Looks like a nice sturdy phone. But not a whole lot different from the Curve or their other handsets…maybe its just me

I am at the unique stage in my life where I can choose between EITHER a new iPhone or the latest/greatest Blackberry. The iPhone has Unix which generally would make it a shoe-in….but I’m a wee bit leery of that touch-thingee keyboard.

Data points,

Barbara

@1
This thing is supposed to have a considerably improved UI so it will be like the Curve++. My money is on 3G iPhone, though.

This will really have Apple running scared!

@2
I agree. The iPhone touchscreen, combined with mandatory AT&T (I don’t hack my equipment) is a deal-breaker.

Once it’s available AND 3G, then I’ll consider the iPhone. Until then, Blackberry, here I come!

@4 especially when you factor in all that digital zoom!

@3 My money is going to be on the next iPhone (Or any unseen kick arse Android phone) that includes the Atom processor. Can’t have a mobile digital life without batteries. :O)

From surface appearances, I’m not impressed.

I own a BB 8830 World Edition, with the full-sized VGA screen with internet browsing capability.

Why would anyone want a half-screen with no internet browser, just to have a “messaging phone”?

My 8830 handles all kinds of email accounts, including its own, plus SMS, just fine. It provides email “push”, notifying me in real time when a message is received.

The HUGE problem with the 8830, the Pearl, and this entire line of BBs is the goddamned trackball, which is hyper-sensitive to dirt and grime and stops working all of a sudden, for stretches of hours, sometimes because of dirt but also occasionally because of ambient EM radiation (like around railroad switching stations in Europe, etc)… The thing is a bitch to clean, and taking it apart to clean supposedly voids the warranty. Incidentally, this is a widespread and universal problem, there are complaints about this on BB message boards all over the net, and not a thing has been publicly said about it by RIM, to my knowledge. And the phone virtually becomes UNUSABLE while the trackball isn’t working.

I think RIM’s strategy is to come out with a plethora of devices to fit every conceivable nitch (e.g., global phone service and messaging + internet browsing, messaging minus browsing, GPS but no global phone service, music and browsing but no global phone, etc…)

This strategy is shrewd because I’m sure it causes some people to buy 2 or 3 BlackBerrys to use depending on what they’re doing at the time. It also segments the market, which is a marketing ploy.

My advice is scrap the trackball, keep the large VGA screen for browsing in ALL phones, fold all the cool features including GPS into one or two devices, don’t worry about enlarging the device a bit and forget the slick styling, curved keyboards, etc.

All I really want is: faster processer, real memory, real browser and 3G. Those are the only things on the iPhone that entice me. If RIM (and Rogers!) gave me that, I’d never switch.

A keyboard is soooo last millennium…

erm, isnt the display a little too small?

So it’s a beast… but how long does the battery last?

Pretty sexy phone, too bad about the touch screen. Let me guess? AT&T huh?

Tiny screen, no touch screen and an expensive centralized network that goes down constantly… no thanks. I’ll keep my current 8525 w/ WM6 and dream of the HTC Diamond w/ WM6.1.. both superior phones to any blackberry or apple product.

2MP camera and half VGA?
Could anyone inform them that the mobile technology is going forward, please ????

Meh - based on the photo, that’s a whole lotta keyboard and not much screen.

Like I said on an earlier post about the hardware issues. This is exactly what I’m talking about. Blackberry hardware = unintuitive crap. Those of you complaining about iPhone and it’s touch screen keyboard, I have two words for you… BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD. It’s not hard. Buy one. They fold up. They’re compact. They’re WAY better than a tiny screen and a keyboard made for a 6-month old.

Great to see RIM developing another BB, though I’d rather see a larger screen. My Sony Ericsson takes better photos than my BB Curve which is disapointing. I’d like to see a scale downed version of a BB that focuses primarily on Phone/Internet/Messaging. I think a phone with those features well will do/perform better than those that are “jack of all trades”.

the most important part of a phone to me now is web browsing, which is probably going to send me to the 3g iphone. The BB screen is just too small. That and the browsers for it suck

I love BlackBerry, but I don’t think they’re putting much effort into testing their phones lately before release. I bought a new Curve 8330 a few weeks ago (on Telus in Canada) and the GPS on it does not work. Even though GPS feature is clearly mentioned in the Telus advertisements (Telus acknowledges that it should be working but is not).

There are forums on various official/non-official BlackBerry websites where I can find many other people with the same problem. Nobody at Telus knows how to fix it and they blame RIM — AND Telus won’t honor their warranty (you’re supposed to be entitled to a new replacement if you bring back a broken one within 30-days - I was denied a new one because they didn’t have working ones in stock, and told there was absolutely NO way they would extend the warranty for me until they had a working replacement… not sure how that makes sense).

RIM won’t answer emails or forum posts about the problem, not even on their own forum site. It seems like there are some people who have the phone with working GPS, and tons of people who have it with broken GPS. The people with broken phones are being ignored.

So, the lesson I’ve learned here is stick with Iphone - at least Apple is gonna test the product well before releasing it. And since it’s only on one service provider there won’t be inconsistencies in which features work between the different providers.

Another strategic blunder. More useless keyboard real estate leaving a tiny screen which is for all practical purposes unusable for browser based applications. You can’t blame them; they’re doing the best they can with what they have.

I still think MS should forget the Internet, dump WinMo and buy RIM instead, integrate the platform with .NET and go 100% after the enterprise application market where both companies have strong leverage anyway. THAT would force Apple into the consumer market only, which would put a dumper on their plans. For as long as MS and RIM are competing, Jobs will eat them for lunch.

As for Android, I’m not saying anything until I see a real phone. For now, it’s just vaporware as far as I’m concerned.

Considering RIM’s “dirty little secret” of trackball problems, which are extremely widespread with the new BlackBerrys and can suddenly render the phone virtually useless, I don’t think this is much of an accomplishment (see my post above). I’m surprised more people aren’t griping about trackball issues whenever the BB is discussed on this and other boards.

As a BB 8830 World Edition owner, I frequent the BB boards and trackball malfunctions are a huge problem, and only partially fixable by cleaning with alcohol. Taking apart the trackball apparatus, btw, voids the warranty.

This is a mechanical AND an electronic problem. Mechanically the design of the trackball is very susceptible to being impregnated with dirt, grime, and dust, which usually results in loss of motion in one direction — which makes the entire phone 90% useless, since all features are so dependent on a working trackball.

I’ve found that it’s NOT JUST DIRT which can disable a trackball. My trackball seems to have a mind of its own and goes out at completely unexpected times, often when I’m in an area with too many EM lines which seem to create a magnetic field which disables it.

Then a couple of hours later the trackball will slide around perfectly, like there was no problem at all. And this is when it’s perfectly clean or has just been cleaned!

Imagine how disastrous this can be when you’re in a foreign city and need to make an urgent call but can’t access your phone directory! Better have those phone numbers on your laptop or in an old-fashioned address book, because you’re royally screwed if the trackball suddenly goes out and you can’t dial from the BB’s directory.

This is a HUGE problem with all current BlackBerrys and means a busy person like me must do one of the following:

1) Send the device back to RIM (or Verizon?) and have it repaired — UNACCEPTABLE waste of time!

2) Have a emergency backup phone of a different type

3) Buy a second BlackBerry, input all my contacts in the directory (again), and be able to switch the World Edition SIM card from one phone to the other on a moment’s notice

Believe me, these trackball problems are UNIVERSAL and a crying shame, a huge blight on an otherwise well-designed and useful device.

I just wish there was someone at RIM who seemed like they were listening, but alas, they seem to be blind and deaf to this problem.

Yawn….Wake me when they add a full browser.

Small screen, no touch, but does have WiFi, 3G and GPS, so it will probably do well. Nice to see the fund for 3rd party apps - this is where the future is interesting, as it was for Palm, before they turned their back their customers (nothing new in 3 years).

Still waiting for one of the forthcomming smart-phones announced by a few(Samsung/UTC/Sony etc. etc..) with the connections listed above, but with Windows and a reasonably large touch screen.

BTW- smart-phone = full, tactile qwerty keyboard, not the iPhone or other on-screen keyboards. Call those media phones (and better for most people, just not me)

Call me a whiny user, but can we keep the CrunchGear posts out of TechCrunch, please? I read Engadget to see these types of stories. I read TechCrunch to see stories about Web sites.

yes, because blackberry releases new phones every day right? noone forced you to read the post ryan

More “Barge” than “Bold” - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wf41zgLf_M

Too big: Video shows that it’s larger than the 8800 series (which has been a slow seller for RIM, and the 2 people I know who bought have returned them for smaller alternatives).

Very fast: Video shows a smoking-fast processor, fluid app and screen transitions.

Weird Icons: OK, so maybe they’ll have themes that offer colored icons, but the icons shown in the video will take precious time and brainwidth to interpret.

Conclusion: Wait for touch screens and smaller units (gotta hate the term “form factor” - does anyone use it any more?)

the screen isn’t small, its the menu bar on the bottom and the time bar on the top of the screen that makes it look small. its actually bigger than any other blackberry screen.

between blackberry and iphone there is no superior. there are just very different phones. i’ve gone through 3 iphones, and i ended up just going back to my old bb curve. blackberry is a very durable trustworthy phone. the iphone is fickle and very sensitive, as are all touch screen phones. and who wants to carry around a bluetooth keyboard along with their phone? if i want a bigger a screen i’ll go to my computer.

who cares about iphone with 3G? yeah it may be faster but will still take you twice as long to type an email or web address lol.

From the looks of the specs and the video, it’s a pretty poor answer to the iphone IMO. I moved from the curve to the current iPhone and wish I had moved sooner. I find that I’m actually quicker at typing on the iPhone and won’t shy away from using the internet. It sucks when on the curve and offering to check something on the net when out and about, to have the browser spectacularly fail at trying to display the page. The moment anyone wants to see the iPhone, I whip it out, browse to the BBC iPlayer and show them a program. Never fails to impress.

Hey John,

Wrote about it today as well lol. At about 2am that was the last story of the day.

Anyways if you are interested in my review here it is

http://www.livecrunch.com/2008.....y-ex-9000/

@Calley: I can see that, but it’s still a tiny little screen. Just because it’s bigger than other RIM phones doesn’t mean it’s a big screen.

I don’t like this.

Cons
- No touch screen
- Small resolution (480 x 320) - How can we browse with this small screen?

I can’t believe all the complaining about the Pearl. You don’t need the track ball to place a call, so I suspect some of the people are just looking for reasons to bitch. Besides, I’ve never had a problem, and had my Pearl for almost a year.

The iPhone is grossly over rated. Whenever folks here do their smug “I have the coolest phone in the office” routine, I challenge them to a race. Send an email, make a call, send a text message. The blackberry is faster by far on all counts. They always shut up or talk about how their phone has pictures of their dog or something.

same screen resolution as iphone…interesting

Dan above me basically summed up what I was planning on saying.. The Blackberry is a device that I’m able to do work with. While the iphone still could possibly function in a work atmosphere, still doesn’t offer what a RIM device can.

@33 - Dan, no you don’t need the track ball to place a call. You just need the track ball to do everything ELSE but place a call, and I do mean EVERYTHING else, including find a number in your directory.

You can’t browse the internet or switch functions without the friggin’ trackball… is that enough for ya?

And as I said, BE FOREWARNED: If you get a BlackBerry of any type (Pearl, World Edition, Curve, etc.), if it has a trackball, you are almost 100% certain to encounter this problem.

When you get the device there will be a happy grace period of, ohhhh, maybe 2-3 months where this problem will not show up.

Then BAM, when you least expect it, and when you need the phone with its full functions most, this WILL hit… your track ball will suddenly stop working.

Problem is that cleaning the little bugger with an alcohol-soaked Q-Tip is pretty damn near impossible when you’re on the morning train to work and you need to make a call right now.

Or walking through the deserted streets of Budapest at night in the winter and and needing to call a friend for a pickup, and you can’t access his damn number in the directory because your friggin track ball decided to stop working then and there.

Dan you’re one of the fortunate few whose Pearl track ball is still working perfectly after a year. Just check the Crackberry message boards, you’ll find them chockablock with people trying to figure out what in the goddamn f*ck is wrong with their trackballs….

The complaints about this problem are far too common and similar in nature to be dismissed as just a few freaks whining about a minor problem. It is a MAJOR f*cking problem and RIM needs to be more customer friendly and figure out a redesign to fix this mess.

Joe, do you work for Apple? I have had a pearl for over a year, no problems at all. Maybe you’re just dirty.

I think JOE does work for apple, I have used a curve and a 8800 for the last year and I have had no trackball problems, how do you get lots of grease and dirt into the trackball area? do you use your phone while your fingers are dripping with grease or something?

Blackberry Rocks

People keep saying small screen, big keyboard,

The fact is if you email alot you need a real keyboard, a touchscreen will not do it,

The screen is alot bigger then it looks in pictures, look closely, and the resolution is very high.

I’ve had my BB8830 for just under a year and my trackball has been giving me problems for about half of that time. I just switched it for a new one and I’m happy again. Otherwise, the BB is great and I would never trade for a phone without a real keyboard, but the trackball does suck. I want a touch screen.

Well well, I am overly excited about the new BB Bold! It looks wonderful and the fact that it will have a leather-like backplate makes me happy because it smudges easy, but I won’t complain! BB has been good to me and I haven’t encountered a dirty trackball at all so far. The net runs ok, even though a 3g sounds enticing! I will definately pick this before the iphone because they are too sensitive. My cousin cracked hers 2 times without doing much! I just wanna know when the release date is!

Yes the trackball does sux sometimes and gets dirty but its covered under warranty for the first year it did happen to me but would not trade for 2 year old iphone that has 4 year old Japanese technology and is way over priced. big woop it plays youtube who cares they thing doesn’t even have built in Bluetooth even my grandma phone has Bluetooth and it 3 years old you can’t even send a picture message with the iphone and its smudges so easily and if you drop ask someone if you can use there cuz its time for a new one. Cuz your scren is cracked and who in the right mind would so much for a phone over 500 with taxes and fees and don’t forget a case so you don’t beak it plus more money to get a Bluetooth adapter so you don’t get pulled over while driving in some states and a car chager ill stick with dirty trackball any day

Yes the trackball does sux sometimes and gets dirty but its covered under warranty for the first year it did happen to me but would not trade for 2 year old iphone that has 4 year old Japanese technology and is way over priced. big woop it plays youtube who cares they thing doesn’t even have built in Bluetooth even my grandma phone has Bluetooth and it 3 years old you can’t even send a picture message with the iphone and its smudges so easily and if you drop ask someone if you can use there cuz its time for a new one. Cuz your scren is cracked and who in the right mind would so much for a phone over 500 with taxes and fees and don’t forget a case so you don’t beak it plus more money to get a Bluetooth adapter so you don’t get pulled over while driving in some states and a car chager ill stick with. dirty trackball any day