Tech Break - Smart Phone Update

With one mobile phone having been broken in two and my trusty Motorola Q for the past 2. 5years reaching the end (at least in appearance and features) and a store credit from my cell provider it was time to make the switch.

After much research it came down to two devices: Blackberry Storm or iPhone (well for me, ordered another phone for the broken flip-screen)

Note: While they both share touchscreens, these are vastly different devices and serve different markets. No really!

I went with the storm (after much hassle in getting one to actually arrive, will spare you the details). Spent a week and a half with the storm getting it setup and comfortable. Besides e-mail, the most important item for me is an almost real-time sync'ed calendar. The main company i work for does not have a Blackberry Server so the real-time sync was a game stopper. Yes there are work arounds (google calendar, paid services, etc...). None of these felt right to me and after a bad customer experience we elected to downgrade the phone(s) back to what I had prior to the change (at least one of the two phones worked).

Next day bright and early we had two spanking new iPhones and a new carrier (note: was concerned in their coverage compared to what i had across the country for work). So far so good, now on to the details.

Blackberry - Best as a business device and e-mail, if you have a Blackberry Server this is a great device! The latest software release (including the leaked OS's) are making this even better. Pro's: For multiple e-mail accounts they show on the home screen and each new message is indicated to show you which account has the message (or you can view all messages at once). Very nice camera with zoom and personal favorite was landscape mode for typing e-mails, sms, im's, etc.. is awesome. Battery life even more so!

iPhone - What can i say, its a consumer device and popular! There are tons of applications for it (and more everyday) from free to low cost. Cons: Typing for landscape mode in e-mails, sms, ims is not available (there are a few apps to help work around this) but compared to the convenient space of the Storm its a negative. I have been tuning some things down (ex. realtime mail sync and a few more) as the battery has not been lasting for more than a few hours, then again i cannot stay off this device from games, to social networks, web access, not to mention the GPS and recent applications for tying the GPS into Geocaching are making this much more than an iPod with a phone built-in.

What's missing: Bluetooth Stereo (for my headset) and video (added in iPhone v3.0 software)

So for those who have been asking which I liked, why and how its going: If I had a Blackberry Server this would have been different but I am glad to make the switch (and the wife has loved her new phone even more).

Thanks to those who have twittered some great apps to check out during the transition. A few to take note of if you have not yet used them: Twitteriffic, Yelp, Urban Spoon, Shazam, Showtimes, WhitePages, Trace, Pandora, BJCPStyles, Spore, TED, TapDefense, Goecaching, NYtimes, BannerFree, WhiteNoise and Stanza.