Ok Interwebs I need your help. I need a new cell phone and have it narrowed down to the IPhone 3G and the Blackberry Bold. But I don’t know which one to get. Here are my needs/thoughts please share your opinion with me! Thanks.
I am buying this phone, my employer isn’t so I want a phone that will not only do well for my work but also will be good for more casual use. My company uses Lotus Notes (ugh) for email and we have a Blackberry Enterprise Server for pushing email to our phones. I love to listen to music but rarely carry my iPod becuase my cellphone is already in my one keyless pocket. I have a Blackberry Pearl right now and it’s music interface sucks.
Honestly, I’m torn because I think the IPhone will be better for my personal desires while, obviously, the Bold will be better for my work needs. It’s a 50/50 proposition. I’m honestly leaning toward the IPhone due to the expandability of the Apps and the built in IPod. I’m hesitant to use the IPhone because I dislike ITunes and I’m afraid the battery won’t last considering all the email checking and replying I do on my phone currently.
So folks - help me decide. Which phone should I get and why? Thanks!
Comments
Andrew
Ok. This has been an ongoing debate with me for quite some time now, and as
both a BB and iPhone user, I felt that I should also give my input. I started
with a BB 8800 and then moved to the iPhone 3G when it came out. Now, along
with many of my friends who were die-hard BB-ers and have gone the way of the
iPhone, want our BB’s back.
This thread seemed like the most legitimate one in terms of discussing the
pros and cons of what each phone has to offer. With that said:
iPhone: Beautiful interface/display. Lots of apps. However, I’m not someone
who really gets a kick out of those “cutsie” kind of apps. I don’t need a fake
lighter on my phone, nor do I need a lightsabre. Some of the apps are very
useful such as Bento, and A Personal Assistant. For those of you who don’t
know A Personal Assistant is an app that is safe guarded by MacAfee and allows
for you to have ALL of your bills, accounts, pretty much EVERYTHING all in one
cohesive, SAFE, place. You can even manage your netflix. Another huge benefit
the iPhone offers is the ability to open multiple pages with Safari
simultaneously.
However, iPhones battery life is terrible if you are the kind of person who
likes push notification. Push will devour your battery life and with the 3G in
the mix as well, AND taking into account that you’ll use your phone for a
music player as well, you can bet that you’ll be seeing that “20% Battery
life” at some point each day, especially if you’re accustomed to the 9-7 work
day in NYC.
Other pros: MobileMe.
Cons: I don’t know about any of you but I have a panic attack every time I drop my iPhone from over 2 feet off the ground. I’ve seen more than my fair share of cracked screens, never mine (knock on wood) but enough to forever scar me of that dreadful image of an iPhone with a cracked screen. Ugh. Battery life, problems with apps (esp. 3rd party) shutting down in the middle of use. Phone can be unreliable at times, drop calls, not make calls. But this could just be AT&T but when I had the 8800 I certainly didn’t have as many dropped calls as I do now with my iPhone.
BB: BlackBerry is famous for it’s easy to use and no fluff OS. Very sturdy and dependable phones. I’ve put my 8800 through just about EVERYTHING. Including a drop in the toilet, true story, and the thing doesn’t stop. Something that really helps is the removeable battery, which can save a phone’s life when exposed to any amt of water. Battery life is astounding. If you’re not talking the entire time the BB outlasts the iPhone any day. I can leave my 8800 for 2-3 days probably barely using it to talk, and it’ll still keep going. Not to mention it charges MUCH quicker than the iPhone. This is probably due to the fact that the entire phone is a screen and must be lit/active at all times.
In all fairness to both phones:
Both are great, you will find users that will swear by either phone and
mercilessly bash the other into the ground with all sorts of random facts and
whatnot. What it boils down to is what kind of person are you? If you’re a
person who doesn’t care about apps, fluff, games, and REALLY, appreciates
functionality and reliability then the BB is for you.
If you like more of a “fun phone” that is also functional (for the most part)
and doesn’t mind a shorter battery life (I spend 2 nights a week NOT in my
home so the shorter battery life is kind of a killer for me).
Best of luck to everyone.
Bill
Mohammed,
I decided to stay with the IPhone. I’ve been pretty happy with it. I explain my decision pretty throughly here:
http://cf-bill.blogspot.com/2009/02/iphone-or-bold-my-decision.html
Mohamed
Bill, want to know if you stayed with the iPhone 3G or traded it for the BB
Bold.
I am in the same situation as you were, therefore in deciding which device to
choose I also need help.
Thank you. Mohamed, South Africa
Anonymous
The post’s here have been the best and most candid comparison between the two phones that I have read so far. I am eagerly awaiting your final review as I am trying to make the same decision.
Bill
my one month trial of the iphone isn’t done yet but so far I have really liked it. The IMAP access to my work lotus email is pretty solid and the gmail access to my personal email has been good but not as great as the native gmail app on the blackberry
My email is currently all pull but I don’t really need instant notification so the 15 minute cycle is ok for my needs
I like the music player interface but it isn’t as good as the iPod classic yet it’s much better than the blackberry one nice thing is the interface for music is available when the phone is locked so you can pause music or skip a song fairly easily
Battery life does kind of suck but by turning off the radios at night I get about 2 full days out of the phone per charge so that isn’t too bad at all. With my blackberry I could schedule it to shut off at 11pm and turn on a 7am but I can’t seem to do that with the iPhone so I lose that minor convenience
The browser on the iphone is awesome simply because I can interact with so many more pages than I could with the blackberry. I didn’t expect that feature to be so influential to me but it has made a big difference in how I use my phone. In fact the browser is what convinced me to keep the iPhone. I’m replying to this blog with it and I could never do that on my blackberry.
I’ll post a more thorough review later
Anonymous
Dear Bill,
I am facing the same decision and I am following your decision making process
closely.
Any tendency yet?
Thanks,
Chris
Bill
I’ve made a week “sitting on the fence” kind of decision in regards to a phone.
I think I will end up with the Bold because I am already familiar with the Blackberry experience and many of your comments seem to enforce that it will be the better option for me in the long run.
However, I’m still curious about the iPhone and how well it might serve my needs. Thus I am going to give the iPhone a 1 month trial to see if it can impress me; if not then I will return it, pay the restocking fee, and get the Bold.
I view the restocking fee as a one month rental fee for the phone. Basically, what it has to do is provide a good email experience for me. If the pull email is too slow or seems clunky then I’ll return it and hope that the music player in the Bold is better than it was on the Pearl.
Is it possible to stick photos/video on the IPhone without using iTunes? I don’t mind not upgrading the firmware on the iPhone to keep MediaMonkey working.
John
My biggest dilemma is narrow down 60+GB of tracks to something that’ll fit in the 12GB left on my iPhone :)
The only caveat with MM is that Apple breaks MM sync when they change the security hash in the firmware. It then takes the MM folks ~2-3 months to figure out the new hash. If you have to have the latest firmware, then syncing with MM might be a problem. If you can live with the previous version, it’s not a big deal. Those of us who jailbreak are used to waiting things out so that we can keep the extra features (e.g. tethering, theming, ringtones, etc.)
Bill
I love MediaMonkey - it is one of the only bits of Software I’ve bought and actually really liked. It is so, so, so much better than iTunes. Good to know it can handle the iPhone and music syncing.
John
I was going to suggest Media Monkey, and noticed that you’d already mentioned it. I sync everything but music on my iPhone through iTunes. I sync my music with Media Monkey because I have a large library of FLAC files ripped from my CDs and Media Monkey can transcode on demand, where-as Apple refuses to support FLAC or provide transcoding functionality.
MM also allows you to transcode higher bit-rate files down to a lower level specified by you; while you might want full fidelity on your home audio system, chances are that you’ll be listening through headphones on your iPhone. You’ll get more songs on it that was as well.
Anonymous
Defenetly go with iphone!
Bill
I don’t like ITunes the pc application but I still like the ipod music interface. I figure it might be possible to put music on the iphone with something other than itunes (mediamonkey perhaps).
I have my “work” needs (email) and my personal desires (music, web-browsing, etc)
The bold seems great for work but since I’m buying it (and work isn’t) I wanted to make sure I would at least be somewhat happy on a personal note with the Bold.
Anonymous
The Music player on the Bold is better than the Pearl. Whether it’s as good as an iPhone depends on your usage.
Your battery life will be very good on the Bold. Standby time is the difference. As with the Pearl, when you put down the Bold and forget about for a day you will return to find it has wasted almost none of your battery. Go on a weekend trip without your charger and you won’t be hurting as much as the iPhone.
If you want your work email and don’t like iTunes, I don’t see why you would pick the iPhone which puts you on the wrong side of both of those desires.
Since you are still considering the iPhone, I’m guessing that you actually have different criteria than you are listing.
The AppStore and touchscreen on the iPhone are not on the Bold yet, so it sounds like you have to decide if that’s what you really want.
Bill
@George - Good points though everyone I have talked to who owns an IPhone says they only have to recharge at night. Granted, when my Pearl was new I only had to charge every couple of days. I wonder how the Bold is in that regard?
@luca - that is a different angle I hadn’t heard before. It maybe the most compelling reason I have seen to go with the Bold. Thanks.
luca
Easy answer, Bold.
Here is why
http://www.lucafiligheddu.com/2008/12/why-the-blackberry-bold-is-way-better- than-the-iphone-3g-for-business.html
George
I’m in the same situation at the moment but I’m definately going for the Blackberry, for these reasons:
Battery life on the iPhone sucks if you’re using apps, playing music, browsing the web or emailing a fair bit. Seriously… whenever I try to ring a friend on their iPhone and it goes straight through to voicemail, they always ring me back that evening explaining that their battery had died.
I’ve seen very few apps for the iPhone which are actually useful; most of them are just gimmicks, so I’m not fussed by the AppStore.
I use an 80 gig iPod Classic for my music because I can’t fit it all on my 16 gig iPod Touch (which I got for free; would never have paid for it) and the iPhone has the same capacity, so I wouldn’t be using it for music.
The 3G performance on the iPhone is less than stellar (this is in England). I’ll admit that I haven’t investigated the Bold’s performance yet though, so that could be shoddy as well.
The only thing the iPhone has over the Blackberry is the browser. Moble Safari is incredible.
Bill
@Rob - I checked out the Storm just out of curiosity last month and I thought it was pretty sluggish.
@Ronny - Sorry I should have mentioned I’m pretty much limiting myself to AT&T phones. We don’t have T-Mobile where I live and my wife, our babysitter, my brother, and I all share a family plan so I don’t want to leave AT&T
Ronny Karam
How about HTC Touch HD? Check it out.
Or even better… Google G1
Rob McKeown
I haven’t checked out the Bold, but went through a similar decision with the Storm. You can read my thoughts here: <http://agileui.blogspot.com/2008/12 /apple-iphone-vs-blackberry-storm.html>
Bill
I wonder if the Bolds music player is any better than the Pearls because, frankly, the pearls is horrible for navigating around my music.
I listen to a ton of music which is one of my main reasons for considering the IPhone; my current phone takes up the pocket I would normally carry my ipod in (my other pocket contains my keys).
The screen on the Bold is really nice so carrying photos or something around one one or the other is pretty much a wash. Likewise the Bold can record video but so can a jailbroken IPhone.
The Bold will better handle my work email. The IPhone will better handle music (I imagine). So I wonder what might be the compelling feature that pushes me toward one phone over the other?
Anonymous
honestly if you dont like itunes or no big music listener, choose Bold, you wont regret this !. Bold can play itunes songs with BB Media player and you can store songs with memory cards.
IPhone is suitable for general public than corporate users. 2 very differents phones with specific needs.
i got ipod Touch 16go with BB Curve, and im very happy. Solved my problem to choose which celllar to stick