iPhone 4, Droid, Evo, but where is Blackberry????
July 6, 2010
Ok, so I am the guy with two cell phones. Granted I do not wear them on my hip, nor do I have “California Gurls” as a ring tone on one and “OMG” on the other. Like our founding fathers I like separation, but mine is of business and personal. Although the way I communicate it seems as though my separation is mostly between one phone with my Taylored Systems supplied taylored.com email, and my phone with my personal gmail.com account and text messages. With all the hype of the new phones hitting the market I have done a lot of research lately. I have always been loyal to Verizon, why I do not know. So my loyalty had always stopped me even caring about the iPhone. However with the release of the Droid phones hitting the Verizon network, I was forced to do some research and make some decisions. I chose the Droid Incredible because I could not wait for the “possible” introduction of the iPhone on the Verizon network. So my two phones are the Blackberry Storm, and the Droid Incredible. Through my research I kept asking myself what is better, and where is Blackberry in all of this???
The first question was to figure out what phone, or phones most peaked my interest. iPhone had its upsides. The video chat looks nice and their app store is the best, and the battery life seemed to be better on this phone than any of the others. My concern was that the only Apple product I use is iTunes, and how will this iPhone sync with my Exchange, or my gmail?
My next step was to move on to the Android platform. I looked at the Incredible and the Nexus One. Well once released the Nexus One would only be available on T-Mobile, so I decided against looking any further into it. I focused my attention to the Incredible. It had everything I needed and wanted. Better camera than the iPhone, it had a flash and 8megapixles. It had full html that supported Java, unlike the iPhone. The display was much crisper than the other phones available. It just seemed like the best phone and I could keep my Verizon service.
I then looked at the Evo from Sprint. It appeared to be the same as the Incredible, but on the Sprint network. The HDMI out was a cool feature, but then I thought I’d have to download any movies from my computer to the phone, so why would I not just use my computer’s HDMI out to connect to my TV? I suppose it would be nice for videos, or photos taken on the phone, but I would want to back those up on my computer anyway so I can still just use the computer’s HDMI out.
The next step was finding the network I wanted to choose. T-Mobile is a joke, Sprint’s “4G” is laughable, AT&T is well AT&T, but Verizon has been the lesser of the evils and so I stayed with the Verizon network. I went with the Incredible, and now within a month of having the phone there is a new one on the verge of release, so there is no WIN-WIN-WIN ever in the world of cell phone choosing.
So now I have my personal phone for apps, gmail, text messages, phone calls etc., but I still did not answer my question of where was Blackberry in all of this trying to woo me with their latest and greatest?
To be honest I have not been overly happy with the Blackberry Storm. It definitely is not the iPhone killer it was billed to be when it was released. I dislike the “Optimized Web Browser” and the fact I can’t obtain HTML emails in the form they are designed like I can on my Incredible. When I did research into items of concern that matter in the business world, i.e. security, reliability, synchronization, I realized that Blackberry is still the trusted work horse it has been for many many years. So what if you cannot get an app that will tell you where the nearest possible speed trap might be, or an app that turns my phone into a Schwartz light saber, the Blackberry might just resort to being what it started as…as a secure email device. This was Bill’s comment to me, why do I need any of the other phones? Other than the full HTML and JAVA I did not have an answer for him. The synchronization between Blackberry with their Enterprise Server, or without, is by far the most reliable and best synchronization between Exchange (the dominate email source in the business world). On the Android you have to buy a $20 app to do what the Blackberry does out of the box. Also recently I ran a battery test of my Storm vs. my Incredible. The Incredible lasted 18 hours before needing a charge. My Storm lasted from Saturday mid-afternoon to Tuesday after work. So fear not Blackberry you are still relevant in this ball of confusion.
This was Michael Martin’s latest conversation with Bill Taylor
