i have had much experience, both with the iphone 3G and 3GS, as well as the blackberries(currently own a 9630 Tour for Sprint). i have loved both phones very much, but blackberry does need to step it up in a few places. this isnt going to be bashing against the blackberry, moreso just a plea of changes..
keyboard: I want to start out by saying i LOVE the qwerty keyboard of my blackberry. i also love the capacitive touchscreen on iphones. both phones are easy to text on, but in my opinion my blackberry does beat the iphone in the catagory of efficiency and comfortability.
browser: oh man the browser.. i would have to say the browser of the blackberry is just so HORRIBLE as to what they could make it into. im a HUGE data-user when it comes to cell phones, and i will have to say i used the browser on my 3GS WAY MORE than i use my blackberry's currently.
memory consumption: needs to be greatly improved as well. imo, i would have to say speed consistancy on a blackberry is not bad, but its also not great. with an iphone, i never had to really restart my phone due to lagging issues. on the rare occasion that it would free, a simple 30-45 second soft reset would do the trick. with my blackberry, i find that once i have so many text messages in my sms/mms inbox, i need to clear out everything, otherwise it starts slowly getting laggy and choppy(ex: i write a quick text saying ok, and go to hit menu then send, and it will take at least a few seconds longer to actually pop up the menu and/or kick back to the screen to send the message. this has to be my biggest irritation with the device, as i want a smart phone that is always going to be snappy for me. not a device that i have to clear data every once in awhile, or pull the battery, or backup and hard reset my phone.
next thing is provisioning: i recently moved into an apartment that gets very choppy signal, and i know the first thing that comes to peoples mind is "this section is stupid, its the carriers fault not the phone". i really wish blackberries could find a smoother transition of provisioning for when the service is not very efficient. everytime the phone loses data services (for sprint, going from 1X/1XEV to 1x), it will lag for anywhere from 5 seconds up to a good 20-30 seconds to unprovision all the services that require data. Same goes vice versa when connecting back to the network and receiving data. now, in my situation, multiply that by about 10 times every hour at least. it gets very frustrating!! it would be nice for RIM to bridge this gap so that users going in and out of service dont have to deal with even more lag on their phone.
camera/camcorder: although sporting a 3.2MP camera just as the iphone does, i believe the codecs and lenses they use for the blackberry are a bit cheaper. comparing picture quality, you can tell that the blackberry is just a bit fuzzy. im not THAT picky, so i mean the camera quality is still good, but they do need to invest on a better camera if they expect a wider range of people to use this device. the camcorder is the same way. video quality on the blackberry just isnt as clear. The picture quality of the video is on par with the camera, but the audio compared to the iphone is just totally not as great. sure you can hear things well still, but anyone whos used both phones can clearly tell the difference. the one BIG thing that the blackberry does have over the iphone in this catagory is the EXTREMELY bright flash that accompanies it. it helps a LOT in dark/inside locations, and i love it!
notifications: the notifications seem on par with the blackberry. the only thing i dislike about this part is the support from the 3rd parties. the UI's for the main programs i use involving notifications(facebook/aim/myspace) are just downright ugly. also, lately, i can no longer retrieve my comments when someone posts something on my facebook page. data doesnt load properly/fast enough at times, and specifically when connecting to facebook, if you go to your friends page, it begins updating your friends list, which takes FOREVER. then it will stick at 99% for a good while. During this whole time my phone begins to randomly lag due to the constant transfer of data going on.
i know this may seem like a one sided rant, but i am posting this to rant to people about what blackberry should really improve on. they are obviously a great supplier for their blackberry devices, but there is also a lot of room for them to improve! i hope to see some great improvements with RIM this year, and i shall be updating to the latest .419 beta version and hoping this improves my experience with my Tour!
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