Since I pretty much addicted to smartphone, and this is really hammering my productivity, after some negotiation with my company, they gave me a temporary one to use in India - a blackberry 8700. Well, it is a brand new one and costs Rps 15000 (roughly $300) here, so I really should not complain about it.
But I have to. I couldn't believe something such retrospectly designed still survive on market. That is the summary. These are why I felt so:
- Many people did not realize that.... BB has no touch screen. It is by key stroke only. But its price is well enough for any touch screen phone on consumer market. no in a debate whether touch screen is better or not... but the fact is... a chunk of the cost of a phone is on LCD.. and sensing LCD is costier than ordinary LCD... We all have to realize this fact.
- The interface is very text style. I mean, it does not try to be more graphic oriented or WYSIWYG... a lot of things are just a line of text and then go select it.. feel I am back to Unix or AppleII...(the argument is easier to read?:?p)
- following with previous one. The mail reader... ya... ugly... even moto is better looking.... but hey it works, since it only needs to display text (BB must be very good on "Focus" strategy in porter's generic model)...
- The whole machine feels...cheap... It is bulky. but you definitely can argue that it seems more reliable (and I will buy that too). It seems built for malitary purpose or somehow...or maybe just for "some people" with fat thumb...
- But then the QWERTY keys are so tiny.... I guess it is trying to fit the whole keyboard on the range within one palm. but this is contraditing with previous point. Nobody with fat thumb can really type by his thumb on this tiny keypboard
- no really multi-media support
- no camera.... couple of my colleagues laughed: hum? no camera phone? it is a free phone? nonono.... BB....
- Ok, I used it in India, so maybe that contribute it... I was using HTC, Nokia and Moto... none of them drop signal as bad as this BB... my colleage in US keep saying "hey...man... you are fading away..."
But it does have some advantages:
- the data connection seems much more reliable... better than GPRS, which keep dropping when in low signal.
- very solid applications like messangers for Yahoo and MSN... considering there is even not YM for WM....
- All data are encrypted... no wonder corporate IT loves it... but hey... it cost more for data transition too....
- the scroll wheel is a huge plus.... It sort of designed to be operationable with scroll wheel only (but in trade, it end up scroll or push more I can tell... some time I really get tired for keep scrolling...)
well, anyway, my complains are done and I have returned the phone since I just left India.
Now I just got a used HTC with scroll wheel :D (I should use it to type this post though) from auction, Yappy!!! and considers to get a Touch Pro some time later after back to US.....later
