I’ve been on a Blackberry since 2000 – on the AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon networks. The keyboard on the various Blackberry models I’ve used – even the bad keyboard on the Curve or the small keyboard on the Pearl – have been downright great and I’ve become accustomed to complete and perfect integration between Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and the Blackberry – an integration that was great years ago and has gotten even more perfect since.
But with all of the innovation in the smartphone market, I’ve started to think about cheating on my Blackberry and maybe even leaving her altogether. Here’s my thinking:
- AT&T network – the iPhone has crushed the AT&T network. It was a good network a few years ago though with some bad holes in the coverage. Derivative from the iPhone, the massive growth in bandwidth demand on their network crushed the backhaul lines from the towers to their network core and made my AT&T Blackberry Bold less and less reliable. With the most recent BB OS release I’m now able to turn off 3G on the phone and so I’ve taken to locking the phone into EDGE; my reception stability and my call quality have improved noticeably and it’s more than tripled my battery life bc EDGE is so much more battery efficient than 3G – kudos to AT&T and BB for finally releasing that functionality on the Bold. That being said, even if I stick with a Blackberry, I probably have to leave AT&T.
- Blackberry internet browser - the BB browser is useless and not worth opening.
- Apps -
- The BB has one great app and it’s email. It’s a really important app but these days I don’t really want to do long email on my phone and have started to use my Lenovo X301 laptop plus a Verizon EVDO card for any serious emailing. I can go far faster on a full size keyboard without destroying my fingers and nothing beats the resolution of a real monitor.
- Other than email, there are not many apps on the BB and those that do exist tend to be pretty lousy. Apple learned from its 80′s mistakes with the Mac (I could not get a game – other than Sim City or Leisure Suit Larry – on the family mac to save my life) and has taken a great early lead in the app space. Interestingly, in a reversal of history, Microsoft has not done well in the app space; a terrible initial mobile OS is, however, a repeat of their terrible first GUI OSes on the PC (Win 3.1 was just downright terrible).
The iPhone is beautiful and clearly people rave about it. But I don’t trust Apple hardware – it just fails too often and in a phone I need reliability. The lack of a keyboard is also basically a nonstarter; Everyone I’ve asked says that the touchscreen keyboard is something that they got used to but still don’t love. It’s adequate but nothing more. The lack of replaceable battery and the bad battery life intrinsic to any device on 3G makes the iPhone a nonstarter without even taking into account the AT&T network that I would have to remain on.
So I wandered into the Verizon store this afternoon and was greeted by no long lines, relatively little hype. the typical energy draining experience of any wireless store other than an Apple store and a beautiful Motorola Droid. I just may do it. The wireless business is not a complicated one – offer great phones (typically a weakness for Verizon) and a great network (typically a strength). Verizon and Google have a hit on their hands. It’s an impressive turn around for Motorola and for Google, it shows how seriously they are taking mobile computing. For them to be able to compete with the iPhone after only a couple of years in the cell phone business is incredibly impressive.
