Okay, so I was too old to appreciate the beauty of the iphone. I took it back to the Apple store in Glasgow and they were so nice about it that I bought a macbook. Not true, but I was tempted. They were really, really friendly and helpful. [My friend Rob suggested that the apple geniuses should hold me down, attach electrical things to my testicles, and convince me of the error of my ways ... but they didn't. Perhaps it's because geniuses are known for their brains, rather than their brawn. Who knows?]
So I left the apple store without an iphone, but a very happy customer.
The very next day a courier man arrived with my new Blackberry Bold. He wasn't nearly as excited as I was. It took me a while to get it up and running - Orange filled the box with all sorts of really interesting stuff, about Orange, and some confusing stuff about the blackberry and how to setup my account. Never mind, I got there eventually. The trickiest part was figuring out how to turn it on! I've discovering that the power button is not on top of the bbb, like it was on my previous model, but on the front of the machine ... on either the cancel or end-call button, I've not figured out which yet.
So here's my review:
- the BBB is really, really nice to hold. It feels nice physically. Nicer than the iphone.
- it comes with a nice case. It's bigger than my old model, but it looks smaller; I think that's the case.
- the email works nicely. As you'd expect. They keyboard is okay. I currently prefer the old keyboard, but maybe that will change.
- The webbrower might be better than the old version, i'm not sure, but it's nothing compared to the iphone. Then again, I knew that. I actually installed opera-mini which is far, far, far easier to use than the built in version. In fact, I've just decided: the new bbb browser is a dog compared to the previous version. There. I've said it.
- The bbb has blackberry maps installed, but I can't find it. Google maps doesn't work on this bb, yet.
- Where RIM, the makers of the bbb, really suck, is their website and their desktop manager software. They're very confusing, very slow, very awkward. They still haven't figured out that they're now a consumer facing, not just business facing, company. I'm not an IT department and it should be easier to use their website and software. I hate RIM at the moment.
My conclusion. The BB is better than the iphone, for me, but it's no improvement at all over my previous model, the 8800. The browser is a step backwards. The phone is nice to hold.
