Smart Phones of today

I actually waited until the second gen iPhone came out before buying in. I was concerned about the lack of 3G given the amount of data the iPhone was capable of downloading. So I bought mine in August and used it for three months. Having used BlackBerry, Treo, an assortment of different handsets as well as iPhone, it is clear to me that iPhone does not compete with Blackberry on two of the three functions.

So, without further ado, here’s the top 13 reasons I now carry a BlackBerry Bold instead of an iPhone:

1. Battery life

The Bold kills the iPhone on battery life. Under heavy use, say a business travel day with no laptop access, I have repeatedly burned through a full charge on my iPhone by early afternoon. This includes phone, e-mail and web usage, but typically not iPod usage. My Bold gets through a full day of similar activity with a half charge left at end of day. No comparison.

2. Battery life part deux

The Bold is not afflicted by “sudden drain” syndrome, something that has happened a few times on my iPhone. On occasion I have put a near full charge iPhone in my pocket and taken it out after a short period of time to find it down to the red for no apparent reason. Yes, I have applied all the iPhone updates that were released.

3. User Interface

My three year old can drive my iPhone. Should my 3 year old be able to drive my business device? Is that a good measure? I don’t think so. I tire of tapping through endless screens to get to the one I want when looking at e-mail, for example – I have five email accounts. I like the Bold’s contextual menus. Everything I might want to do on a screen has been put only a click or two away. It really works well, once you’ve learned it. Oh, and cut and paste…and keyboard shortcuts. Pretty rows of icons that jiggle on demand are fun to look at, but once you dive in it can be an uneven and frustrating experience.

4. E-mail

The e-mail just works better on the Bold. BlackBerry just knows how to do mobile e-mail. It works great. iPhone is slow to load e-mail, in my experience. Writing e-mail is wildly different as well. I became very frustrated with the iPhone’s keyboard. It was slow to respond, would often lock-up for seconds or more as I typed faster. On occasion it would simply lock-up completely, necessitating a restart – not acceptable for time-sensitive communications.

5. Stability

My Blackberry Bold does not crash. iPone apps crashed regularly. In particular, Safari crashed most frequently, followed by several third party apps I installed. As mentioned above, Mail would lock-up.

6. Appearance

iPhone looks nice out of the box, but as soon as you handle it it has finger prints and smudges. After a busy day with lunch meetings and such it could wind up looking pretty bad and take some effort to clean up. Impressions matter. The Blackberry Bold finish is not subject to this kind of smudging, except the screen area, and that cleans up with a single wipe.

7. Speed

My Blackberry Bold is generally faster than my iPhone. This is based largely on perception, but I’m referring to scrolling through screens, launching apps, viewing e-mail and most importantly, rendering web pages. I have also noticed the BlackBerry browser will pull the mobile interface by default for many sites, which I like, since I’m mainly interested in the data. This makes the experience faster yet.

8. The Keyboard

I prefer the physical keyboard to the virtual one. This is personal preference, I think, but for reasons I’ve mentioned above, I think it is also more reliable.

9. Multimedia content

I use a media monitoring service and need to view TV clips and listen to radio clips. These clips are provided in .3gp. Unlike the iPhone, the Blackberry Bold brings them up immediately in the BB media player.

10. Voice activation

Blackberry Bold has great voice activation out of the box. iPhone? No, which is surprising from a company that pioneered this technology.

11. Clicks are easier than gestures

The iPhone flicks, pinches and sweeps are neat, but clicking my spacebar once to scroll a page is actually more precise and easier in general. Clicking once to zoom page content is faster and simpler than the two finger, two handed equivalent on iPhone. With my Bold, I can stir my martini and navigate the web at the same time. The trackball wins. I think the touchscreen is a good way to get more screen real estate, but it is not necessarily an improvement in UI.

12. Storage

On my Blackberry Bold I can swap multiple 8GB microSD cards whereas I can have only one internal flash memory on iPhone.

13. Video

I like to post pictures and video remotely. I can’t do that with iPhone because it doesn’t record video. The Bold does.

Sorry Mr. Jobs, please don’t revoke my Mac Club Card, but the iPod touch with a mediocre phone = an iPhone that just isn’t eve close to the functionality of the Blackberry Bold. If you want a business communications handset with excellent multimedia internet capability, GPS, WiFi and a 2MP video camera, get a BlackBerry Bold.

If you want the latest tech toy for cool kids, you’ll hit the mark with the iPhone, but please heed my warning that you may find yourself gazing longingly across the room happy go-lucky Blackberry user sitting up at the bar.

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Canadian wireless giant Research In Motion (RIM) quietly launched its latest BlackBerry Bold smartphone in the home country on Thursday.

The BlackBerry Bold, which is considered to be RIM’s response to the iPhone 3G launched last month, didn’t generate the euphoria that the Apple device created.

Like the iPhone 3G, the Blackberry Bold is also supported by third-generation wireless networks.

Rogers, the country’s biggest telecom service provider, will support the BlackBerry Bold service across Canada.

The new subscribers will have to sign a three-year contract with Rogers Wireless, with an initial payment of $399 which includes cost of the device.

“Rogers Wireless is proud to be first to offer Canadians the world’s fastest BlackBerry smartphone on Canada’s fastest mobile network,” said John Boynton, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Rogers Wireless.

“The much awaited BlackBerry Bold smartphone is a ‘must have’ for connoisseurs of premium products and mobile workers who want to remain connected and productive no matter where their jobs may take them,” he said.

After reports of disrupted services by the users of the iPhone 3G, which is also supported by Rogers Wireless, the BlackBerry makers have reportedly optimized the new smartphone for Rogers’ 3G wireless data network.

The launch of the BlackBerry Bold in the Canadian market comes after RIM unveiled it in many European and South American markets.

The news smartphone features a newly designed, precision QWERTY keyboard, built-in GPS, enterprise-grade Wi-Fi and many multimedia capabilities. These include a two- megapixel camera with video recording and an advanced media player to play music, watch videos and view pictures.

Boasting a very high resolution display, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone also features a next-generation 624 MHz mobile processor.

Users can also edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents directly on the handset using the preloaded DataViz Documents to its Go software suite.

“The new BlackBerry Bold exudes confidence and elegance as it delivers blazing performance on Rogers’ high-speed 3G network,” said Mark Guibert, vice president for corporate marketing at RIM.

“We’re very pleased to be launching the BlackBerry Bold with Rogers, providing Canadian customers with a breakthrough smartphone that will help them make the most out of their work and personal time,” he added.

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BlackBerry Bold is the first RIM?s smartphone available from T-Mobile. The phone has a very sleek look and really gives a unprecedented functionality and sophisticated user interface for professional users. The handset has a build in GPS which is just perfect to work much faster on 3G networks. This smartphone has a 2 megapixel camera which offers video recording ability, built-in flash and digital zoom. A half-VGA LCD display with 480?320 resolution and 624 MHz processor and 1GB internal storage memory.

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone has an elegant design ? without sacrificing the features or functionality you expect from a premium smartphone, business users can download email attachments, stream video or render web pages in seconds. This phone has a rich list of features with GPS maps, email, phone, IM and the Internet, it can connect anywhere. BlackBerry Bold camera and video recording is fast and you can capture and share the moment with just a few clicks.

T-Mobile Austria sold the device for EUR 249 in conjunction with a 24-month contract, T-Mobile Deutschland for EUR 39,95 in conjunction with a 24-month contract on the Relax 200 plan or EUR 459,95 without a contract.

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