:10 PM

How usable is the Blackberry OS?

ph0ust · Feb 13, 2009, 05:28 PM

do you mean the blackberry storm maybe? that is their touch screen phone. the bold is a more modern version of their traditional keypad phones.

i like my blackberry, but it is a lot different than an iphone. it is a great phone. the key differentiator of the iphone is apps. that is what sets the iphone apart from everyone... lots and lots of apps that make your phone a whole lot more than a phone.

many would argue that the blackberry is a better phone, while the iphone is a good phone that is a whole lot more.

mduell · Feb 13, 2009, 07:56 PM

What's more important?
Phone, IM, SMS, and email: Blackberry
Web and media management: iPhone

The Bold has the same resolution screen as the iPhone.

DigitalEl · Feb 13, 2009, 08:23 PM

Can't speak to the Bold, as the old 7100t is the last BlackBerry I spent any significant time with. What I can address is having an iPhone, giving it up for something else and why I'm back.

I gave my iPhone 3G up for a G1/Android, because AT&T sucks so bad where I live. I lasted less than one month before finding an old 2G iPhone on Craigslist and unlocking it for T-Mobile. While Android is a promising platform, the apps and iPod functionality make leaving iPhone again a non-starter.

I love having all my music with me, as well as my favorite TV episodes and a couple of movies... In my pocket, everywhere I go... All the time and without carrying a second device. Now that Apple is going DRM-free, this may become less of an issue, but for me, drag & drop is overrated. I LOVE syncing my media via iTunes and just knowing it's there and that it'll play when I'm ready for it. BlackBerry has released a sync tool for iTunes, but it still doesn't help with DRM'd tracks. That may or may not work for you.

And then there's the apps. Looking at the homescreen on my iPhone, I can tell you with certainty I use data way more than voice. Sure, other devices will allow me to check sports scores, update Twitter and check the weather, but none are as elegant as the apps I use on my iPhone for those tasks. Killing time with a game (21 Pro and Burning Monkey Casino, in my case) is invaluable, too.

Originally Posted by mduell

What's more important?
Phone, IM, SMS, and email: Blackberry
Web and media management: iPhone

That really sums it up. If you're a serious user who needs a phone first, the BlackBerry is hard to beat. For everything else, there's iPhone.

happyeveryday · Feb 14, 2009, 02:22 AM

I definitely mean the Bold. I dont' really like the Storm. I'm absolutely in love with my iPhone 3G now, but the short battery life's bugging me especially with heavy data usage. And somehow Apple hasn't allowed apps to run in the background so the IM clients all have to log out and only log in again when you launch them. i'm thinking of having something that's keeping them running in the background without having to jailbreak.

ctt1wbw · Feb 14, 2009, 03:50 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

What's more important?
Phone, IM, SMS, and email: Blackberry
Web and media management: iPhone

The Bold has the same resolution screen as the iPhone.

Let's see:

Phone check
IM check
SMS check
email check

So why is the Blackberry better? I can get email on my iPhone for FREE. You guys know that the blackberry push service isn't free, right? That crap costs money.

ctt1wbw · Feb 14, 2009, 03:53 AM

Plus another thing to consider... how easy is it to install software on a blackberry? It can't get any easier than with the iPhone and iTunes. Not that I'm proclaiming myself as a fanboy, but my wife has a blackberry pearl. I hate that POS. It's a pain in the ****ing ass to navigate with that stupid ass button. BTW, I'm typing this on a Vista laptop. I use both OS X and Vista. I just hate blackberry crap.

Just for the reasons above. Nobody thinks the iPhone can get email for some reason. Blackberry push costs money. My wife has to pay for that crap. I got my iPhone to set up at hourly intervals. And it's free.

frdmfghtr · Feb 14, 2009, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw

Let's see:

Phone check
IM check
SMS check
email check

So why is the Blackberry better? I can get email on my iPhone for FREE. You guys know that the blackberry push service isn't free, right? That crap costs money.

No, you don't get email on your iPhone for free. You pay the $30/month for the data service. What do you pay per month for the BlackBerry, and how much extra is push email?

JKT · Feb 14, 2009, 01:19 PM

It isn't that the iPhone can't do e-mail, it's that a Blackberry has a much more solid e-mail app (search, better integration with address book, unified inbox, etc). If you live and die by e-mail, then it is hard to argue that the iPhone is as good as a Blackberry because it simply isn't. Personally, I am absolutely fine with the Mail app on my iPhone, with the possible exception of missing a search capability every once in a while.

ctt1wbw · Feb 14, 2009, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by frdmfghtr

No, you don't get email on your iPhone for free. You pay the $30/month for the data service. What do you pay per month for the BlackBerry, and how much extra is push email?

You still pay for data service for the blackberry, right?

Steve Bosell · Feb 17, 2009, 06:15 PM

I currently have a Storm, which has a hacked up version of the Bold's OS, and I pretty much hate it...

Spheric Harlot · Feb 17, 2009, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw

Let's see:

Phone check
IM check
SMS check
email check

Just putting a checkmark on a feature list is exactly how virtually the entire tech industry (except for Apple and a very select few other exceptions) develop products.

It says nothing about the quality, implementation, or usability of those functions.

just out of the ones you mentioned, it's pretty obvious that IM is absolutely useless if you're not actually able to receive messages - as on the iPhone.

And for a number of people I know, not being able to send a single SMS to a bunch of people, or to forward an SMS, is incredibly limiting.

The Blackberry is probably better AT THESE THINGS because the iPhone isn't as good at them.

megasad · 07:24 AM

Originally Posted by happyeveryday

Anyone has used both before? Or has bought iPhone then switched to the Bold? I'm currently on the fence and i love my iphone, but the battery life with data is so much better on the Bold, and i can keep Blackberry Messenger and/or MSN on on the Bold the whole time but have to reconnect everytime launch Palringo or IM+ again on iPhone. The thing that i'll really miss from iPhone will be the huge hires screen, the multitouch and the slimness.

What are your thoughts on switch to the Bold from iPhone?

I've had a 32GB 1st gen iPod touch since last July, a BlackBerry Bold for the last month (via work), and have used a friend's iPhone a few times.

As people have said, the BlackBerry's screen is the same 480x320 resolution as the iPhone, but it's half the physical size. For watching TV shows or using the device itself this is not a problem as the interface is very well designed and when I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica on a train journey recently, I was fully immersed by it. The microSD slot lets you add up to 16GB storage right now, 32GB very soon, and when the 32GB ones are reasonably priced I think I shall be using the Bold instead of my iPod touch for music and TV shows as it will mean one less thing to carry and keep charged.

I prefer the BlackBerry for email, both for typing and the actual management of them. I like typing on my iPod touch, I like the on-screen keyboard, but I type much more naturally on the BlackBerry's keyboard, even after only a month.

For instant messenging I also prefer the BlackBerry, primarily for the simple reason you already mention, that I can receive messages all of the time, and also for the keyboard.

For website looking-at and reading, the BlackBerry is a disaster compared to the iPod touch. As the screen is half the size, the text is far too small to read, but this is to be expected on a lot of websites. The problem is that there is no equivalent of the iPod touches elegant-pinchy-zoom. When you do try and zoom in it's either not enough or too much and the steps between are too great. When you try and pan around the screen, the trackball controls an actual cursor, which is nice for clicking on things, but means you have to get to the edge of a screen before it will move, which can be frustrating when trying to move horizontally. For vertical scrolling there is the old-faithful Space bar.

Speaking of the trackball, it's a little strange at first but once you get used to the idea that you should exert a tiny bit of pressure when you use it, then it feels very precise. The way I mostly hold the BlackBerry (apart from when typing), I rest it on the little finger of my right hand, my three other fingers on the back and my thumb over the trackball. After half an hour or so, my little finger does get tired.

The phone works like a phone, the address book works like an address book, both do what they do as well as I remember the iPhone doing them.

The alarm clock is a bit fiddly to set, having to go back and forth between the number keys and clicking the trackball.

The camera records still photos or video footage and the light that it uses in low-light is bright enough to be used as a torch, which is what I do.

It connects and charges via a standard mini-USB cable, the internal 1GB storage and any microSD card you have in it showing up as volumes on your desktop when plugged into a Mac, so no drivers or the like needed. There is software for syncing with iTunes and Address Book, apparently, but I've not yet tried either, have simply placed TV shows directly on the microSD card and use my work computer to manage the contacts wirelessly.

The back has a leather feel, which is nice in that it stays still when placed on a table, though the iPhone does the same when placed face down.

Application installation, that I've done so far, is as simple as clicking a link and then the application installs, once you give it permission. I only really use the iPod and Safari applications on my iPod touch, play games on my DS and PSP and although I got the iPod with the idea that I would play with the application side of it a lot, I really haven't found it that compelling. I think if I had an iPhone this would be different as then I could use a camera and GPS and microphone. Speaking of which, the GPS and maps application on the Bold is very handy to have too, but I've not used the iPhone's version so can't compare the two.

So I did not switch from an iPhone to a BlackBerry Bold as such but there are my thoughts. If you have any questions about the Bold, feel free to ask.