[MobileMind]

How would you argue the case for a Blackberry Bold 9700 over a Nokia E-72 (The so called (by Nokia and Microsoft) Blackberry killer) for business users?

EDITED: I originally loaded a full list of E-72 specs without comment as DubDub pointed out. In this edited version I shorten the list in the hope of getting a more informed response

FOR BB9700

1) SECURITY- The Blackberry 9700 is probably a more secure device as Blackberries are built with business or military customers in mind and were designed to be secure in a way that a consumer oritented device like a Nokia does not need to be.
2) I prefer the keypad on a 9700.
3) Nokia cannot synch with a Domino server and does not seem to be a push tech
4) Not sure the E-72 will work in japan looking at the spec - cannot see 3G
5) BB9700 seems to offer a better pixel quality with a 480x360 pixels compared to 320x240 although Nokia technology is slightly different QVGA
6) I like the BB 9700 trackpad
7) BB9700 is 6g lighter and a little more compact with high build quality
8) If used in the way my company would want e.g. push email etc battery life is worse on a E-72

FOR E-72
1) E-72 has better multimedia e.g. videocalling, better camera, FM radio (can get radio on Blackberry also but only through internet)
2) The E-72 has a faster modem and especially upload speed using HSUPA technology
3) E-72 GPS includes a compass
4) E-72 is a cheaper handset depending on which carrier you go with

My view is that for business BB9700 would be a better device for me and my company. But the Nokia offers some exciting media features which RIM need to incorporate into later devices if they want to keep their existing customers in the fold.

[Dubdub]

The BB is made for business uses period. Plus it is more secure than most other devices. Cannot comment on the Nokia and your long list of specs.

But this is a BB forum so my guess is that the BB will win the battle.

[aiharkness]

Wirelessly posted (8820)

MM, are you trying to decide what to buy for yourself, or are you trying to convince your employer to issue you one over the other?



What is best is what best meets your individual needs. Obviously, your employer's motivation might have nothing to do with your needs or what is best technically and performance wise.

[MobileMind]

Originally Posted by aiharkness

Wirelessly posted (8820)

MM, are you trying to decide what to buy for yourself, or are you trying to convince your employer to issue you one over the other?



What is best is what best meets your individual needs. Obviously, your employer's motivation might have nothing to do with your needs or what is best technically and performance wise.

Sorry you posted just before I put my edited post out. I am thinking about what would be better for a company generally and trying to draw out from people generally what arguments they would use discussing the use of a 9700 over a E-72. At the moment 9700 wins for me but the E-72 is a stronger challenger than the iPhone in my view for the business market.

[MobileMind]

Originally Posted by aiharkness

Wirelessly posted (8820)
your employer's motivation might have nothing to do with your needs or what is best technically and performance wise.

No of course that is often the case. On a general level and not in any way speaking for my company on this, I find it helps to put myself in a users shoes when considering options though as then you know how your solution will work out in practice. Also some companies are more enlightened than others when it comes to listening to recommendations based on the technical specs and how these will work out in actual business processes.

For example an iPhone to me is a glitzy consumer device. Its something for play. But I would say your average Marketing Director will love to see his latest graphical displays and presentations on the big screen and have the options for the web interface. What he does not see is the insecurity of the device, the impracticality of the administrative arrangements. He only starts to have doubts when he realises he cannot really multitask on the device that the battery runs out at awkward moments in the field, that phone reception is not as good as a Blackberry where the signal is weak and that he chews up his data allowance in next to no time due to the inefficient use of bandwidth by the device. Also since he does spend a lot of time typing emails he starts to get very frustrated with a touch screen keyboard as opposed to a full on qwerty keyboard.

Having discovered all these worries about an iPhone does this Marketing type turn to a Blackberry. Well not necessarily he may look at the multimedia features available on the Nokia E-72 and think this device offers him the best of both worlds- fun and business. So i suppose then the issues become what a companies priorities are when it comes to the mobile equipment of its employees. How serious does a company take security and how carefully does it administer what it expects its users to be doing with that device. How important is it to have a device that will last in the field and will make the best possible use of the signal strengths available to it.

For me the security of the Blackberry 9700, its integration with business systems, its battery life and the efficiency of its email, IM and Phone make it the best option for business. At the same time its multimedia functionality is adequate for most travel or job scenarios, albeit not in the same league as the iPhone or E-72.

CORRECTION

To correct my previous posting however it does seem that an E-72 should be able to work in Japan as it has 2100 Mhz triband 3g which works with NTTDocoMo for instance

[Jagga]

Originally Posted by MobileMind

Sorry you posted just before I put my edited post out. I am thinking about what would be better for a company generally and trying to draw out from people generally what arguments they would use discussing the use of a 9700 over a E-72. At the moment 9700 wins for me but the E-72 is a stronger challenger than the iPhone in my view for the business market.

Although the E72 is a great phone its too similar to the E71 (of which I've owned 3x). Its just not a good fit for business.

* Coding internal applications for E72 will be difficult if nobody knows Carbide.
* Calendar still pales in comparison for ease of entry, speed of entry, and managing complexity and integration into the core OS and how API's leverage this for other applications. You'd NEED SBSH apps to augment the Calendar to compare to BB.
* Calls .... its pathetic on S60 for BOTH 3rd Edition FP1/2 or 5th Edition (Symbian^1)! Sometimes incoming callers that are apart of your AddressBook just show as unknown ... a HUGE long-time bug that Nokia has failed to correct for the past 10yrs! Atrocious!
* Battery life is very close to BB but standby times are marginally close.

Coding applications for Blackberry is just amazing anyone with Java experience (J2ME/J2EE) will do just fine.
- BES is worth the money even for small business!
- Blackberry OS stability is the BEST in the business/consumer market.

My advice, check out the support forums for both BB vs S60 ... you might find even the die hard users of S60 (such as myself) leaving it for better personal/corporate use.

Maybe, MAYBE when Symbian Foundation updates the OS by Symbian^3/^4 later this year (next year for Symbian^4 to show up in devices) you could consider them.

[pinhead]

I really like S60 but I always end up leaving it.

The Contacts application is not nearly as robust as it should be. Categories in Outlook DO NOT sync to the device, regardless or whether you sync directly with the computer or via Exchange, which is a dealbreaker.

The Calendar application is similarly limited and also is not as easy to use as Windows Mobile and BlackBerry.

The Tasks application...wait, nevermind...there isn't one.

The browser...well, anyone who has used an S60 device for any length of time. There is a tendency for it to inexplicably close while you are in the middle of browsing. Yep...it just closes with no warning and no explanation.

Exchange email is alright on the S60 devices, but on the E71 I noticed that I could not get my subfolders, which is a big deal. I could not flag messages. I could not open many attachments (much like the BlackBerry on this point though). I could not...that became a pretty familiar phrase to use with that phone.

I liked it. I had the E61i before the E71 and feel that those devices were definitely better built than BlackBerry devices are. The software really holds them back. BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android, messenger pigeon...they all have S60 beaten for business use. For personal use I am still a fan...but you MUST download Opera Mini or some other browser.

[MobileMind]

Now that I have had hands on experience of both devices my impressions have changed somewhat.

The Nokia E72 is a really good device with some interesting features.
The size of typing keyboard and screen seems pretty similar. The extra length of the Nokia seems to be due to the extra shortcut keys and to the larger size of the camera. Battery life is good also.

A lot of navigating around a powerful smartphone is familiarity and after a while I found myself getting used to the keyboard and link structure.

I find the Nokia a lot less intuitive to set up and found a lot of irritating things - like multiple connection options for all sorts of different service. On the Blackberry it is easier to set things up and to simply set the whole connection to wifi when ones wants that for instance.

I really miss a generic escape key. I have to read the keys before i click them to check what they do- again it was not as intuitive as a Blackberry.

There were some real good free apps that came bundled with the device-
a business card scanner
- the ability to control presentations from the bb
-the camera definitely takes better pictures than the BB and the way the media centre is organised gives more options in a more attractive format.
- the weather info page in the travel app
- a built in pdf reader

Also I did like the thought that had gone into having various shortcut keys and the ways in which the some of the menus were organised. Overall the Nokia did not give me as many options for customisation as I have on my 9700 and I missed being able to place link icons to my favourite apps on the main screen. Maybe I missed the way of doing this but overall I felt that my Blackberry was more intuitive and gave me greater flexibility.

I found my connections dropped quite a lot which was irritating although it did not take much to restore them.

I think there is a lot of power in the device but found it fiddly and unnecessarily complicated at times. Very often there were just too many clicks to get to my favourite apps and given no possibility of customisation this seemed fixed.

I really liked the ability to switch between personal and business although I do not think that companies with restrictive information policies are necessarily going to ever be too warm about that which is a shame as on personal level this is what I would want to be able to do.

Add to that the Blackberries undoubtedly better security and administrability I very much doubt the larger corporates would choose this over a Blackberry unless there was a very large cost advantage to it. I am not sure that cost advantage would be worth it given the services that you would lose with BES 5 for instance. The Blackberry layer adds value for businesses and I do not think that Nokia have produced a device that is better than a Blackberry let alone met the advantages that come from an administered and secured infrastructure.

So I liked the E-72 but I would not give up my BB 9700 for it and do not think there is a strong business case for that and I am hopeful that most of the best features will be absorbed into the Blackberry in time anyway. Hopefully without lose in security or in the ability to administer groups of devices.

[MobileMind]

Also the screen image seems to be more grainy than on a Blackberry 9700. So for example even though it takes better pictures they do not display as well on the device.

Also did not like the trackpad compared to the one on the 9700.