Coming from a BB?

[Kamilli0n]

Who all is coming from a Blackberry?

What will you miss most about it?

What will you miss least about it?


For me BBM will be missed the most and the OS in general will be missed the least.

 

[trick202]

I will miss the fact that they are as reliable as a lumphammer, they handle multiple accounts with ease, and seem to get signal almost anywhere!.........

I won't miss the fact that they seem like such a yawn-a-thon to use, poor build quality (the battery case and trackball were both really flakey on my 8900), and there really isn't much that's going to change any of that. OS5 won't break the unbreakable mould......

Android, on the other hand, is hard to get bored with. It's a really organic platform with infinite customisation possibilities and and app market that will soon reach a tipping point and really take off.

It's the future buddy.

 

[knickerbocker]

I am coming from the 8830 and I will miss the keyboard the most. Yes, the Droid has a keyboard - but it is no where near as nice as a BB. I will also miss the ease of use of a BB - it is simple. But I have gotten sick of crappy applications and crappy web browsing and lack of exchange support without BES.

 

[OfTheDamned]

I am still up in the air about the Droid. I have a Curve 8330 now and I really like it. It is a very solid and well built device. The little misses has the same phone and she also likes it. We were both very excited about the Storm when it was first introduced, but were very disappointed when it actually came out. The Storm2 has looked pretty promising and we are excited to go play with it, but the Droid just looks phenomenal. We use google for just about everything and the ability to have total integration with all our google accounts (mail, calendar, etc) may just be too good to pass up.

The biggest one for me will be Slacker. I love having my own radio station wherever I go, but I know they are working on a version for the Android. We will both miss BBM, but figure that Google Talk will work just as well. I will miss Mobi Pocket, but aldiko looks even better. We will both miss a little app called HoneyDew (allows you to sync shopping lists and todo lists via BBs) and I hope to find some sort of replacement for that too. I will also miss Viigo because I used the hell out of that app. Many of the other apps that we use are replaceable via the marketplace so I am not too worried about them. The main thing that I will miss, if we switch, is the fact that the BlackBerries just work. I hope to have the same level of success with the Droid.

 

[Kamilli0n]

Blackberry just seems too resistant to change and improvement. I was expecting a lot more from their 5.0 OS.

 

[OfTheDamned]

Blackberry just seems too resistant to change and improvement. I was expecting a lot more from their 5.0 OS.

I expected it to look and act like a BlackBerry still and to be honest the UI has never really bothered me. I came from the Palm Treo line and the BlackBerry OS was a huge improvement. I don't have a problem staying with a BlackBerry, but I think that Android is the future and will only get better and better.

 

[ayce]

I'm definitely going to miss using BM

 

[pizz1000]

I will be moving from a Blackberry Storm. Although my storm is ok, the features of the Droid won't make me miss anything about it. Email is the best feature of the BB but with a gmail account as my primary email I would expect the Droid to be great in that regard.

Better screen, better flexability, and better browser without question - this is what I want in a smartphone as I find myself using the mobile browser more and more - honestly painful on the BB.

 

[Kamilli0n]

Web browsing on Blackberries is horrible.

 

[bluenik25]

I expect my wife will be leaving BB as soon as she sees my Droid. She is up for the new ever two now from her BB pearl. I hate that phone!

 

[shaggymatt]

Ditto - coming from a BB Storm.

I was never terribly impressed with the touch keypad on the Storm. I can type on it, not terribly slow or fast, just middle of the road. Was faster on my Pearl 8130 than the Storm.

Like someone else said, Pandora and Slacker. I'm sure that with time that they will work, if they don't already with the 2.0 OS.

I had also begun to love TetherBerry for my computers. With the larger real estate though I can see that need dwindling a bit.

Battery life when using the Storm wasn't great. It isn't a true multi-tasking phone either.

 

[bluenik25]

The Engadget hands on video shows Pandora running. I know there is a Slacker app in the app store for 1.6.

 

[iso100]

I'm coming from a Storm. Granted it's greatly improved since the 5.0.0.328 OS update, but I'm still ready for a real browser... and a physical keyboard. I currently use TeleNav on my Storm and can't live without it. Google Navigation has leapfrogged every other GPS offering and if it can download the route and maps, etc at the start of a trip, it will be untouchable. I'm sure if enough people request it, they will add the feature.

I'm eligible for an upgrade on 11/21 and will kiss my Storm goodbye.

 

[DanSan]

going from a curve 8330 i cant wait to get rid of this damn phone.. i got the blackberry expecting it to replace my itouch so i use the internet no matter where i am. i unfortunately sold the itouch before i bought the bb and was very upset when i used the the curve. cant wait to have a legit, beautiful web browser. i like to browse my volkswagen forums all day and it just wont work on the curve and when it does the phone lags and freezes

 

[iso100]

i like to browse my volkswagen forums all day and it just wont work on the curve and when it does the phone lags and freezes

Ahh... another VW nut. VWVortex? I haven't visited in years.... but do love my 99 Passat 1.8t (K04, FMIC, KWv2 Coils, DP, Exhaust, GIAC v9, Etc.)

The browser on Blackberries SUCKS. Even Opera Mini is sad compared to Mobile Safari.

Right now I have a 32Gb iPod touch that I use for games and online while in the house. It's an amazing web experience. If it weren't for ATT, I'd already have cancelled Verizon and gone there.

Now, however, we have a better, bigger screen, qwerty keyboard, awesome web browser with FLASH COMING SOON, open OS, etc... in the Droid. I'm counting down the days...

 

[DanSan]

Ahh... another VW nut. VWVortex? I haven't visited in years.... but do love my 99 Passat 1.8t (K04, FMIC, KWv2 Coils, DP, Exhaust, GIAC v9, Etc.)

lol yup another vw nut. im always on golfmkv.com which is strickly just 06+ GTI/Jetta/Rabbit/R32 forum. i have a 06 GTI 2.0T (apr stage 2, intake, dp, catback, coils, etc etc etc lol)

basically way too much money spent

 

[ajm144k]

I cant stress how BAD blackberries are. I don't understand how people are so nuts about them. I HATE my Curve. Honestly, the only thing they are/were superior at is email, and now that other phones are figuring out push email for any email account... i don't know what RIM thinks their future looks like but they need to change things.

No threaded SMS? Internet browsing thats a COMPLETE joke? Terrible semi-"GPS"? OS freeze ups? Camera that always makes a damn photo-snap sound? Some don't even connect to Rev A speeds (i.e. hugely popular Curve 83xx)? they have a rapidly dying OS- revolutionary for the '90s maybe.


Give me a break. ...no, actually give me a droid.

 

[Jim_1234]

The thing I will not miss about it is there lack of imap support.

 

[shaggymatt]

basically way too much money spent

I spent all the money for him, since it used to be my car! ha ha

Okay - I've been around long enough that it was largely a development car for Garrett/AWE on the 1.8T platform.

 

[shaggymatt]

I cant stress how BAD blackberries are. I don't understand how people are so nuts about them. I HATE my Curve. Honestly, the only thing they are/were superior at is email, and now that other phones are figuring out push email for any email account... i don't know what RIM thinks their future looks like but they need to change things.

No threaded SMS? Internet browsing thats a COMPLETE joke? Terrible semi-"GPS"? OS freeze ups? Camera that always makes a damn photo-snap sound? Some don't even connect to Rev A speeds (i.e. hugely popular Curve 83xx)? they have a rapidly dying OS- revolutionary for the '90s maybe.


Give me a break. ...no, actually give me a droid.

One word... SECURITY. That is why so many government agencies rely on them.

Many of the shortcomings you mentioned, were addressed in more recent models.

OS 5.x has threaded SMS (very nice, BTW). It even still comes with random reboots!

There was a lot of rumors of the next Browser coming out in OS 5.x but it didn't.

I will be glad to ditch the BB though!

 

[iso100]

It's funny... before 5.0.0.328, my Storm rebooted constantly. Now that I've upgraded it hasn't rebooted a single time. Amazing.

It doesn't matter though, as I won't cry one little tear for the Storm once I have the Droid in my hands.

The big question is how well it handles email notifications from Exchange, etc. That's one thing about blackberries is that you are notified instantly of new email.

 

[daytona]

1st post! I'm coming from a BB8800 and now I've got a BB Bold. Both with At&T. I've never used an android phone, but the droid is definitely tempting enough for me to switch.

the only thing i'll miss is syncing outlook contacts, calendars, notes and tasks without uploading everything to a cloud.

Oh, and BB has great customization of notifications, like my important emails vibrate once, and ring with a specific tone, but the less important emails only ring with another tone. SMS vibrates 2x, ring with distinct tone,etc. I'm actually not sure if the droid can do that or not.

Thing I'll miss least - boring OS. Horrible browser. And boring OS. did i say that already?

 

[iso100]

Oh, and BB has great customization of notifications, like my important emails vibrate once, and ring with a specific tone, but the less important emails only ring with another tone.

That's a very good point. I have a different sound for each kind of information coming in, so I know whether or not to look just by hearing it. I wonder what the notification granularity is on Android.

I guess if there isn't the support built-in, we could write it, right?

 

[trick202]

No reason why not. Handcent offers quite a bit of customisation: LED colour, reminder interval etc

lets hope so.....

 

[Don S]

I am coming from a STORM. I actually like it for the most part, especially since the 5.0 upgrade. But I am gonna be all over the Droid on 11/6.

What I think I will miss (unless android offers something similar) is the separate sound profiles on the BB.

I sometimes use my phone as a text pager for work at night. I have a "night pager" profile where everything else just vibrates, but the text alert is a loud pager sound, and I have other "normal" sound profiles for the day and such. It is really really easy on the BB to setup and change between these sound profiles.

Never having used Android, I'm not sure if something like this functionality is available natively, or via some app add-on.

Anyone know?