My Blackberry Bold, now a month old, is by leaps and bounds the best mobile device I have ever used.
Expressing My Bold Feelings
1. The user experience is friction-free and beautiful.
- The blinking red light gives me one place to look to see if anything new requires my attention.
The blinking red light puts the 'crack' in 'crackberry'
- I arrive at new communications with effectively zero friction. The new, simplified Blackberry main menu indicates what is causing the red light to blink: my business e-mail, text messages, instant messages, calendar reminders, Facebook messages.
New Front Screen on the Blackberry Bold
- To respond, I use the awesome trackball, and a keyboard which is arguably the fastest mobile input device I’ve ever used.
The Bold Keyboard "experts" well.
- The device never harasses me with unnecessary prompts.
In summary, [single indicator] + [friction-free UX] ==> [fanaticism] + [lust] + [ADD]
All the things I need the device to do as a business user are intuitive and simple. The UX is not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. They have done the right things right. I understand the “Crackberry” phenomenon.
2. Phonecalls just work. Call quality and reception are solid. If you think this should go without saying, then trust me, my 5 years of Windows Mobile experience would suggest otherwise.
3. Bluetooth just works.
4. WiFi just works. The Bold detects if it’s in range of the WiFi networks in my life (even WPA2-enabled) and connects without harassing me. If it isn’t connected to the phone data network, the Bold syncs mail, calendar, etc, to Exchange over WiFi without additional configuration.
5. Using my Blackberry as an untethered modem (connected via bluetooth to my PC and providing Vista with internet on the train) just worked. Took less than 10 minutes to configure. (Link to help configure this) I weep for my data plan.
6. The processor is really zippy! It “feels” faster than any Windows Mobile device I’ve ever used or owned.
7. The web browser is not great, but it’s pretty good. In some ways, I like it better than the browser on Windows Mobile, and I think that’s due to enjoying the trackball interface for navigation.
8. The availability of little apps that integrate platforms across many vendors – Microsoft (MSN Messenger), Yahoo (Flickr Uploadr), Google (none for me now), Facebook (RIM’s app), etc. – is very welcome.
9. GPS and Blackberry Maps – not brilliant but still pretty cool! This is my first GPS-enabled device, so if it just had a picture of a goat that turned around when I walked in circles, I’d think that was awesome.
Blackberry Bold full menu - clean, sleek, polished, and hidden until you need all this functionality. The icons on the top row appear on the home screen. You have total control over the ordering.
Alternatives: Windows Mobile and iPhone
Given the selection of mobile devices available from my provider here in Canada, the Blackberry Bold seemed the best and, frankly, the only reasonable option for me.
There are no Windows Mobile devices I consider worth mentioning in the Rogers catalogue, except perhaps the HTC Touch Diamond. Although the Diamond looks like it may have merit, my previous HTC Touch was such a humiliating train-wreck disaster of a device, mocked by colleagues, friends and family, and loathed by its owner, that HTC was not getting another chance. Forget my Touch. Its passing shall not be mourned.
I should mention here that the last time I praised a mobile device, it was in fact February 2007, and I was sporting an HTC Wizard, the only Windows Mobile device I’ve ever genuinely enjoyed using.
The iPhone does not interest me as a device intended principally for business use. It has lots to recommend it, but the lack of a keyboard weighed heavily against it, and it seemed an unwieldly phone.
In Summary
My Blackberry Bold continues to delight me. If it were to continue doing exactly what it does now for the next year, I would be extraordinarily happy with it as a business and personal communications device.
Well.. with one exception. I hope that Bart is right, and we’re going to see Silverlight on the Blackberry some time soon. Like, say, Mix09? :)
The Unfolding of Language →← Photosynth – Silverlit!
Riccardo Spagni says
I have to be honest, though, the iPhone has limitations, sure, but it is the most FUN I’ve had with a phone. I send around 700 text messages a month, and use it as my primary email device, and the on-screen keyboard merely takes a bit of getting used to. I find myself typing faster on the iPhone than I ever did on my traditional 9-key-T9 phones. I used to buy phones because they looked pretty, features-be-damned, but with the iPhone I get the immersive user experience along with it. As a matter of interest, I’m a senior C# R&D developer at a corporate, working predominantly with WPF, CompositeWPF, VS2010 and the like, so I’m definitely NOT an Apple fan boy. I don’t own a Mac, and I refused to buy an iPod on principle. The iPhone is my first foray into the Mac world, and I have to give them kudos for developing an interface that is truly engaging. Office 2007′s ribbon, by comparison, leaves much to be desired – having to learn a stack of new shortcuts is NOT my idea of a good time;)
February 5, 2009Rob Burke says
Riccardo, there’s no question that iPhones inspire loyalty of the sort I am now feeling for my Blackberry – and it fascinates me, because I still can’t get over the feeling I couldn’t type fast enough on one of those screens.
Since writing this article, I’ve had a chance to see more of a friend’s iPhone, and find some things about it to be superior to the Blackberry – the mapping, in particular. It is also unquestionably “sexy.” But it has never occurred to me that I made the ‘wrong decision’ – but don’t take that to mean I am not very impressed!
I was looking for a device from a company that understands what enterprise mobility users want, and RIM unquestionably does that. I think Apple is perhaps equally savvy for consumer mobility.
On the other (third) hand: like you, I spend my days in WPF and Silverlight, so I am just going to be generous and say that the Windows Mobile UX, borrowing its experience in part from old-school Windows itself, seems to have lost something in translation to the mobile platform.
February 11, 2009Riccardo Spagni says
I agree with you – which is why I find it odd that Apple are trying to position the device as a business solution. Don’t get me wrong…it plugs into Exchange beautifully, and pushes emails and calendar entries down within seconds of Exchange receiving them. Interestingly, I see Google have licensed ActiveSync to develop a sync server for Google Calendar and Contacts – which is available in beta form at the moment. If Apple were really interested in capturing the business market they would’ve supported RIM’s push tech as well as Microsoft’s. They would also have provided access to business tools like route mapping, bulk mail/messaging, spell check (not just predictive correction), copy and paste, RSS integration, better access to contact groups, and task and project tools. The iPhone is my business device only because of the space I’m in – there’s no way it’s suitable for all, even most, business types.
But oh damn is it ever pretty!
PS. This was written on my iPhone – vive le landscape keyboard!!
February 11, 2009JR says
Can you please explain what went wrong with the HTC? My sister just got it and has time enough to exchange it–I’m the techie in the family and I can do without another device I’ll need to support!
Thanks so much. Glad you like your Bold–I’m still with the Curve but it’s not bad.
February 11, 2009Rob Burke says
@JR – I had the original HTC Touch (not Touch Diamond or Touch Pro or any other variation of Touch). The processor was underpowered and this made the device frustratingly unresponsive, and most of the other problems stemmed from there. For instance, sometimes it would just refuse to answer calls, because it was spinning its “please wait” wheel as the call came in. The touchscreen only responded to a great deal of pressure, so it was useless unless you used the unwieldy stylus, and using it, my typing speed never increased beyond a crawl. Finally and most saliently, the custom HTC menus were “bolt-ons” that felt like an attempt to emulate the Apple UX, but ultimately failed to correct the user experience issues with the underlying Windows Mobile that make it suboptimal for a touchscreen interface. If your sister wants a touchscreen phone, I would strongly recommend against the original HTC Touch, and instead consider the iPhone, Blackberry Storm, or evaluate one of the newer HTC devices.
@Riccardo all of this (including your long comment written on the iPhone) is making me feel like I’ve been negatively predisposed to touchscreen keyboards by HTC, and I should find a chance to play with the iPhone landscape keyboard!!
February 12, 2009JR says
Thanks so much. I am not sure what version it is but from the sounds of it the Touch might be obsolete. Well, more obsolete, I should say. Maybe I’ll try a few of my own stress tests.
From what I saw of the menu it looked okay, I don’t know if it’s multitouch or not by my sister seemed pleased with the control. If not, I suppose there’s always the pull-out keyboard.
February 12, 2009Rob Burke says
JR – if you have the pull-out keyboard then it is definitely not the original Touch — so you should be ok! I have seen some more recent HTCs and some of them looked quite nice.
February 12, 2009