Phone rotation
by Volker Weber
RIM has fixed the issues with my O2 USIM. Currently running two devices on 4.3 and they work without any issues. This means I am juggling more mobile phones than ever:
- BlackBerry 8120: Quite an improvement over the original Pearl. The hardware has been improved, but the software makes the difference. Watch out for firmware updates to get your old Pearl to the same level. Still in beta, but your friendly geek may have it. Pro: small, fast, decent battery life, OK camera. Con: no full keyboard, tiny screen, web browser sucks.
- BlackBerry 8820: An 8800 with Wi-Fi. No need to upgrade since you won't be receiving your mail faster and there is nothing worthwhile doing with the faster connection. OK, software installation is faster. As with the 8120, Wi-Fi implementation is great. Once it knows the credentials to a network, it switches automagically. Pro: full keyboard, fast, good battery life, GPS. Con: biggish, no camera, GPS is too slow to get a fix.
- iPhone: Geek magnet, chick magnet. Everybody likes it. The only phone with a really good web browser. Less capabilities than then rest of the lot, but it's easy to use, so you will do more. Pro: excellent UI, good browser, great photo viewer, nice Mac integration. Con: bad battery life, has difficulties with weak Wi-Fi, much slower to read mails than with the BlackBerrys.
- Nokia E61i: Most bang for the buck. This thing is not only good, it also feels good. Excellent build quality, good keyboard. Pro: full keyboard, good battery life, OK camera. Con: slow, biggish, Wi-Fi not as good as BlackBerry and iPhone.
- Nokia E90: The mother of smartphones. Does (almost) everything the E61i does, only faster. Pro: excellent capabilities, great keyboard and screen, GPS. Con: BIG and heavy, slow camera and GPS.
Since I cannot swap my SIM into the iPhone, I need to carry two phones when using the iPhone, so that people are able to reach me. Last week the master phone was the 8120, this weeks it's the 8820. Which is so capable that I leave the iPhone behind a lot. I never take it along with the E90 because the only thing the iPhone does much better is to view photos. The E90 browser is good enough for me.
As much as I like the iPhone, my fastest user experience is the 8820. Press just a few buttons and dial a contact, very quickly browse your email and answer it, get rid of spams with the press of a button. What I am missing dearly is a decent keyboard on the iPhone. I am much better than I was on the first day, but typing on the E90 or the 8820 is at least four times faster, if only because you can use two fingers instead of one.
Comments
BlackBerry run-time 4.3.1 ? Mmmm... Nice....
---* Bill
1.) 4.3.1? Final? Already released to the public?
2.) I'd like to mention the voice dial of my BB8800. Works like a charme w/o the need to record something...
3.) Two days ago a friend of mine bought an iPhone. Since he does not use a computer and even didn't have an email address, we were using my MacBook to activate it.
We had:
- to create a new user on my MacBook
- to create an email account at googlemail.com (three attempts, forced by unreadable captchas)
- to configure Apple Mail to use that googlemail account (no imap so far?)
- to create an AppleID
- to do that actual activation thingy with iTunes
Even, everything worked fine (and as expected for an "IT guy" ), it took an our or so to get everything done. I doubt that the iPhone will be a great success this way.
Interesting. Why would someone without a computer buy a computer-phone, for 399 bucks and pay 50 euro per month afterwards for a plan with mobile internet etc?
Because he wants to use the internet w/o having a computer?
In fact: I know a lot of people changing their handsets frequently (better cam, better mp3 capabilities, etc). Most of them did never even synchronize the address book!
Understanding a phone as a computer's companion is quiet nerdy! :-)
@Martin Kautz: OS 4.3.1 is not yet released to the public. The only devices which officially have OS 4.3.x at the moment are the 8130 and the 8120, both ship with version 4.3.0. According to Research In Motion, the manufacturer of BlackBerry devices, OS 4.3.x will be available by end of February/beginning of March 2008 for most of the series 8xxx devices. But then it depends on the carrier when they release the software. It could be possible that we will see a new device together with OS 4.3.1. In the past, when RIM released a new OS version, they also launched a new device.
@Abdelkader: Thanks for letting me know.
4.3.0 is freely available today, I’ve just installed it. 4.3.1 is in beta, yes.
@Ben: Do you have download links for OS 4.3.0 for devices other than the 8120 and 8130?
I am talking about official download links ;-)
No great mystery ;o) If your cellphone provider isn’t forthcoming, try here:
mobipocket link
Remember, Google is your friend…
The link list you provided does not have OS version 4.3.0 for download. There is only Desktop Manager 4.3.0 available.
Already had a look at PC Phone? It was released yesterday at Nokias Betalabs and offers essential tools to use your phone from a browser.
