I upgraded the OS on my phone to one that includes native Chinese language support. Take a look at the posts at the top of this subforum for links to download an OS that has the native asian language packs included. Before these were available, I "added" the asian language packs to my OS by copying the necessary files from an OS that has asian language support (an OS not specifically designed for my phone). By doing this, I could just add the asian language support to my current OS (no need to upgrade). If you do a search on my posts, I go into detail on how I did this in a prior post.

I'm comtemplating on getting an iphone as my second play phone as the same reason you cited. How did you get thru the activation process without choosing an iphone plan? Did it let you not enroll in one?

I have a 8310 and I love it except the media and internet capability. Therefore I want to be able to switch from the curve to an iphone on the fly.

Thanks for any advice.

I have the same question. I just bought an iPhone. I activated it using a sub line on my at&t account but find I can only use that SIM in the iPhone. When I drop my BB SIM in the iPhone it wants to go to iTunes to activate it.

I was able to remove the iPhone data plan with one quick call to CS ... I would imagine I could do the same thing on my regular plan and possibly add my BB plan back to my primary line.

So, is that the way to do it?

That's a great review!

Just one quick question - you're getting phone calls during flights?

I can report that after using them side by side for a time I have been using the iphone exclusively for the past few weeks.

The latest BB outage last month pushed me over the edge. Faster and more reliable email isnt really an advantage when it suffers from such frequent outages.

I have found that:

Email. It is IMAP, so it is very reliable. It syncs every 15 minutes. It is relatively easy to hack that to make it any interval you want, but I find 15 minutes acceptable.

Keyboard. Is much better then I expected. I am nearly as fast as I was on my 8310. I even have better punctuation and grammer as the iPhone automatically punctuates and capitalizes contractions and abbreviations.

It is certinly not as easy to use as the BB hardware keyboard when walking or driving, but I really shouldn't be doing that anyway.

GPS. Was one of the biggest things keeping my on the 8310. However in my area there are enough mapped wifi hotspots that google maps can find me slightly faster and just as accurately on the iPhone as it can on the 8310 with GPS. For someone driving on the highway or living in place where wifi is less prevelent I am sure this would be a bigger issue.

Web browsing. There is absolutely no contest.

Calander/Alarms. The calanders are equally good from my non BES user perspective. The iPhone has a much more polished look to its calander application. The iPhone's alarm application is far better then the Blackberry. (one alarm? come on RIM.)

Volume. The 8310 is louder, no doubt. But the iPhone is loud enough.

Battery life. The 8310 would last me about 2.5 days with the Seidio 1500mAh battery. The iphone will last about 1.5.

But it is enough since I almost always charge it every night. I am also doing MUCH more web browsing and music on the iphone, so it isnt really a fair comparison.

It is a real game changer, and it is real competition for any customers who dont depend on a BES server.

I am keeping an 8700g as a backup phone, but I have passed my 8310 on to my girlfriend with no regrets.

10. Browser:
iPhone spoils me with its browser. I can finally access parts of the internet where BlackBerry is not invited to, such as banking sites, secured company sites, or airlines booking sites.
iPhone however is quite slow in loading those pages.

my blackberry can get on any site just like the iphone

If i get chinese language support on my Curve, does it change the whole system to chinese? or just give me the option to change fonts? Sorry i've been poking around on several threads today trying to find ones related to my questions. I want to buy a t-mobile curve and read/text in chinese. Is this possible? And if so, what are some clear directions because these posts can get confusing sometimes :/

thank you so much for all your support!

Same question here. I'd like to get one to play with it. But I'd like to use the same SIM as my BB and just swap them around.

i had one and returned to blackberry iphone is alot of wow at first it wears off and u realize it is not that special. ps the outages are not that diffcult to deal with.

Wow, great review. The only reason I say that because if I were to write a review comparing the iPhone vs the Blackberry, I would basically be exactly how yours is.

Only a few things might be different, as saying the iPhone camera is the best you've ever seen? Really? Might be due to the screen, but when you download to a comp, I really don't notice anything out of the ordinary compared to other pics taken with megapixel camera phones.

As for the blackberry browser, I access all banking sites all the time. Yes the iPhone browser is much better, but i've never really had a problem access any sites on the blackberry unless it was straight up flash. You really need to change some settings/options in your blackberry broswer, especially the emulation mode, I know I can access any online banking sites using the blackberry emulation. I use IE Explorer.

But it is the little things that matter. I flip out when there is no copy paste!

Wirelessly posted (curve 8310)

That's a pretty deep comparison, nice job!

i like ur review but theres one BIG MISTAKE. "iphone has the best camera" HELL NO. iphone camera is average at best and it has no flash so its useless at night time. the curve has quite a good camera but its only 2mp. try an n95 camera... 5mp and AMAZING. a lot of people actually think iphone pics are better because the iphone screen makes it look better. but u cant evaluate photos on a phone screen. the best way to fairly judge pictures, is to look at them on ur computer, believe me, ive done it and the iphone falls short...way short.

i've used both 8320 and iphone, at times i wanted to throw my iphone on the ground, but when i was on the plane i was glad i had it to listen to music and watch tv. btw the curve media player is pretty good, i've even watched family guy on it and its nice.

Hi, Thank-you for the review. I've had an iPhone since launch and love this phone, except it has been sent in 5 times for repairs. I currently purchased an 8820 while my iPhone is in for repair and I have to admit I miss the iPhone email system that it has as it brakes up the different accounts quite well, even though it doesn't have true push email, but I think that will change with version 2.0 and 3G support in June.

In addition, the Google maps works pretty good for me, but all of my cars have GPS and I have 2 seperate handheld GPS devices if I need something that is truely dependent on a true GPS device I'm covered, but think the iPhone does a good job and have used it in many cities and has worked well.

HTML email & web pages are amazing on the iPhone, wishes the BB had this. If you use the BB for true business email it doesn't matter, but if you get a lot of html email from personal accounts, the iPhone wins this hands down.

The video & music ability on the iPhone wins this one as well. My only complaint is the memory size. 8GB in a device that size is a joke, espically without any choice of expansion. The iTouch has 32GB and is smaller, so hopefully 2.0 will increase the memory to maybe something at least 32 GB or 60 GB would be ideal.

I do keep a Pocket PC (HP iPaq 210), this is a great device, as the iPhone does such a poor job in allowing you to manage your contacts, calendar, etc. No copying, pasting, etc. is a true let down. The iPhone keys suck at best and I am much better able to type with a BB.

No body wants to drop the iPhone. I've got mine in a case and dropped it 2 feet and it dented the corner of it. The new version is slated to have OLED, which will help with battery life, picture quality, etc. The option to change the battery would be nice as well.

I hope Apple has learned a lot over the past year and if they expect to get a piece of the Pocket PC & BB market they will need to build on the stengths with the iPhone already has and take a look at what these other devices do well to make futher competative in this market.

With the SDK out now, we should expect to see some amazing new apps for the iPhone come Summer.

From a messaging pont of view if you do texting (SMS / MMS), I have not seen a better device do this then the Treo 750. I don't know if the BB has a 3rd party that helps this, but the iPhone falls short here.

When I ordered my BB 8820, I was stuck between this and the Curve 8310. Any thoughts which 1 is better? Pros / Cons of each. I would like to try the Curve. Thanks!