Round Robin: BlackBerry Curve
The BlackBerry Curve (8310)
For the first week of Smartphone Experts’ Smartphone Round Robin, I was assigned the BlackBerry Curve 8310. As I’ve indicated in the Crackberry forums, I’ve said some nasty things about BB in the past. Some of that is going to have to be put behind me this week; this BlackBerry 8810 isn’t going to use itself.
And don’t forget - a comment on this post counts as an entry in the Round Robin Contest!
Setup
I went about setup a little backwards; I didn’t go about setup the usual way. I probably should have set up the BlackBerry on my computer first, but I wanted to get a feel for the device as is. Plus, we weren’t allowed to post on the forums until yesterday. So, I set up my emails on the BlackBerry itself, and figured I’d set up other services later.
I’ve used some featurephones fairly recently (I used a Sony Ericson w810i as a cameraphone intermittently before my final love affair with the Treo 680), so a lot of the Java BlackBerry apps are pretty familiar — Opera Mini and Google Maps for Mobile specifically, and some more that I’m curious to see. Google Mail, Yahoo! Go, and Facebook are all in that camp. I was really pleased to see a good AIM client in Ramble; a lot of users suggested JiveTalk as a superior client, and I may yet give that a shot.
Sync
Syncing, at least on the Windows platform, was pretty much a non-issue. I’m pretty good at moving contacts to and fro between various online services and applications, and once I found out that I could pull information from a Yahoo! account, I just put all of my information into my Yahoo! mail. The closest thing the iPhone comes to real push is with Yahoo!, so that account has been getting a bit of love of late. Most of my experience in syncing has come from the Palm Desktop side of things, which leaves a bitter taste in my mouth; I’ve had my fair share of troubles with Palm conduits and iSync over the years.
My favorite sync method is obviously with the iPhone, since it’s built to be perfectly integrated into all of the Apple Mac apps like Mail.app, Address Book.app, and iCal.app, but that really shouldn’t surprise anyone. In fact, this entire paragraph is gratuitous.
I’ll probably wipe the Curve and see what it’s like from the Mac side of things on Wednesday or so; I want to give it some time on the Windows side first, since it appears that’s the overwhelming demographic using the BlackBerry.
What’s Awesome
By a longshot, the best part about the BlackBerry is the mail. I feel a bit like an idiot, since all of the people that use a blackberry obviously know that. I manage 4 accounts — 2 personal, 1 work, and one for an intermittently high-volume list, and the Curve is a monster in gobbling those emails up. Coming from the iPhone, that’s a new world all over again; the iPhone is a dog for managing a lot of mail. I would definitely be a happy camper if the iPhone suddenly slurped through email like the BlackBerry does.
Integrated GPS, Radio Signal
The GPS chip on the 8310 is amazing too. I have GPS pucks that won’t pick up a signal anywhere inside, and here the Curve was able to pick up a satellite signal in my kitchen. GSM radio reception was also excellent.
Form Quality
I was really impressed with the overall form-factor; it’s really an excellent refinement of the Treo form factor. The keyboard is pretty much the exact same shape and the response on it is really quite good. Nice and clickable, a lot like the high-tactile-response old-school IBM keyboards.
The Curve is quite slim compared to a Treo; not nearly as slim as the iPhone but much shorter, altogether a very pocketable device. No creaks when you try and move it. One of the keys to good design is if it looks like it should be expensive. And the curve does — it’s a pretty stylin’ device.
Stereo Bluetooth
I’m glad to see the A2DP, I have some bluetooth stereo headphones that have been patiently waiting for a purpose for about half a year. Today, they find their purpose: to listen to music streamed in stereo from Bluetooth A2DP-capable device.
What’s not awesome
The Browser
Coming from the iPhone, the browser is a real impediment for the Curve. Opera Mini has been out for quite a while now, and I really don’t understand why companies don’t tear down Opera’s door to make Opera Mini the default browser on their platform. This alone might be the biggest impediment to my productivity — I’m on the baby internet, the kinda sorta internet. Opera Mini goes a long way towards fixing that (and can even be used to sync bookmarks back to the desktop), but Opera won’t multitask and can’t be used for downloads.
It’s amazing how quickly I got spoiled with the iPhone. Just three months! It has double the pixels, and I can view the web in pretty much full glory. The iPhone almost passes the acid2 test. Opera Mini already runs on the BlackBerry. What’s the holdup? Why hasn’t RIM moved to secure a real browser? Expect this question to be asked on this site for the upcoming Treo and Windows Mobile Smartphone Round Robins.
The internet is about way more than just email. I feel that almost all of the handset companies, not just RIM, have blinders on in this regard. Nokia might be the only handset maker that really “gets it.” They install Opera Mobile on most of their phones, and have WebKit-based browsers on everything else. A decent browser is one of the big reasons that I jumped ship to the iPhone. The world wide web is what got the populace on the internet in the first place. Why ignore it in the mobile space?
User Interface
I have a lot of problems with the user interface. A lot of the icons are similar to each other, the icons don’t always have good contrast with the default background, the shadowed font effects don’t really lead to readability… I could go on. And given the chance, I often will. I was advised by Kevin to hide the icons for what I didn’t use, which is great advice, but I still had to slog through the apps to see what I’d use and what I wouldn’t, since the Curve ships with its own fair share of AT&T/Cingular-branded bloatware.
To AT&T’s credit I found their more simplistic default theme more usable than the standard BlackBerry icon view. And it has to be said that there are plenty of themes to choose from. I think it’s excellent that 4 out of 5 of the top-sellers are all iPhone lookalikes. 8 out of the top 10 are all iPhone lookalikes, and there are no other themes in the top 10.
Settings All Over
I had a hard time looking for all of the places that I’d use to change settings. As I mentioned in the forums, it seems that there’s a never-ending supply of places to look for where settings are stored. Ringtones and profile settings are stored in ‘Profiles’, a bulk of the settings are stored in ‘Options’, Bluetooth gets its own app AND has settings in ‘Options’, ‘Set Up Email Accounts’ has its own app… it’s not the most user-friendly system out there. I can see why they separated ‘profiles’ and ‘options,’ but the other stuff frankly mystifies me. But for profiles, all I really want is a vibrate switch.
Shroedinger’s Touchscreen: Simultaneously Awesome and Not-Awesome
I miss having a touchscreen. I can tell because there are absent-minded fingreprints all over the Curve’s screen right now. But, omitting toucscreens allows RIM to make their devices slimmer, and problem helps them last longer. It’s pretty much expected that they should have a slim device. And yet, the iPhone throws that conventional wisdom on its side.
But I have to say, there are enough keyboard shortcuts that it makes use pretty easy. Once you learn all of the keyboard shortcuts, that is. I’m also impressed by the one-handedness of it all, and that’s something that RIM probably wouldn’t have focused on so much if there was an ‘easy way out’ touchscreen available. I will miss the BlackBerry’s magnificent ‘N’ key when I return to the iPhone.
The Philosophy
I’ll admit that the Philosophy of BlackBerry is confounding to me: compete mainly in the centralized-management enterprise, be an email beast, be secure, and worry about everything else later. I don’t get that; I’ve got all this stuff that I want to carry around with me — I want to be able to carry media with me, sync playlists with the music app that I use, sync my bookmarks to and fro, store TV shows that I purchase online, the whole shebang. In using it, I don’t always feel like the BlackBerry got the convergence memo. And putting the SD card behind the battery… not the most convenient place. I don’t think they ever expect me to change SD cards once I get one in. That says a lot about what BlackBerry thinks the Curve should be.
But, I can also appreciate that the BlackBerry can constitute essentially bit of a mobile office-on-the-go for a lot of mobile workers. For a lot of employees, maybe that means using the BlackBerry as a DUN connection to their laptop for EDGE internet access anywhere. Maybe it means that email is one of the key features for them at work. For managing email, the BB is a champ.
I do worry about RIM in this space, though. Their philosophy is to push content that people want, be an email beast, and compete in the enterprise space. The reason that I worry about RIM is that they’re competing with Microsoft. I’ve said in our Treocasts that Microsoft is a vicious competitor, and they’re relentless in the areas that they want to focus on. Like Ballmer said at his CTIA conference, they just keep coming and coming and coming and coming at you. They don’t intend to stop, and the Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 is aimed squarely at BES. Microsoft is hungry to maintain and grow enterprise because the server and mobile spaces are the two spaces that they’re not a giant in — they’ve essentially got a lock on the desktop and office software. The purpose for MSCMDM08 is for Microsoft to wedge themselves into spots that RIM was wedging into, and that puts a pretty large onus on RIM… once MSCMDM08 comes out, that is.
Final Thoughts
So I respect the laser-honed focus on email, but that focus dulls the sheen a bit for someone more interested in a consumer device. Mobile accomplishers abound. Truth be told, the BlackBerry has been improving of late in this regard. I can take pictures now, I can play MP3s (and use them as ringtones, natch), I can even watch the errant video now. I was surprised to see the Roxio media sync there. The BlackBerry is maturing fast, and I’m going to have to keep a much closer eye on the platform than I ever did. In that respect, my use of the BlackBerry has been a real eye-opener.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
this is gonna be good. I just recommended this phone to two people new to the Smartphone world- both heavy e-mail users. I was comparing to a Treo, not a iphone. Hope i got it right
October 30th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Welcome CrackBerry.com users!
If you are interested, Mike praised the 8310 a bit in our TreoCentral podcast, it’s towards the beginning.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
BB devices are rock solid.
Too bad they use some goofy OS
If they ran WM that’s all I would own.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
That, jrinehart, is a fascinating statement. If we did a Windows Mobile podcast, I would want to talk about that.
Guilty as charged. Powering through email on the BlackBerry is faster than on the Desktop. I still use the Desktop for sorting everything into folders, but my email setup might be weird.
If all they want is e-mail/PIM, you probably made the right suggestion… probably.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
[quote=Overthrow;1368074]That, jrinehart, is a fascinating statement. If we did a Windows Mobile podcast, I would want to talk about that.
You can’t argue with the devices. Maybe the earlier versions (72xx etc..) but not with the new 8830, 8310 etc. I was surprised at the trackball most of all. How smooth it moved and how accurate it could be.
I don’t like Symbian OS. I guess it’s because I’ve always been a WM guy and that is what I know, so the idea of getting to know a new OS is very unappealing. Not to mention the lack of 3rd party support. I can do anything with my 700wx/Mogul. I have even written some small apps for my phones that you can’t do (maybe can, I just don’t know how) with the Symbian OS.
I had better close this before I go off on a tangent.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
just what i was looking for, an honest phone switch. It’ll be interesting to read this week as I’m in the market for a new phone, and the toss up is between the iphone and the curve.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I’ve never owned a blackberry (I use a Treo 680 and an iPod Touch) but I’ve tried several models out in stores and never liked the keyboard — it was even worse than the Treo’s, which I find overly round, hard, and frustrating to type on.
On the IT side, the idea of a server sitting on top of Exchange is just a completely unnecessary level of complexity, and RIM parsing everything themselves, an unacceptable single point of failure (as witnessed in the past).
Lastly, as a Canadian, our obscene data rates make even excellent email handling also expensive email handling.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Ugh. What to get now, wait for to come out, etc. I have Sprint. I’ve been looking forward to gettin the 8130 Pearl. I’m not sure how I’ll like the SureType keyboard but considering I’ve been using a regular cell phone with the ABC, DEF, etc lay to type txt msgs I guess the suretype keyboard would be a sort of improvement. No word on Spring getting the Curve YET. It’s a toss up with me between the 8130 Pearl 2 or the Centro for Sprint. If the Curve was around for Sprint though the toss up wouldn’t be so hard.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Well this is a great first post about the Blackberry world coming from a non-blackberry user. Of all of these device reviews, I’m mostly interested in Blackberry as its most foreign to me. Of course, I’d also be interested in Symbian devices like the N95, but I digress. I’m excited for Dieter to review the crackberry as he’s a fellow WM guy…but Mike, your insights are also VERY helpful for me too!
October 30th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
[quote=rener;1368186]I’ve never owned a blackberry (I use a Treo 680 and an iPod Touch) but I’ve tried several models out in stores and never liked the keyboard — it was even worse than the Treo’s, which I find overly round, hard, and frustrating to type on.
On the IT side, the idea of a server sitting on top of Exchange is just a completely unnecessary level of complexity, and RIM parsing everything themselves, an unacceptable single point of failure (as witnessed in the past).
Lastly, as a Canadian, our obscene data rates make even excellent email handling also expensive email handling.
Until the announcment of SMS Mobile 2008 and the release of Exchange 2007 there was no real “non 3rd party” way for Enterprises to get the same level of functionality that a Good Messaging or RIM would bring.
And you are right. The beauty of an “Active Sync” enviornment (speaking enterprise) is the lack of what you say, an unacceptable single point of failure. But with beauty often times comes the lack of brains if you will.
We used blueberry devices for several years in my corporation but with the lack of proper support from RIM concerning the server, we made a move to another cell carrier and to Good Messaging. If I could, I would have kept each BB device and put Good Messaging on them. The devices are great, but to use it in an enterprise is not when the BES in the picture.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
My cousin has a Curve - and honestly the resolution is too low for that screen … and I had a freakin 700wx! Honestly, BB’s just seem too business to me for a power user to fully utilize and tweak the device.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
If BB ran Winblows…errr I mean Windows it’s would no longer be rock solid.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
how is the curve to hold as a phone? the one time I looked at it in a store it felt too wide to me..
October 31st, 2007 at 2:40 am
treo feels much more natural as a phone. I own noth and prefer the 700p in many ways.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:08 am
I love my curve, the treos seem overly large to me, like a 2 handed device, where as my curve, I can fully type and do pretty much every basic function with one had and not worry about anything.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:45 am
good article. BTW there’s a few typos:
search for 8810 toucscreens problem
October 31st, 2007 at 9:11 am
What a let down with the browser, I was actually excited for it.
Thinking the BB could be a replacement for my 700wx was a joke.
October 31st, 2007 at 10:01 am
Does the curve have cut/copy/paste? that’s something I use on my Treo, and the lack of has prevented my interest in the iPhone. (Of course, it’d be better with ’shift-arrow’ highlighting text, so you could do it from the keyboard. How does the blackberry highlight text (if it does) for onehanded use (and no touchscreen)?
Also, Opera Mini on the Treo doesn’t seem as good as your description on the Curve. Is there a significant difference?
October 31st, 2007 at 11:05 am
I didn’t realize that BB was running Symbian. In fact, I’m pretty sure it runs its own, Java-based OS, yes? And I know for a fact that you can develop 3rd party apps for the BB because of their Java capabilities…
October 31st, 2007 at 11:22 am
If it’s like the Pearl (which my wife uses) then yes, you can cut/copy/paste. You select the text somehow using the trackball. Personally, I’m not going to switch to a BB because of the trackball. I’m tired of popping off that little retaining ring (which seems flimsy) to remove it for cleaning every couple of weeks for my wife. I feel like I went back to the 80’s and am using a 512K “Fat Mac”
October 31st, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Ya, it’s the same on the curve, you can cut,copy,paste easily…one handed if ya wish…and how does your wifes trackball get so dirty anyways?..lol I never have any problems with the trackball on my curve.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Being a Treo 700wx owner, I have to say that, though I’m not a fan of the BB line, I do like the way the curve looks…
October 31st, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I think the curve is definitely a hit for the target market that RIM was focusing on, and that’s the consumer or prosumer demographic. Great design, very good size, and pretty good features. Of course, it’s still really a business first device with some consumer stuff added in on the side.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Indeed…. And I feel that with the ActiveSync push technology and the new server software Microsoft is getting ready to push out, RIM is going to be losing ground in the business arena if they don’t start working on features similar to those available on WM devices…
October 31st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Going forward with WM6.1 and particularly WM7, I hope MS REALLY focuses on two things - speed of the OS and user interface. The reason the iPhone is so popular is probably due to those two things and of course, brand name recognition.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I can never remember how to quote just a certain section of someone’s previous post. I went from the Nextel 7510 to the 7520 to the 7100. I was nervous and doubtful of SureType. However it is quite brilliant and did a great job. One eventually gets faster as there are less keys to press. Also as a one-handed device a SureType model is narrower and when coupled with less keys to press it really works well. I moved to the Treo line because of all of my medical programs and wanted to converge to one device. If it weren’t for that I would still use a Bberry. Oops, I take that back - I got tired of paying $45 a month for unlimited data. The Treo is definitely cheaper as far as data I think with any carrier.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:39 am
gksmithlcw: You are correct and thank you for pointing out my error!
I have been in the middle of testing Nokia’s Intellisync and using the N61 and the feel of Symbian is very similar to RIM. I was not thinking
November 1st, 2007 at 8:10 am
Of the 4 devices being swapped the iPhone and BlackBerry are the most different. The iPhone is about web browsing and entertainment, whereas the BlackBerry is about email and business. The iPhone interface is elegant whereas BlackBerry is a throwback with its clumsy icons and trackball (!). Apples and berries, so to speak. About the only things worth comparing are the “secondary” features such as the phone and calendar. Of course, things will change as they both add features for different markets.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:25 am
But if they ran Windoze they wouldn’t be rock solid. :rolleyes: Seriously.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:12 am
Not quite sure how it gets so dirty, but she doesn’t baby the phone like I do my Treo…
November 1st, 2007 at 11:44 am
It is true that the iPhone interface, and web browsing experience, is far superior to the Blackberry, and for that matter ay other smartphone (sorry Touch advocates)…BUT…as a long time user of Treos (600 & 650), a half dozen WM Smartphones and PPC’s (including recently the 3125, 8125, Blackjack, and Tilt), and a one week test of the iPhone, the BB Curve is the best smartphone implementation yet.[LIST] []Email cannot be touched by any other platform []Exchange synchronization of email, calendar, contacts, tasks AND notes is flawless []voice dialing (imagine that Mr. Jobs) works right out of the box; no training and initiates calls from your bluetooth headset without endless registry edits (take that Mr. Gates) []speaking of bluetooth - headsets and stereo a snap (even on Moto S9 which skipped all over the place on Blackjack and Tilt) []GPS a great add on with Google Maps []BEST OF ALL - excellent call quality on both ends[/LIST]On the overall satisfaction meter, the Curve 8310 is a 9 out of the box; old style interface and all. That comes from five solid years of searching for the perfect “smartphone” regardless of OS platform. As a friend recently put it best, the BB Curve was designed as a communication device from the ground up, not a converted PDA (ala Palm and WM) or iPod (Apple) with voice communication and email bolted on the side.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
BBs do NOT run Symbian (of any iteration). They use a heavily modified java-based OS (probably the best made one to date). All 3rd party apps for BBs are Java apps.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Highlighting test is shift-directional pad on BBs. Opera Mini is the same on all platoforms, however the underlying Java engine makes the browser different on Treos versus BBs. The Java implementation on Treos is quite poor, and therefore Opera Mini and several other Java-based programs just are not as good in terms of overall user experience compared to BBs.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:54 pm
The blackberry was built from the ground up to be an EMAIL communication device. Phone, internet, multimedia was an after thought, much like it has been for all smartphones. This gets better with each new OS, but it takes a big revamping for a device to be good at it all. This is what I’m hoping for with WM7 and the Linux POS.
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:07 am
I have always read that BB’s email is so superior to anything else but I have never read a review that details what makes it better. I have a 700w with hosted exchange from 1and1.com. To me this is a fantastic email solution.
What are the ways that BB still beats this combination out?
November 8th, 2007 at 11:24 am
BB email does rock, I get email on the curve substantially faster than the PC. How’s that????? After all the discussion about the shortcomings of the browser…lets see some great software coming real soon, as if our techno types could create successful touch screens, but not a software program that would browse effectively. C’mon you programmers out there in cyberland, lets see your stuff!
November 9th, 2007 at 7:41 am
OperaMini’s out of beta now, has had a couple more enhancements.