IMO..Blackberry (8800) compared to iPhone

[Dawgfan]

This is my personal experience and my personal opinion. As an avid BB user I was asked to comp them so here are my thoughts as I ranted them...

Well...

The two devices (when you get a good one as a BB can be defective too) are very stable IMO from my experience so far. This is what I loved about the BB is that it did not crash and apps ran the way they were supposed to. My current iPhone has been super stable and the menus are like butter. The occasional hiccup I get while typing (very infrequent) is no different than BB sometimes thinking I want to capitalize something I DON'T.

EVEN STEVEN
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Another positive for both but probably a win for the iPhone is the ease of use and learning how to do what you want to do on a BB or iPhone. The BB is TOP-notch in this realm when you have learned some shortcuts and some menu capabilities but they are not immediately evident to the average (non-geek) user and can take time (and geek friends) to learn. The iPhone on the other hand just puts everything in front of you and no matter what you want to do, chances are it is no more than a step away from obvious..and is probably obvious over 70% of the time.

+1 iPhone
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How about multi-media? Just thought I would get this one out of the way....Very vanilla-looking menus for Photos, Videos, and Music on the BB versus BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL screen, basically a 6G iPod, YouTube, Wi-Fi, Safari, you get the point.

+1 iPhone (only due to max points per section being 1)
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Third-Party Apps. Well I was getting some mean looks from all the BB around the office here so I thought I better start finding some shine to their business-like reputation. The BB allows 3P apps to be loaded and there are some REALLY,REALLY good ones including TeleNav (GPS), Berry411, Viigo, Jive Talk (best IM), etc. The iPhone has a few of these but you cannot run 3P apps on the iPhone and everything that is running is running through Safari. There is currently NO IM solution on the iPhone and using the Safari RSS links is not as friendly as having ALL of them in ONE screen like I did on the BB. I am not missing GPS as bad as I thought I would as GoogleMaps for the iPhone does very well for not having GPS.

Regardless...
1+ for the Blackberry (when apps can be loaded and run locally on the iPhone this could turn the tide...)
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Mail. Mail is separate from multimedia and apps to me in that, for me, it is an crucial function of a smartphone. I will not waste anyone's time here. There is nothing on earth today that can compete the the impeccable, robust and just an ounce short of perfection that is Blackberry email.

+1 for the Blackberry
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Battery life. The iPhone is stated to have almost twice the life of the Blackberry 8800. Now I have been getting about 25-30 hours of use/standby out of my iPHone but I admit it is getting better after only a few charges. My 8800 was good for 2 days and MAYBE could find its way close to 3 but I often charged it around day 2 regardless.

EVEN STEVEN
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Interface and just overall view/perception/experience.
I have to admit that while my BB was AWESOME at email, I still often had to lug my iPod with me to lunch to listen to or watch a podcast. The BB could download photos and I could use them as my wallpaper. The BB could store music on a memory card that I guess I could buy an adapter for my headphones and listen to. The BB has a very easy to use, pragmatic menu system. The iPhone has a menu system that is almost immediately evident to a 65 year-old lady and it flows like butter.

+1 iPhone
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Phone functionality. So is this thing really a phone?? The BB had excellent speaker and sound quality and my neighbors could complain about the sound level the BB's speakerphone was capable of. The iPhone.. not so much. I can hear people well but if Laura gets in her car and talks to me via her car's bluetooth it does not sound so great and this was never a problem with my BB. The speakerphone on the iPhone was a waste of time which makes no sense when you realize the thing can play songs through the SAME speaker at a much higher volume (I know, I know.. updates...well then fix the damn thing). If you are just talking to normal people on normal lines the iPhone will be fine for you but outside of that, good luck. I will say that when I use a bt headset with my iPhone it works pretty well. Still....

+1 Blackberry HANDS DOWN!
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So now I can add them up. I honestly just ranted and have no clue what the score is yet.. let's see....
The iPhone got 3
The Blackberry got 3

No wonder I had such a hard time with the decision.