Blackberry or Android?

[joeblow]

You're guys right about one thing... Droids are more fun, and have more cool features and apps. I think the Droid should be compared to the iPhone, not the Blackberry. The Blackberry is primarily a business phone, and it does that very well.

Here's a case study for those who still disagree. On this thread an attorney was asking which he should buy: Droid or Blackberry. He decided to go with the Blackberry that same reason... practicality, and dependability to get the essentials of business done professionally. I could also cite the numerous other professionals I know personally who swear by Blackberries.

And you simply CAN'T discount the Droid's lack of dual GSM ability. Verizon is the premier CDMA network, and the vast majority of business pros who use it are not going to choose a phone that they need to leave behind in their office when they travel overseas.

[> Elliot <]

Dual GSM? The Milestone (GSM Droid) will work on any GSM network. Sprint and Verizon have nothing on GSM.. CDMA should be going the way of the dodo really. ESNs and all are outdated. I can't think of a serious one-phone world traveler that isn't on a GSM network. Verizon simply doesn't make sense if you spend a lot of time abroad. Their roaming agreements are comparatively sparse, as well (once again, thanks to CDMA).

That's not really a very relevant case study though. It's not statistically significant since you only have a sample of one person. Personal contacts or associates don't really count without some hard data.

What is true is that RIM has a much larger slice of the pie thanks to its maturity (BlackBerry OS is much older and refined than Android, and smartphone market shares are something like 40% and 8% respectively) and the existence of BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Really BlackBerries are all about the BIS and BES, not about the hardware.

I definitely agree that the BlackBerry Bold 9700 (as an example) is much more serious, especially after two random reboots on my Milestone and the poor battery life on the latter. One reboot was while I was listening to music on the go, and it could've easily been while on a call -- unacceptable. Android just isn't "there" yet. It's funny because a few years ago it'd be RIM getting the flak for the random reboots and the mail servers going down.

Also even though the Milestone is much faster and more muscular than the Bold 9700 in absolute terms, I find getting stuff done to be almost as fast or even sometimes faster on the 9700 thanks to the lightweight, rock-solid, and lightning-fast (though spartan, ugly) OS.

Once again I would definitely have kept the 9700 over the Milestone if I wasn't saving $20/month on the latter thanks to a cheaper data plan ($10/month family data unlimited). On Verizon where the smartphone plans are unavoidable and all $30/month I'd stick to a Tour or wait for their Bold 9700 equivalent to come out.

I'm in business school and most of my classmates rock Tours, Bolds, and Curves. Rest usually have iPhones. I'm a bit of a deviant so I went with the Milestone. It's funny because I have a 9700 and a 3GS collecting dust in my drawers.

BTW I also own the 3GS and the Droid/Milestone doesn't compare to it in terms of fun either. I like many of the Android apps better because of the screen and the more refreshing looks, but the iPhone games blow the games for Android away. The Droid/Milestone has more of the geek street cred and is much more customizable and less locked-down, though. Rooted Milestones can do much more than jailbroken iPhones can.

[Japking]

Lol, I can go to the Blackberry or Crackberry forums, and there are long running threads from users who switched from Blackberry to Android. Not even the iPhone has ignited this level of controversy.

While the Droid does lack GSM, you can't use prepaid SIMs on the Tour or Storm unless its Vodafone's. That means you have to roam, which means paying for expensive data and so on. Unfortunately unlike the DROID, which still has Wifi, the Tour does not. Pretty much because the Tour lacks Wifi, its usefulness as a travel phone is limited.

As travel phones, I can't get email on the Blackberry without BIS and to get BIS, you need a contract, which you're not getting as a traveler. And its getting expensive if you get charged via roaming data.

If your Blackberry is unlocked, yes, you can use prepaid SIMs, even prepaid data plans, but a generic data plan without BIS means you're not getting your push email and other stuff that makes a Blackberry a Blackberry. And you simply not getting your email at all, unless you want to read them on your slow browser via web mail.

On Droid, on a country without CDMA or without a data plan, you can still hit the Wifi and get your email there. In fact, with the wifi, you can still get push GMail and background sync on other email accounts. This is handy if your hotel or the building you headed to do business has open Wifi. Many coffeeshops and malls have open wifi too. But even if the Blackberry has wifi, remember I can't get my email from the wifi. But Droid does.

If you have a GSM Android that is unlocked, I can take any prepaid data SIM on a country you are traveling, with a standard, no BIS, data plan, and still get my GMail pushed to me and all my non GMail email accessed via interval polling.