After about 10 days with my new Blackberry 9000 (BlackBerry Bold) I am really impressed with the ease of use, power and design of this Research in Motion product. I’m not tech-savvy enough to be a geek, and I have avoided smart phones for a while now. But this device has made me a believer.
For a long time I resisted the urge to get a new phone because I really wanted my phone to just be a phone – not because I’m a technophobe, but because I hate to give up my phone at military sites (a requirement if your phone has a camera or recording device built in), really loved my plan with T-Mobile (which worked in Europe as well), and felt I didn’t need extra services offered in smart phones.
The iPhone changed that. We bought my wife a 3G last year and she loved it. We added cool apps to it and it was a joy to use. However, once she started texting me I couldn’t keep up with my old Motorola. And once the decision to switch was made, it narrowed down to BB or iPhone. One factor made the choice obvious: Enterprise email. And my employer had a killer deal through AT&T and so two days after making that decision my new Bold arrived.
Before I opened the box I was impressed. The “Made in Mexico” tag was encouraging. I’ve been in more than one contract manufacturing plants (such as produce Research in Motion devices) in Mexico and they are very well organized, ultra-modern electronics assembly plants staffed with highly trained locals. So I was confident in the assembly, test and packaging of the device. After unboxing the phone I was amazed at the sleek design and clear layout of the keys and hot buttons. And the screen was very dense with pixels, and provided a rich and clear interface. Wow. The best display I’ve ever seen. Following that, set-up was easy with AT&T and I ported my number over from T-Mobile (goodbye old carrier). For me, the real test of the design is how easy the device is to use without reading the manual.
So before cracking the manual open (and avoiding as much as possible the set-up wizard) I put the BlackBerry Bold to the test. Email loaded and synced with my laptop (through the exchange server) instantly. Within seconds I was downloading Google Maps and Gmail. Minutes later I had moved icons around and personalized my home screen and the full apps menu. At home I was able to sync with my Mac’s addresses through Bluetooth immediately, and joined the wireless (Airport Extreme) network effortlessly. It couldn’t have been easier and as a compliment I’d say the elegance of the design and interface rivals the iPhone in its intuitiveness.
In some ways I like it more than the iPhone: There is an escape key that functions like a go-back button, something I wish for at times when using my wife’s iPhone. The dedicated menu key puts options and actions at your fingertips from within apps and makes switching tasks a breeze. Now to the other apps. Just this week the BlackBerry app store opened, but even before that if you did a little googling you could find these FREE applications easily:
Twitterberry - a decent way to Twitter from your BB although the print is teeny tiny on the screen, and is only really readable if you click through a post to see the full text (it shortens longer tweets to a preview).
Flycast and Slacker Radio – two nice Internet radio programs that are handy, but you should have the unlimited data plan (I do) because they require data downloading. I tends to use Flycast more because they have talk radio and I like to catch up on technology, sports or political news when I’m on the go.
Beyond411 - this search app which is for BB what Urban Spoon is for the iPhone. But it's less fun and not synced to location (though it might do that; I just don’t forage for grub much).
PocketMac – very handy program for syncing the BB with Mac programs (Calendar, Addresses, etc) and very easy if you download the installation to your Mac. I had trouble doing OTA with the BB, but encountered a nice customer service (Lauren) person who pointed my browser in the right direction. This is not necessary for addresses, as that works through Bluetooth, but is a must if you want to sync Entourage or music or bookmarks.
QSMS – a sweet little app that makes the “Q” (on the full qwerty keyboard) act as a hot key to start an SMS text.
Pocket Express – the fastest free app I could find to put weather info on my Blackberry. (I read a review where a lady mentioned another app that places temperature on your home screen, but I’ve been unable to locate that since the day I saw it and this was the second-best option.) It is now my right side hot key.
There are many more, including free themes and ringtones, and even a cheap app that makes your BB screen look like an iPhone with the same icons and interface. But these are the ones I found really useful out of the gate.
After a week of heavy use I love this Bold. You can surf the Web (a real browser) while on the phone and the radio or music functions automatically pause while you take calls. Overall, a well thought-out and (I’ll say it again) elegant design. Battery life is good (all day with continuous use in multiple functions). Charging times are pretty short. Once I had exhausted my ability to sort out the features and functions I used the manual. Great keyboard shortcuts (space space puts a period and capitalizes the next letter. Neat!) and some tips on subtle difference detectable in icons. And there are few downsides to the device.
One downer is the desktop manager. There is little functionality and I still haven’t been able to transfer my extensive (8.5 years) Palm records over. Once connected by cable the desktop utility is slow, weird and set in its ways. This is an area where the geniuses at RIM should apply their skills. But for what it is supposed to do, it does pretty well. Items from Outlook (calendar and email) are uploaded. Events from iCal on the Mac upload as well, and so far no data was lost. Back-up gave an ominous warning and did not complete but I think I’ve fixed that now.
All in all, a pleasing experience and a pain-free migration from dumb phone to smart.
