I have been a BlackBerry fanboy since 3 years and I loved every BlackBerry smartphone I've owned until....the latest Bold 9900....
I had a Bold 9780 before getting my Bold 9900 and I was so eager to have my hands on the Bold 9900 as I wanted a faster device, bigger screen, and bigger keyboard....
Well, it was much faster indeed but after using it for 8 months, I finally gave up on RIM especially that the first few BlackBerry 10 devices are going to be ALL touch screen so might as well switch now from a company that has lost it's magic touch...
1- The Bold 9900 has a smaller 1230 mAH battery compared to the previous Bold handsets which had a 1500 mAH battery... RIM claimed at the time, that due to the better power management in BlackBerry OS 7, even though the battery is smaller, it would give you the same battery life as the previous Bold phones....that is ONE BIG LIE! The battery is just horrible on this phone! The 1230 mAH battery simply cannot last longer than 4-6 hours under heavy usage as it has to power a larger screen with a CPU that is twice the speed of the previous Bold generations (600 MHz. vs 1200 MHz. on the Bold 9900)
2- BlackBerry OS 7....sigh...while it is a nice improvement over previous BlackBerry OS's, it has a few bugs here and there. RIM kept users always waiting in anticipation that the next OS would give them better battery life and fix these bugs.... but one OS after the other... users kept getting disappointed. RIM would fix one bug and introduce more new bugs! Their engineers have lost it
3- The camera's on BlackBerry smartphones are a JOKE compared to an iPhone or Galaxy. People on the BlackBerry forums keep saying "if you want a camera, why not buy a digital camera?!" Sure! I can do that, but why hold 2 devices when all the latest smartphones have 5-8 megapixel cameras with Autofocus and superior quality!? My current Samsung Galaxy S3's camera craps all over the lousy non-auto focus 5 MP camera on the Bold 9900
4- Applications... I always made fun of iPhone users how they always bragged about the myriad of applications available to them and kept thinking, all I want is a good communication device. When I took the plunge onto the Android world and started downloading some of the apps, I appreciated how much better all the apps are on other platforms! there simply is no comparison. Even the apps that ARE available on the BlackBerry OS are a lot much better on other platforms. Take for example, Google Map; on the BlackBerry, it cannot give me navigation directions (since I live in Dubai) so I thought that maybe my country is not supported; add to that, browsing on the map is very slow and almost useless while you're driving. Now I tried Google Maps on my Galaxy S3 and it is night and day difference! There is so much more detail, I can get navigation directions from and to anywhere (Even in Dubai), it is so much smoother as well!
I'm not going to talk about games because I have no time to play games but I have seen some games on the S3 and those are REAL games you can play not like the slow/poor graphics games available on the BlackBerry
5- Connectivity, while this issue wasn't present in my previous Bold 9700 and Bold 9780 handsets, the Bold 9900 has very poor reception. Sometimes, I would have a full 5 bar signal, but when friends try to call me it would give them a message that my phone is currently switched off
This was due to a poor radio file in the OS. I had to try literally every BlackBerry 7 OS for the Bold 9900 until I found one that has a decent signal and didn't give me that issue! That eing said, I don't think normal/beginner users will ever figure out such problems or how to solve them! This is definitely not something you want your customers to start experimenting with when they pay you and ar and a leg to buy your phones.
So I had a hard time choosing between the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S3 and finally went with the S3 as they were both the same price but the S3 had much higher specs, a better camera, bigger screen, and a bigger battery. Here is my opinion after using the S3 for 2 weeks:
Switching from a physical keyboard phone to a touch screen phone is one of the biggest challenges I faced. I thought I couldn't ever do it. After using it for 2 weeks, I can finally say that I am much better and accurate with typing ona touch screen. If you want the latest and greatest of technologies, I guess you're going to have to move along with the tides... everything nowadays is becoming touch screen
I love the fact the I can do ANYTHING on my smartphone, GPS navigation, web browsing, watching a short video, playing music, synchronizing everything with GMAIL! It's just awesome!
I also love how when you edit a contact on your phone, it gets edited on your GMAIL contacts the same instant and vice versa! If I was on my PC and wanted to quickly add a contact, I can do it on my computer from GMAIL and within seconds that contact is also on my phone! Nothing beats this kind of synchronization! BlackBerry has the ability to synchronize with GMAIL as well but it does so every 4 hours and 80% of the time it doesn't work unless you do it manually by deleting/re-adding your entire email account, only then would it download and synchronize the GMAIL contacts.
I love how if I completely wipe my phone and install a new OS, all it takes is to sign in with my GMAIL account on the phone and everything is back, contacts, settings, apps can be re-downloaded easily from the PlayStore!
I love how if I restart my phone, it takes like 10 seconds for a full reboot whereas in a BlackBerry it would take anywhere from 40 seconds to 1 minute!
I hope this "User experience" article would help you make a decision if you were in the same boat as I was a month back!
The ONLY thing I miss from BlackBerry and the only thing RIM will ever have is the BlackBerry Messenger, other than that, their phones are an absolute joke compared to the latest Android or iPhone handsets! Thank god there is whatsapp which is very popular now across all mobile handsets and is the best multi platform messenger at the moment
regards,
berryracer
I had a Bold 9780 before getting my Bold 9900 and I was so eager to have my hands on the Bold 9900 as I wanted a faster device, bigger screen, and bigger keyboard....
Well, it was much faster indeed but after using it for 8 months, I finally gave up on RIM especially that the first few BlackBerry 10 devices are going to be ALL touch screen so might as well switch now from a company that has lost it's magic touch...
1- The Bold 9900 has a smaller 1230 mAH battery compared to the previous Bold handsets which had a 1500 mAH battery... RIM claimed at the time, that due to the better power management in BlackBerry OS 7, even though the battery is smaller, it would give you the same battery life as the previous Bold phones....that is ONE BIG LIE! The battery is just horrible on this phone! The 1230 mAH battery simply cannot last longer than 4-6 hours under heavy usage as it has to power a larger screen with a CPU that is twice the speed of the previous Bold generations (600 MHz. vs 1200 MHz. on the Bold 9900)
2- BlackBerry OS 7....sigh...while it is a nice improvement over previous BlackBerry OS's, it has a few bugs here and there. RIM kept users always waiting in anticipation that the next OS would give them better battery life and fix these bugs.... but one OS after the other... users kept getting disappointed. RIM would fix one bug and introduce more new bugs! Their engineers have lost it
3- The camera's on BlackBerry smartphones are a JOKE compared to an iPhone or Galaxy. People on the BlackBerry forums keep saying "if you want a camera, why not buy a digital camera?!" Sure! I can do that, but why hold 2 devices when all the latest smartphones have 5-8 megapixel cameras with Autofocus and superior quality!? My current Samsung Galaxy S3's camera craps all over the lousy non-auto focus 5 MP camera on the Bold 9900
4- Applications... I always made fun of iPhone users how they always bragged about the myriad of applications available to them and kept thinking, all I want is a good communication device. When I took the plunge onto the Android world and started downloading some of the apps, I appreciated how much better all the apps are on other platforms! there simply is no comparison. Even the apps that ARE available on the BlackBerry OS are a lot much better on other platforms. Take for example, Google Map; on the BlackBerry, it cannot give me navigation directions (since I live in Dubai) so I thought that maybe my country is not supported; add to that, browsing on the map is very slow and almost useless while you're driving. Now I tried Google Maps on my Galaxy S3 and it is night and day difference! There is so much more detail, I can get navigation directions from and to anywhere (Even in Dubai), it is so much smoother as well!
I'm not going to talk about games because I have no time to play games but I have seen some games on the S3 and those are REAL games you can play not like the slow/poor graphics games available on the BlackBerry
5- Connectivity, while this issue wasn't present in my previous Bold 9700 and Bold 9780 handsets, the Bold 9900 has very poor reception. Sometimes, I would have a full 5 bar signal, but when friends try to call me it would give them a message that my phone is currently switched off
So I had a hard time choosing between the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S3 and finally went with the S3 as they were both the same price but the S3 had much higher specs, a better camera, bigger screen, and a bigger battery. Here is my opinion after using the S3 for 2 weeks:
Switching from a physical keyboard phone to a touch screen phone is one of the biggest challenges I faced. I thought I couldn't ever do it. After using it for 2 weeks, I can finally say that I am much better and accurate with typing ona touch screen. If you want the latest and greatest of technologies, I guess you're going to have to move along with the tides... everything nowadays is becoming touch screen
I love the fact the I can do ANYTHING on my smartphone, GPS navigation, web browsing, watching a short video, playing music, synchronizing everything with GMAIL! It's just awesome!
I also love how when you edit a contact on your phone, it gets edited on your GMAIL contacts the same instant and vice versa! If I was on my PC and wanted to quickly add a contact, I can do it on my computer from GMAIL and within seconds that contact is also on my phone! Nothing beats this kind of synchronization! BlackBerry has the ability to synchronize with GMAIL as well but it does so every 4 hours and 80% of the time it doesn't work unless you do it manually by deleting/re-adding your entire email account, only then would it download and synchronize the GMAIL contacts.
I love how if I completely wipe my phone and install a new OS, all it takes is to sign in with my GMAIL account on the phone and everything is back, contacts, settings, apps can be re-downloaded easily from the PlayStore!
I love how if I restart my phone, it takes like 10 seconds for a full reboot whereas in a BlackBerry it would take anywhere from 40 seconds to 1 minute!
I hope this "User experience" article would help you make a decision if you were in the same boat as I was a month back!
The ONLY thing I miss from BlackBerry and the only thing RIM will ever have is the BlackBerry Messenger, other than that, their phones are an absolute joke compared to the latest Android or iPhone handsets! Thank god there is whatsapp which is very popular now across all mobile handsets and is the best multi platform messenger at the moment
regards,
berryracer
