Blackberry user to first time android

[mike_terror]

I will be purchasing the Samsung Captivate tmrw from the AT&T store after work. Planning to pay $379 for the no commitment since I'm not eligible for an upgrade right now. This will be my very FIRST Android phone. I have no experience what so ever.

With that being said, I'm a big Blackberry user, and will be coming from the Blackberry Bold 9000. Is anyone here also an ex-blackberry user? How will the transition be? anything I'll be missing from the bb that wont be on the captivate? I love my blackberry, its a great phone, it does what I need with emails in a heart beat. It's just lacking a lot in multimedia and web browsing, and I'm sure I'm probably missing out on a lot of other cool stuff too especially since I'm paying $30 a month for data plan.

Emails & Calendars are very important for me. How will the push email be on the Captivate / Android? I handle 4 email accounts with a mix of Gmail and non gmail. As far as calendars go, I have really bad memory so all my dates and important daily task needs to be in my phone.


My brother has an iphone 4, it seems great and all, but not to offend anyone, the OS seems kinda "dumbed down" for kids. It seems to lack a lot of options and customization compared to all the options and choices I had on my blackberry. I've read a lot about how the android lets you customize a lot, so hopefully I'll be going in the right path.

If anyone has some input please let me know! I'm excited to join the Android family!

 

[richierich]

Well we'll actually be waiting for your initial impressions and comparisons

 

[FrankAtlanta]

Same for me - came from a BB Pearl just over a week ago.

The biggest adjustment I've had to make has to do with moving from a physical to virtual keyboard.

Email just flys on a BB - great integration and I liked the Pearl's keyboard vs. the "normal" BB keyboards. The larger keys coupled with excellent predictive text made for a great email tool for work.

I'm still klutzy with the virtual keyboard. I think I'll definitely adjust over time, but I'm so much slower in the typing/email area than I was on the BB. A surprise for me - and it's been noted on this board - Swype really works for me. I went thru the tutorial, tried it for 10 min. Seemed interesting, but it was just too "different" from typing and I went back to the Droid keyboard. Yesterday, I thought I'd just give it a real try and switched the keyboard over. While it's very different from typing (and I found I needed to adj how I think about input), I'm finding it's much faster and more accurate (for me). Give Swype a chance if you're having difficulty with the virtual keyboard - really worked for me. I still haven't gotten the hang of selecting words or changing edit points in emails, etc., though.

The rest of the phone is so much more powerful and customizable. Good luck and let us know what you think!

Frank

 

[3gAndroid]

I will be purchasing the Samsung Captivate tmrw from the AT&T store after work. Planning to pay $379 for the no commitment since I'm not eligible for an upgrade right now.

I'm an AT&T customer beginning with the BlackBerry 7130c, then a few 83xx models, then a Bold 9000 upon it's release. Here's my story. I am a smartphone addict... BlackBerry's, WMobile, Moto Q, BlackJack... Well you get the picture.. Heh! The last OS to try was Android. Since AT&T had nothing decent I waited & waited. Finally when I learned about the upcoming Galaxy S / Captivate variant, I was more than ready.

Not eligible for an upgrade, I went into my local AT&T store. Built a friendly rapport with the sales person and asked for the $199 upgrade price. Listened to the canned speech "Sorry sir but we can't do that", smiled and said I understood. Thanked him & pleasantly asked for the manager. The manager comes out, I smile, tell him how satisfied I've been with AT&T and asked him to extend a courtesy discount & sell me the phone for $199. He said no, I smiled and pleasantly reminded him of my lifetime value to AT&T, called to his attention that I was not threatening to go to another carrier but simply wanted a good price. That caused him to stop for a moment, he smiled, thanked me for my loyalty, and said he'd sell me the Captivate for $99.00 + tx.*

How will the transition be? anything I'll be missing from the bb that *wont be on the captivate?*

The key to success us to remain positive & open minded. Remember this is completely different and will require learning. This mindset will ease you into Android v 2.1 very nicely.*

Emails & Calendars are very important for me. How will the push *email be on the Captivate / Android? I handle 4 email accounts with a *mix of Gmail and non gmail. As far as calendars go, I have really bad *memory so all my dates and important daily task needs to be in my phone.

I belong to this club...
My experience reveals a stellar email experience with Gmail. Yahoo, not so much, it's slow and cumbersome. So I migrated my Yahoo addresses to a couple of Gmail accts. Now running five Gmail addresses on Android is a snap. Very fast & easy. Every bit as good if not better than a BlackBerry.*I use Google Calendar and it too is excellent.

Welcome to the World of Android,*you're going to enjoy it...

 

[3gAndroid]

Please ignore the random asterisks in my post above, my mobile text editor leaves those invisibly till it posts, then it's too much of a pain to remove them.

SWYPE is what I forgot to mention. I simply cannot say enough good things about this input method. It took me about two or three days to get comfortable and now it's really fast & fun. The key is to go to their web site where you will find a few short video tutorials, 2 minutes each. They make it very easy as opposed to not watching them & learning by trial & error.

Cheers

 

[CaCHooKa Man]

if your primary use for the phone is gonna be for email then id stick to a blackberry. i had a blackberry for 3 years and i didnt really use it for what most people do. it was mainly just for BBM. the captivate was the perfect opportunity for me to finally ditch blackberry for technology that wasnt severely outdated. well at last thats how i felt it was. while OS 6 is big for RIM, it was too little too late. theyre still lightyears behind apple and android. the captivate is the best phone ive had (i also had a iphone 3g for a short period and a windows mobile phone) and i dont think im ever gonna go back to a blackberry unless they make drastic changes.

 

[3gAndroid]

In the past I would have agreed that a BlackBerry is best for email. Especially since I do so many each day.

But now we have SWYPE on the Captivate. It's way faster than a BB qwerty keyboard.

With the really fast speed of Gmail on Android it can't be beat.

 

[mike_terror]

Thanks for everyone's response and input! I'm not definitely more confident and excited in picking up my Captivate today! Now I just gotta get through the next 7 hours of work.

That caused him to stop for a moment, he smiled, thanked me for my loyalty, and said he'd sell me the Captivate for $99.00 + tx.*

That is a sweet deal man. But as for myself, I highly doubt that I can get something like that to happen for me. I don't have the charm & looks to work situations like that. Many people say I look naturally mean haha.

 

[3gAndroid]

Thanks for everyone's response and input! I'm not definitely more confident and excited in picking up my Captivate today! Now I just gotta get through the next 7 hours of work.

Excellent, it's always an exciting day when a new phone is on the agenda.

Be sure to post your first impressions, it will be great to hear from you.

Enjoy...

 

[ConceptVBS]

Welcome to the family. Just look at all the love.

 

[Boldt]

I was in the same position. I have owned 4 blackberry devices and went from the 9700 Bold to this phone. I have no regrets but email on this phone is not even close to that of a blackberry. I have 3 emails on my captivate working but the stock email is terrible - doubtful you will use it to poll 4 emails and be happy. There are apps that you can use that are better (k9 is not bad) and gmail works just fine so you can always have it pushed via gmail (pop/imap,etc) to bypass the stock email app polling every X minutes....

The kick ass email is the only thing I sort of miss from my berry but I miss nothing else - the captivate smacks RIM in every other department.. Welcome aboard and enjoy the new phone

 

[sonorous]

I came from many years of Blackberry and most recently a 9000. I can echo what others have said about email capability. From what I understand it is not completely and Android problem but more what Samsung has done with it. In my opinion they left email a bit hobbled. I decided to live with the issues and kept my Captivate but I did contemplate bailing for a Torch. I use the stock email client w/ Exchange 2007 Activesync (business) and the gmail app for gmail (personal). I tried K9 and did not really like it (push issues). I am currently testing Touchdown in parallel but hesitate to spend $20 on it.

My issues with the stock client are:
- GAL support: I eventually got this to work with the app "Swift Contacts" but I still don't get phone numbers. It works completely in Touchdown.
- Cut/Copy/Paste: It is not possible to copy quoted text. Seriously? I am hoping Froyo will fix this or I will be rooting. K9 does this very well. In Touchdown you have to reply or forward, then edit quoted text, then discard draft.
- Move email between folders --> Touchdown can do this (and probably K9)
- Meeting request Accept/Tentative/Decline w/ or w/o message --> Touchdown can do this (and probably K9)
- Syncronized draft folder w/ exchange --> Touchdown and K9 can do this
- Create calendar appt. and choose 'show time as' free/busy/tentative/out of office. --> Touchdown can do this (and probably K9)
- Hyperlinked phone numbers and websites within calendar appointments --> Touchdown can to this (and probably K9)

Also, these issues:
- LED - I was addicted to my BB LED indicator. I now use the app NoLED and I am fairly happy although it Force Closes occasionally. The nice thing is that you get multiple color indicators on the LCD for each type of message waiting.
- Profiles - This really bugged me at first. On a BB you can control how to be notified by every message type to a very granular level. I installed the app "Quick Profiles" and it is close enough to keep me happy.

Despite all of these issues and growing pains I still love my Captivate and look forward to future software updates. It does everything else so much better than BB. I hope this helps. Good luck with yours!

 

[kmeyers02]

I came from a Curve to the Cap, being my first Android. Very happy so far. There are definitely things I miss about my BB though. I agree with sonorous with all of thier gripes about email. I acutally only use one gmail account through the gmail app. Speed of getting emails is perfectly fine. Very fast actually. But the thing that bugs me most is lack of cut/paste and hyperlinks like mentioned. I'm sure there are other email apps like some have mentioned, just haven't tried them and kind of sucks I have to even try them to get what I was automatically getting w/ my BB. Also, I really do miss the LED notification and BBM. I REALLY hope they imporve gtalk on android to do at least what BBM can do. But like I said, overall very happy and I'm confident android will continue to improve faster than BB will.

 

[Invero]

I came from a BB Bold 9000. Loved the phone, but wanted a more rich experience.

I don't really miss the LED as much as I thought I would. I use my phone as a watch, so I'm always turning it on to check the time anyway.

I do miss the physical keyboard, but that was something I was (obviously) willing to adapt to. Swype is great, but I highly recommend the tutorials first. Before I ran the tutorial, I was struggling.

I really only have to things that I REALLY miss. First, spell check. I think it was integrated into BBOS, so in most programs you'd see the squiggly red line for typos. The other thing that I miss is the BB autocorrect shortcuts. It would automatically capitalize names and words I had entered in, as well as I could type 'bb' and it would convert to 'BlackBerry,' capitalization and all. It was a neat thing.

 

[carmendiva]

I am a new Captivate owner(not much experience with Blackberry...except for a shitty experience with the storm)

so i am sure you will love the Captivate and Android

 

[jomus001]

I literally just switched from my BlackBerry Bold to the Captivate about 4 days ago.

The pains of the transition are minimal, but they include:

1. Touchscreen keypad is not necessarily a BIG learning curve, but it's easy to become frustrated when you consistently misspell half the words you're typing. I'm getting faster and more accurate. Agreed, Swype is great, but takes some getting used to (like anything else) and is slightly difficult to use when you want words with consecutive letters that are the same (i.e. - 'sweep,' 'hello', etc - though I know you just need to loop over the same letter and it will process it...)

2. Email synching was a slight pain - it did not process my college email account (which was transferred over to a quasi-gmail account after graduation).

3. Not spectacularly easy to hold without accidentally hitting certain buttons or tapping icons on the touchscreen.

4. The lack of a flash for the camera is saddening. Minor, I know, but saddening nonetheless. You'd think most phones would include that now, since they're barely just 'phones' anymore, anyway.

5. My battery life seems to not last as long as purported by the many reviews online (less than a day).

6. And lastly I am still in the process of trying to synch my contacts from my BB to the Captivate. Did not work at the ATT store with their machine. I did not use outlook to back them up. And I do not store phone numbers on my contacts through gmail, so that synching was pointless apart from the benefits of having their emails. I actually just created a thread looking for any suggestions that could lead me to salvaaaaation.

So, I listed what seems like a trail of grievances, but these complaints are minor in comparison to the outstanding performance, easy user interface, intuitive controls, personalization, camera features, bangin' AMOLED screen, etc etc etc. Overall it's a fine piece of equipment, and though I'm still transitioning, I'm happy to stumble upon new and helpful features each day that make me realize what a solid purchase I made.

 

[carmendiva]

I literally just switched from my BlackBerry Bold to the Captivate about 4 days ago.

The pains of the transition are minimum, but they include:

Well I have a lot more experience with Android having had Droid, Eris, Hero, Evo, Incredible, Droid X, Xperia and now this one

I can safely say give it a few more days and you will be a pro at typing on touchscreen....

I think hardware keyboards will always function better but we are evolving where we don't need them as much anymore and can adapt to touch screen

I have had some email sync issues(i try to set up gmail and it says i am not connected to wi-fi but i really am connected to wi-fi(but this is not a Captivate issue but an android issue cuz it has happened on a few devices

I'm new to At & t and for the most part...the signal battles and complaints i have read and commercials i have seen about At & t vs Verizon seemed to be hype

For the most part, I have great coverage with At & t but it seems like my captivate has weaker signal than the Xperia that I initially had the other day

But like you said, these are minor complaints when you think of the benefits and pros of the Phone and I swear, Super Amoled is gorgeous and i love touchwiz

 

[3gAndroid]

but email on this phone is not even close to that of a blackberry. I have 3 emails on my captivate working but the stock email is terrible

I can echo what others have said about email capability.

I agree with sonorous with all of thier gripes about email.

After 5 years, averaging about 30 to 40 emails per day on my BlackBerry's, I never thought I would stop using RIM's great email devices. Never thought I could give up a physical keyboard... till I had a friend show me SWYPE.

For those of you that are frustrated or finding SWYPE a bit tricky to adjust to, I cannot stress how great the short online video tutorials are on SWYPE's site. Once I watched them I became really fast.

Now there is no way I would ever go back to BB and believe me I was a very hard core BB user.

Check it out, you'll be glad you did: Swype | Text Input for Screens

 

[joeygator]

I was a die hard blackberry user since the old RIM 850. Never thought I could use a touch screen. The touch screen and it's sensitivity is my biggest concern. But the flexibility of this thing is awesome. I love it and so far would not go back. I still have questions about configuring calendar sync for my second calendar in exchange, but otherwise it works. And as far as emails with phone number links, it doesn't highlight the phone number, but when I click on it, it jumps to the phone app and enters the number, just hit call and I'm on the way. I'm on Froyo/Sprint/HTC so I'm not sure if that is why mine works or not.

 

[3gAndroid]

Well I have a lot more experience with Android having had Droid, Eris, Hero, Evo, Incredible, Droid X, Xperia and now this one

For the most part, I have great coverage with At & t but it seems like my captivate has weaker signal than the Xperia

I'm a long time AT&T and Verizon customer. Both have been good as far as customer service. AT&T has always had the best coverage in my travels especially thru CA. I've used over fifty phones (I know, I'm a smartphone addict ) most of which I've unlocked and used on AT&T's GSM 3G network with great success. Which brings me to my point, my Captivate is one if not _the_ best yet as far as telephone performance is concerned. Far better than any past Samsung I've had.

Overall as much as I prefer the large 4.3" display on my Droid X, my favorite choice is my Captivate. I really like the brilliant display, the slim flat (no camera bump) form factor, and superior battery life.

 

[jflexe99]

I came from the BB 9700(Bold 2) I loved that phone, I just wanted something different, with more media to it. I do miss the business end of my phone....the droids have a bit of catching up to do with that. I am considering the 9800...but screen resolution, speed, all those little things, the captivate has it beat....

I do miss my physical qwerty keyboard and my blinking LED haha. AND A LED FLASH!!!

But the new 9800 needed a bump on the processor...They are still pushing the same 600(some) mhz processor in the 9700 in the 9800...Sure OS 6 is nicer but long ways to catch up media wise to other smartphones.

How are you paying 375???? I did an early upgrade(had my 9700 for more than 6 months) and got mine for 275....From AT&T