Compare/Contrast with Blackberry

[griz8791]

My business partner and I got Droids together. The onscreen keyboard and difficulty of doing any function on it one-handed have made it more problematic for us than we had hoped. We are now considering sending them back in favor of Blackberries.

I have seen several posts on this board from Droid owners who came over from Blackberry. Can anyone of you weigh in with pros and cons of that platform compared with this one?

 

[Donkey Hodie]

I don't know which BB you're interested in, but here are some thoughts about the Tour vs. the Droid:


Blackberry Tour (Verizon)

• User interface. Old, out of date, not particularly intuitive but usable.
• No wi-fi - a big minus for me.
• Browser. Old, out of date, a pain to use. Many web pages didn't display properly or work (e.g., logins) at all.
• Applications. Not many and not many free ones.
• Keyboard. Given the size of the keys, they actually work pretty well and have a nice feel to them.
• Network. Good reception just about everywhere, at least for calls. Web browsing was painfully slow (or didn't work) at times.
• Form factor. Size is fine although a larger display would surely be nice. It'd make the overall size of the phone too large though.
• Performance. OK, definitely not great though.
• Reliability. My first tour was pretty much crap, especially the trackball. I got a replacement that worked pretty well.
• Battery life. Best of the three, perhaps because it does less and therefore I used it mostly just to make calls?

Droid (Verizon)

• User interface. Pretty darned good, especially if you've used another smart phone. I've not looked at any documentation and have been able to figure most things out. The level of integration between apps is on a par with the iPhone. Use the voice search (which works amazingly well) say "mexican restaurant", it'll bring up a web page with mexican restaurants near you. Boink on the address and it'll bring up navigator and do a route from where you are to there. Boink on the phone number and it'll place a call to them.
• Camera. 5 MP and takes pretty decent pictures. You do have to hold it steady though and the silent update that was distributed last night definitely helps.
• Applications. I've been able to find a bunch of useful ones and expect more all the time.
• Network. Surprisingly, given that both are Verizon, the Droid works much better than the Tour. Stronger signal just about everywhere. And did I mention it's got wi-fi? yes!
• Performance. The phone is fast! Everything happens quickly.
• Battery life. Below average. You'll learn to love your charger although I do get through a day pretty easily it does need to be charged darned near every day.
• Form factor. Not "big" (about the same size as the iPhone) but thicker and heavier. For me, I'd lose the physical keyboard since I hardly ever use it but my guess is they were trying to capture the Blackberry guys who wanted an iPhone but also wouldn't give up a physical keyboard. An aside: I spoke to someone at the AT&T store and she said "when a Blackberry user buys an iPhone, I know it's coming back, almost every time". Sculpted keys would be nice but they'd make the phone even thicker. As I said, I'd prefer no physical keyboard. I looked at the HTC Eris (sp?) but I wanted the faster processor and Android 2.0 so I could have google navigator.
• Speaking of which: Google navigator rocks!
• Browser: works great, voice search is awesome, I just wish it had multi-touch as resizing (double-tap) is a pain as I always double tap and then size it down somewhat smaller.

 

[bacalao]

I had a BB Storm for a year and really liked the surepress idea for touchscreen and the suretype portrait keyboard. I can't send a message on the droid in portrait without messing up at least a couple times.
Internet is great if you download opera mini on the Storm, the stock browser is not fast.
I found the device to be simple to use but packed with functionality. Email setup, bb messenger and GSM were my favorite features. It is customizable with themes, but the customization is limited compared to the Droid. I feel like I maxed out the phone right away, it was high maintenance, would get bogged down with earlier OS versions or opening too many apps. With the Droid, I don't think I will reach its limit. I like that there are much more free apps for the Droid, but the Storm do have a slightly better quality on average (maybe cuz most of them are paid apps). The new OS for the storm makes it so much better. But I got bored with it and was tired of having to pull the battery every day to free up memory.
I will miss the portrait suretype, BB messenger, and the email. I used to fly on the suretype (one/two handed), the messenger allowed my girlfriend and I to text on different networks and without addition text message bill, the email was easier to setup and it was integrated all into one place if you want and allowed you to delete messages on just the phone or delete on both the phone and mailbox. After a week with my Droid, I didn't think about the Storm at all though. Already gave it away.
Good luck!

 

[Martin030908]

Apples to Oranges unfortunately.

 

[keiichi25]

Apples to Oranges unfortunately.

Well, not really 'apples and oranges'... As they are both Smartphones. However, the general application of said devices, yes, you could say Apples and Oranges there.

Blackberry Devices were not originally designed for standard Consumer Level Smartphone use, more Business like, as evident by the necessity of a Blackberry Enterprise Server to really get the full functionality of business from an Exchange Server to hard core blackberry users.

The Droid and Android based phones were more based on Consumer, non-serious business level users, but the 2.0 added support for business to follow its main competitor, the Apple iPhone.

The iPhone incorporated some Business support after a short while of its release because some wanted that ability. The only other group that has bothered to do what Blackberry has done is Palm, and not a very great job of it with Microsoft following behind with Windows Mobile.

Windows Mobile is cludgy for some, hell, I have an old Pocket PC device and use it less than I do my Blackberry Storm as far as keeping track of things.

The Droid is still my personal device, and I prefer it over the Blackberry for some of the reasons that Donkey posted...

The UI on Blackberry is 'tried and true' but stagnant as well, not much flexibility if you want it to stand out a little more. Even with the latest OS update for the Storm, the Browser is still tediously slow and the improvements over the 4.75.0 OS were only minor fixes to things that were quirky (Such as the Auto On/Off not turning the radio back on was fixed, the Auto-Correction wasn't NEARLY as stupidly annoying as it was in the 4.75.0 build.)

In the 5 months I have used the Storm, I have only done 1 serious battery pull for it, and that is good in comparison to what I have heard was necessary for it by other users who have had it longer. While this counts as a ding towards Droid, In the 1 month I have had it, I have only done it once, and that was due to the system not 'working' and seem frozen that I had to force reboot it, but so far, only once.

I found the keyboard, while you had issues with it, not that hard to work with, at least, the virtual one. The virtual one for the Storm was a pain in most cases and the autocorrection feature prior to the 5.0 OS update, annoying as hell when it would correct words I intentionally wanted to type a certain way and I couldn't bypass it, forcing me to retype it a few times.

All in all, I would rather use the Droid as a personal device. The Blackberry is still good as a business device, but if I want to look up something or play something on a smartphone, I rather whip out the Droid over a Blackberry.

 

[Martin030908]

Apples to Oranges unfortunately.

Well, not really 'apples and oranges'... As they are both Smartphones. However, the general application of said devices, yes, you could say Apples and Oranges there.

Blackberry Devices were not originally designed for standard Consumer Level Smartphone use, more Business like, as evident by the necessity of a Blackberry Enterprise Server to really get the full functionality of business from an Exchange Server to hard core blackberry users.

The Droid and Android based phones were more based on Consumer, non-serious business level users, but the 2.0 added support for business to follow its main competitor, the Apple iPhone.

The iPhone incorporated some Business support after a short while of its release because some wanted that ability. The only other group that has bothered to do what Blackberry has done is Palm, and not a very great job of it with Microsoft following behind with Windows Mobile.

Windows Mobile is cludgy for some, hell, I have an old Pocket PC device and use it less than I do my Blackberry Storm as far as keeping track of things.

The Droid is still my personal device, and I prefer it over the Blackberry for some of the reasons that Donkey posted...

The UI on Blackberry is 'tried and true' but stagnant as well, not much flexibility if you want it to stand out a little more. Even with the latest OS update for the Storm, the Browser is still tediously slow and the improvements over the 4.75.0 OS were only minor fixes to things that were quirky (Such as the Auto On/Off not turning the radio back on was fixed, the Auto-Correction wasn't NEARLY as stupidly annoying as it was in the 4.75.0 build.)

In the 5 months I have used the Storm, I have only done 1 serious battery pull for it, and that is good in comparison to what I have heard was necessary for it by other users who have had it longer. While this counts as a ding towards Droid, In the 1 month I have had it, I have only done it once, and that was due to the system not 'working' and seem frozen that I had to force reboot it, but so far, only once.

I found the keyboard, while you had issues with it, not that hard to work with, at least, the virtual one. The virtual one for the Storm was a pain in most cases and the autocorrection feature prior to the 5.0 OS update, annoying as hell when it would correct words I intentionally wanted to type a certain way and I couldn't bypass it, forcing me to retype it a few times.

All in all, I would rather use the Droid as a personal device. The Blackberry is still good as a business device, but if I want to look up something or play something on a smartphone, I rather whip out the Droid over a Blackberry.

Couldn't agree more. BB has it's place but it's stale... big time... same devices released OVER and OVER.

Good write up.

 

[JayMonster]

The Blackberry is RIM's "Smart Pager" (does anybody else remember pagers?) all grown up into a phone... which is why it uses the BES for messages, it still has that Pager mentality (and also why it was the first and best at "pushing" messages and e-mail to your phone. Heck up and through 2005, they still LOOKED more like pagers than actual phones.

However, anything beyond that, is nothing more than bolted on pieces slapped into the device.

Windows Mobile actually started out more like today's SmartPhones, but somehow lost its way. DirectPush works well... but short of that, Microsoft has failed miserably in keeping this up to date... They continued (like RIM) to expect SmartPhones to be little more than good e-mail devices that has a few other "accessory" smartphone parts (like cheesy web browsers). I mean, as funny as it is, the Motorola Q9 and Q9m were Windows Mobile phones that were designed to have Blackberry like look and design appeal (right down the scroll wheel on the side for "easy one handed uses" since that was all the buzz 4 or 5 years ago).

The iPhone (as much as it pains me to admit this) helped push smart phones back into being smart computers (much like they briefly were back when they were full fledged PDAs with phones in them) rather than just e-mail appliances.

Of course the Droid with its giant screen is going to be difficult to do "one handed" That is a given. Each and every phone has its pros and its cons. They all have trade offs, and the question is what is most important to you.

If playing games and listening to music is the most important features of your phone, and call quality is way down the list behind texting... well then the iPhone certainly fits the bill.

If keeping in contact with all your e-mail buddies and clients, scheduling your power lunches are primary, and calling to confirm plans or getting the secretary to fax over the latest numbers is the only thing you need the phone for, then Blackberry is the way to go, as no device lets you organize and "do lunch" better.

If you have ADD want to be able to flip through screens of the meager app collection you have to show how great your phone could theoretically multitask... if only you had some real apps... and anybody was still using Sprint (and you are not too rough on a flimsy phone), the the Palm Pre is for you.

If you want to be able to do more with your phone... have the apps to multitask, but don't give a hoot about a "deck of apps look" because having the apps is more important, than how they look "flipping" If you want a phone that has awesome call quality, can browse the web on a screen big enough to actually be able to appreciate it, if you want the ability to have multimedia and scheduling your power meetings, but it is not the only focus of the phone... in other words if you want the power to do what you want to do, regardless of what it is, and not be a one trick pony... Droid Does. :motdroidhoriz:

 

[bacalao]

Amen, jaymonster. Amen.
Ps I have had to do three battery pulls all in one week. I removed ATK and have never had to pull it again!
good luck to the OP.

 

[Shel]

JayMonster
So, really... don't hold back.

How do you like the Droid?

(Seriously, nice writeup)