iPhone, Windows Mobile, or Black Berry

[FrontLine]

Just curious who uses what and why?

As for me I use an HTC Touch Pro running Windows mobile on Verizon's (formerly Alltel) network. Over all Im very happy with the phone. HTC does a great job of skinning over WM and their implementation of TouchFlo for navigation, a la the iPhone, aint too shabby. Plus I love the fact that its a touch screen with a slide out keyboard. I'm neutral on the apps. It comes loaded with what I need for business and a bit of screwing around while sitting waiting for an appointment / flight / etc.. . It comes with Opera mobile and its ok. Down sides for me are the battery and screen size. The latter really doesnt need explanation other than to say I wish it were a tad bigger. The former, well after having the phone for about 9 months Im ready to throw it out the window over the battery alone. Even brand new, if I could get 8 hours out of the battery with blue tooth running I would be estatic. Now Im lucky to get 6 hours with out blue tooth.

But I want more / something else. Right now Verizon is supposed to release the Black Berry Storm 2 in the next 30 to 60 days and possibly an iPhone between October and January.

As for the Storm, It is supposed to a light years ahead improvement over the Storm 1 (which you can now get from Verizon for $50.00). Its a proven business tool (which is what I need it for). RIM has its own app store but that doesnt really interest me. The OS is old, but still works and they are about to release V 5 which is supposed to be a great improvement. About the only down side I can see to any of the Black Berries is the browser. Like I said though I rarely if ever browse and the are options available and the company they just bought makes a browser that is supposed to be better than the Safari browser. But who knows when it will come out.

Finally there is the iPhone. Here is my take on it. Its a great phone. Does a lot of things well. Not too impressed with AT&Ts network and though its got a lot of great apps, Im not impressed with that. I'm also not 100% sold on its integration with Windows and Outlook and Exchange.

So what about you, what do you use and why?

 

[Brent]

I use a BlackBerrry, I have the Bold. I love it, best phone I've ever owned. I tried the HTC Touch Pro with TouchFlo and HATED it. It is bloat upon bloat, yes TouchFlo LOOKS good, but it sits on top of WinMo causing bloat and lag. It also isn't 100% in control as you can still operate things through the WinMo interface, which makes it so there are 20 different ways to do one thing. I found it overly complex for a phone.

I returned it during my 30 day period with ATT and got the Bold. I love the navigation on it, the trackball is glorious IMO. I also love the OS, it is lean and fast, no bloat. RIM (and carriers) also release newer builds of the OS frequently, so there are always upgrade options. In fact BlackBerry OS 5.0 is due out end of this year, and everyone is looking forward to that OS. The new browser in OS 5.0 adds tabbed browsing support btw. Also, RIM just acquired Torch Mobile, which is a WebKit developer, so RIM is definitely serious about improving the browsing experience.

I've been hearing good things about the Storm 2, if a touch screen phone is what you want, I would personally chose it over an iPhone. I don't like some of the things Apple has done with the iPhone, such as storing screenshots of your homescreen without your knowledge, a bug in the latest OS that allows deleted email to be retrieved, news stories lately about exploding iphones or overheating iphones, and a lot of news articles about how the iPhone is a great tool for spying.

Like I said, the software is better, and there is even a new OS coming out to look forward to, and its easy to upgrade. Incase you are wondering, RIM also has an app store called AppWorld http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/ which you can also install on your phone and install apps directly to it, and there are a lot of FREE apps too. So if you are app crazy, BlackBerry does have you covered in that department.

Overall, I like my BlackBerry Bold, does what I need it to, its fast, lean and mean, no bloat, easy to navigate, and for me just the perfect phone. If I were to get a touch screen phone I'd definitely be looking at the Storm 2.

Oh, and BTW, if you were wondering about WinMo phones, Windows Mobile 7 has been delayed, won't be out until the 2Q of 2010.

 

[backstept]

^ I think you mean Windows Mobile 6.5

mine's a Blackjack 2 running WinMo 6.1 . . . kinda old, but I love it
good facebook and twitter apps, decent games, I even have a sega genesis emulator and I've been known to bust out Streets of Rage 2 on occasion

 

[Brent]

^ I think you mean Windows Mobile 6.5

mine's a Blackjack 2 running WinMo 6.1 . . . kinda old, but I love it
good facebook and twitter apps, decent games, I even have a sega genesis emulator and I've been known to bust out Streets of Rage 2 on occasion

Nope, WinMo 7 is delayed - Link - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3765

WinMo 6.5 is just a stop gap, seems MS is having Mobile Phone OS problems lately

 

[Marc]

I'd head over to www.anandtech.com and look at some of the recent articles looking at the latest smart phones. Iirc their latest looked at the iPhone 3GS v the new Palm.

The iPhone's integration with Exchange is pretty good and works well - I've had it working with both Exchange 2003 and 2007 (I did have a problem with ES2007 under SBS 2007 that I never managed to knock on the head).

I will admit that I'm a tad biased - I have an iPhone and like it a lot and have worked with a BB Touch or whatever it was called but wasn't that wrapped.

But I will one thing - I wish these frakking handset companies would stop doing the exclusive deals with the mobile carriers and give the customer more options to buy the phone outright and put it on which ever network they want.

 

[backstept]

^ I think you mean Windows Mobile 6.5

mine's a Blackjack 2 running WinMo 6.1 . . . kinda old, but I love it
good facebook and twitter apps, decent games, I even have a sega genesis emulator and I've been known to bust out Streets of Rage 2 on occasion

Nope, WinMo 7 is delayed - Link - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3765

WinMo 6.5 is just a stop gap, seems MS is having Mobile Phone OS problems lately

ah! I hadn't heard anything about 7

 

[Robert Maxwell]

No love for Palm around here, apparently.

I have a Palm Centro and I fucking love it.

 

[FrontLine]

But I will one thing - I wish these frakking handset companies would stop doing the exclusive deals with the mobile carriers and give the customer more options to buy the phone outright and put it on which ever network they want.

I hear ya. At least Verizon is supposed to be getting the iPhone between Oct and Dec. I dont know how long they will have exclusivity on the BB Storm 2

No love for Palm around here, apparently.

I have a Palm Centro and I fucking love it.

Actauly you are right and I've heard good reivews on the new Palm offering. In fact I was a Palm fan since they first came out. But they left me. I think they shot themselves in the foot. I also didnt even think about phones running the Android OS (Google / T-Mobile G1).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I agree that Palm has made some mistakes over the years--the biggest one being resting on their laurels while Apple developed the most killer phone of our time. Love or hate the iPhone, it is the standard-bearer now. And Palm totally missed the boat.

That said, the original PalmOS--the one on all devices except the new Pre--is a rock-solid bit of software. It's not the prettiest but it's quite fast and capable. They just kind of quit innovating with it, perhaps because it was getting long in the tooth and becoming very difficult to enhance. Regardless of the cause, they've paid the price for it in recent years.

But my Centro is great. I have tons of free applications and games on it. And it runs Duke 3D, Doom, Quake, Heretic, and ScummVM flawlessly.

 

[Marc]

Actauly you are right and I've heard good reivews on the new Palm offering. In fact I was a Palm fan since they first came out. But they left me. I think they shot themselves in the foot. I also didnt even think about phones running the Android OS (Google / T-Mobile G1).

While the Android based phone has been getting some good reviews, etc Slashdot had an article linked that it's suffering a bit because of a lack of name recognition. Vendors like HTC are selling it under thier own name/model so people aren't putting 2 and 2 together.

I agree that Palm has made some mistakes over the years--the biggest one being resting on their laurels while Apple developed the most killer phone of our time. Love or hate the iPhone, it is the standard-bearer now. And Palm totally missed the boat.

The advent of Mobile Windows/Pocket PC probably didn't help things and that was long before the iPhone came long. It provided a standard operating system that different vendors could use and the associated benefit's with being "Microsoft".

I thought there was serious lawsuit relating the PalmOS softeare that kicked them about a bit but none of the cases mentioned in Wiki ring a bell.

Though looking at the wiki entries reminded me of some-one that seemed to disapper without trace - who remembers Handspring?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Palm bought Handspring, which is ironic, because Handspring was founded by a former Palm exec.

They basically integrated the best parts of Handspring into the PalmOS and ditched the rest.

 

[FrontLine]

Yep my 1st PDA was a handspring.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

You can't go wrong with this:

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Wow, that takes me back. I still have this old analog cell that's the size of a land-line cordless, and the bottom part flips open. Good for calling 9-1-1 if nothing else.

 

[KirkSpockTOSFan]

I have the iPhone, and I love it! I had my iPhone only about 2 months, I use to have a Motrola Sliver. I tell you from the Sliver to the iPhone is a big improvement. My other phone could not do alot of things that my iPhone does. I love that I can check my email while on the go, plus I love some of the apps it has on it. I realy like the map,the weather, the compass,the note pad,caculator apps as well as everything else on my iPhone. I could not do half of that stuff on the other phone. I guess thats why I love my iPhone so much because I do so much more on it, its like haveing my comptuer and phone in one. I like the idea I have a note pad on my phone as I can put important notes on there just incase I forget it,which I was do if I dont write it down. And I also like that I can keep an eye on the weather when I'm away from home don't know whats its gonna be like while I'm out.

 

[FlyingLemons]

I use the iPhone. Despite being generally sold on all things Apple before it came out, it did take a little effort to get it to play nice with my office's email server (then again, it's a temperamental beast with anything) but after that I've found it works fine. I would like Flash support for the browser, but apart from that I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Galactus]

You can't go wrong with this:

I am right there with you. Those were the best ever.

I don't get all this craze over the smart phones especially now that netbooks are taking off. If I was going to do anything I would just get a regular phone and a netbook. There is no need to have a smartphone, netbook, notebook, PC at home, and PC at work. Add to that maybe a mobile PC in your car. That is just too much over kill.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

I'm sticking with my HTC Apache (VX6700) for the time being. It's upgraded to WM6, and I'm running the Winterface GUI as my primary interface. The Apache has the landscape mode slide out qwerty, so I'm not stuck with touchscreen for text entry.

There's a wealth of legacy applications going back to 1999 or so that work just fine on it. Granted they aren't gathered up in one place like the iphone apps, but so what?

Tight integration with MS Outlook is also a factor for me, and WM devices have it. Hey, it's Microsoft!

When I do upgrade, it'll be to WM again, and all my beloved apps come with me...including ebooks! Take that, Kindle!!!

 

[Sheep]

Despite its "1.0" flaws, the Palm Pre is far and away the best phone I've ever owned. I love how easy it is to hack and customize, even for a non-Linux user like me.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Despite its "1.0" flaws, the Palm Pre is far and away the best phone I've ever owned. I love how easy it is to hack and customize, even for a non-Linux user like me.

Oh, that sounds very promising. When it comes time for me to upgrade (in 2011, sooner if I wanna) maybe I'll go with the current version of Palm. I'm glad to hear they've lost none of their hackability in the jump to webOS!