Switching from Blackberry to EVO newb questions

[vkdroid]

Hey all,
I was hoping to get some of your opinions regarding a decision I have to make. My Sprint upgrade has come and passed, and I am really hoping to get a new phone in the next few months.

I currently have a Blackberry Curve 8330, and it's my first smartphone and it's been pretty wonderful, although I do notice it's slow sometimes. For my next phone, I was considering the EVO or the Blackberry Slider (9800) that's supposedly coming to Sprint in the Fall. The main problem I have is that I can't compare my experience with the BB to anything, so I can't really speak to how good it is, etc.

Everything about the EVO sounds good, but I'm just worried what exactly I'll be missing leaving Blackberry. Excuse my ignorance, but I'm not even sure how email is handled on any other phone besides a Blackberry. I lurked on some BB forums and they all talk about how great the Blackberry "push" messaging system is, but would the EVO/android/Sense UI provide a similar experience?

Thanks!

 

[rjjr2531]

i made the same transition from 8330 to the htc hero. the only thing i really missed about the BB was the keyboard (sometimes)...other than that i cant believe i used to look at that small screen using a trackball soley...lol...the evo will be 100x better than the hero so you should be even more awe-struck...as far as email, ive always got my emails very quickly thru hotmail and gmail...given that its a google phone, theres some prety cool things it does with gmail...this will be the best decision you ever made (as far as technology)...android app market is a lot better than appworld and the android OS is completely customizable...pretty much this means you will always like your phone...have fun June 4

 

[Aridon]

Black berry has been getting a little aged now. Honestly there really isn't much you should miss your biggest problem will be wondering what to so with all the bells and whistles

In all seriousness though take your time, its a new platform for you and there will be a learning curve as you get used to learning everything. If its not doing something you want go to xda or here and ask away. Don't be afraid to root and tinker it seems a little overwhelming at first but the benefits are great.

 

[SMC333]

I'm also coming from a BB 8330... so over this phone. It is laggy and the apps are horrible for the most part. I've been eligible for a upgrade since may of 08' I just found out today haha. Went to Bestbuy today and preordered my EVO! CAN'T WAIT, I've been waiting since the very first supersonic rumors begun and have followed this phone throughout the whole unvealing process. I seriously don't think I will be able to stop smiling when I finally have this phone in my hand

 

[SMC333]

Don't be afraid to root and tinker it seems a little overwhelming at first but the benefits are great.

I'm curious.... my BB has been my one and only smartphone. What exactly does "rooting" do? what are the benefits? I saw on the Mac forums that they were saying it was more difficult then a "jailbreak"

 

[Kazrell]

VKDroid, it's hard to give you an opinion without some specifics on what your looking for. But switching from a blackberry to a fully developed smartphone like a EVO is comparing apples to berries.

That said, Blackberry's are pretty much the best email devices that have some applications that allow you to do other things. Smartphones like EVO focus on the applications and user interface more than RIM does with the blackberry devices. The EVO will give you a great email client that will allow you to send/receive email like you do with the blackberry and I suppose the only real difference (with email) is that the EVO and a lot of the newer smartphones have large screens and no hard buttons for keyboards.

With blackberry's the user interface and internet experience is lacking to say the least, with the EVO your getting a mini laptop with all that your able to do with the device. The EVO has a large 4.3 inch screen that I believe is large enough to adequately give a user a great reading experience in a small device. The things your able to do with a smartphone compared to a blackberry isn't fair to compare. Smartphones like the EVO are built to give you the basics of email and access to facebook/twitter - but are focused on giving you the things you would normally do with your laptop like watching movies, downloading music live, streaming video and accessing files left on a cloud (internet files).

With Andorid and Apples suite of applications your able to access over 240,000 different applications. I'm not sure how many apps the blackberry have, but again it isnt fair to compare. The EVO and most smartphones have large capacity camera's that allow you to take great pictures and videos. The EVO is said to have a 8MP camera that is capable of recording movie clips in HD. Your getting a really decent speced camera and video camera in a phone.

If I were you - if your needs are basic email access and reply - and you want to upgrade to something more robust and your ok with Sprints network - upgrading to the EVO is a no brainer. I'm sure you have other factors that we may need to consider but again without specifics - that's my opinion.

Good luck and happy 4G'ing!

 

[vkdroid]

But switching from a blackberry to a fully developed smartphone like a EVO is comparing apples to berries.

Maybe desserts to Berries?


To everyone:
Thanks for all the replies! I just stepped away for a minute and was floored by all the quick responses. I really was worried I was going to be missing something leaving BB, but it seems that I'm just worrying for no reason.

I guess Kazrell is right in that I can't compare the two, if we were to look purely at specs/features. The one thing I don't have any clue about is HTC's build quality. Anyone have insight on that?

My Curve is pretty solid, but I don't know what to expect with the HTC brand.

 

[Aridon]

I'm curious.... my BB has been my one and only smartphone. What exactly does "rooting" do? what are the benefits? I saw on the Mac forums that they were saying it was more difficult then a "jailbreak"

It is a tad harder to do but not difficult at all. Essentially root gives you super user access wich allows you to alter the normally read only section of the device. It is the ultimate ability to customize the device and with programs like root explorer it is very easy to alter programs, make great back ups, install new roms and edit unnecessary programs out of the custom roms.

You can also enable things that were disabled by carriers like free tethering. Root also opens up a few nice root only programs.

 

[vkdroid]

It is a tad harder to do but not difficult at all. Essentially root gives you super user access wich allows you to alter the normally read only section of the device. It is the ultimate ability to customize the device and with programs like root explorer it is very easy to alter programs, make great back ups, install new roms and edit unnecessary programs out of the custom roms.

You can also enable things that were disabled by carriers like free tethering. Root also opens up a few nice root only programs.

How risky is it? Would bricking/warranty voiding be a possibility?

 

[rjjr2531]

brickbreaker wil be missed

 

[L8AGIN]

The biggest thing i'll miss is getting my emails so quickly with my tour. Blackberry's are still prolly the best business phones. But all the other features of the evo simply blow away my tour.

 

[mkampy]

The e-mail functions on the EVO compared to the BB8330... No integrated inbox on EVO, however, the notifications bar across the top is more than adequate alternative.

E-mail delivery is instant with all forms of e-mail on the BB, the EVO will offer push G-mail, and other widespread e-mail clients (yahoo, hotmail, etc..) it will "pull" as often as every 5 min.

Another main difference, (and this is Android, could be a little different with diferent versions. Dialing the phone, seemed a little quicker on the BB than the Android, for my favorites, I could press & hold one button on BB to dial, where it took 4 or 5 moves to dial a favorite, there could be shortcuts for this however.

Apps: EVO win. hands down
Screen: EVO no explanation needed
speed: ditto
Overall user experience for everyday EVO (android)

I hope this helps some....

 

[Ricker]

The e-mail functions on the EVO compared to the BB8330... No integrated inbox on EVO, however, the notifications bar across the top is more than adequate alternative.

E-mail delivery is instant with all forms of e-mail on the BB, the EVO will offer push G-mail, and other widespread e-mail clients (yahoo, hotmail, etc..) it will "pull" as often as every 5 min.

Another main difference, (and this is Android, could be a little different with diferent versions. Dialing the phone, seemed a little quicker on the BB than the Android, for my favorites, I could press & hold one button on BB to dial, where it took 4 or 5 moves to dial a favorite, there could be shortcuts for this however.

Apps: EVO win. hands down
Screen: EVO no explanation needed
speed: ditto
Overall user experience for everyday EVO (android)

I hope this helps some....

That was good info mkampy (from another blackberry user). I myself am having some issues still (after two weeks) making the transition from bb but I may start another thread for those.

 

[jbsg02]

I have a Blackberry for work, the only thing I like about it is that I unplugged it Monday morning (it's now Thursday) and I still have 30-40% battery left

 

[The Dorian]

I came from the exact phone to the Evo. The Evo blows it out of the water in just about every way possible.

 

[PhxDroid]

I made the curve to evo switch. Simply no comparison from an experiential perspective.

I could never imagine going back. This evo has been the coolest, most fun I have had with a tech item since my original palm(you know the one that did contacts; calendar; and tasks)

 

[Misbehavin']

The biggest thing i'll miss is getting my emails so qu

ickly with my tour. Blackberry's are still prolly the best business phones. But all the other features of the evo simply blow away my tour.

I came from a Blackberry 8330, and I am also responsible for maintaining our BES. Moving to the Evo was an experiment where I'm looking at moving away from Blackberry as our corporate solution. Currently I have myself and another user on an Evo. Future users will likely move to the Motorola i1 as they will need to have the Nextel Direct Connect feature.

Using the Evo with our Exchange server, Im getting email pushed to my phone just as quickly as it was between the BES and my 8330. I also have a GMail account set up (for testing purposes) as push as well. email is nice and speedy there as well. So from an email perspective, if you use the push options with the Evo, mail delivery is just as fast as the Blackberry. At least I only need to worry about my server too, instead of having to worry about Blackberry outages that happened several times about a year ago. I can also avoid all the licensing fees and software costs associated with running an in-house Blackberry server too.

 

[JoshUng]

Blackberrys have BBM, Brickbreaker, and a keyboard. You're simply not going to get those three on the EVO. There are chat apps, but I haven't used one as good as BBM. There are arkanoid clones on the Market, but not as good as brickbreaker (not really the best game for a touch screen anyway), and of course there is no keyboard.

And of course, battery life is better.

Everything else, go with EVO. I made the same switch, and I don't regret it one bit. Personally, while the mail push might work better on the BB, I never really liked reading them on that phone, I think the Gmail app at least is much more pleasing to the. I don't need the exchange support, so I can't comment how they compare to each other there.

Blackberry App World sucks, at least is did when I used my curve. Apps in generally are better on the EVO, I don't think developers are focusing on BB as much now.