[pedirn308]

Thinking of buying one of these tomorrow. Currently have the Curve 8330. Anyone have one and can give me pros/cons?

[juwaack68]

I switched from the 8330 to the Tour a few months ago and am very happy with the change. The 2 things I am really happy about are the better camera and the LOADS more memory that the Tour has.

I wouldn't want to go back to the Curve....it was a good device, but the Tour is better, IMO.

[Dubdub]

Have you compared them feature for feature on the Verizon site? Make sure the Tour has the features you need and want. For instance the Tour does not have WiFi so if that is at the top of your wants and needs list, no can do.

[akosnitzky]

You may want to wait for the Tour 2 (9650). It should be out within a few mos

[pedirn308]

2 more questions. 1. Are the tour buttons bigger than on the curve and 2. anyone know if the deal they are offering online is also available in the store?

[akosnitzky]

I am former 8330 user and now using the Tour. The Tour buttons are slightly bigger. Even though the keys are next to each other, I find it easier for typing? Sort of a smaller version of the 88xx models. The deal should be the same in both places. I am not certain.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by akosnitzky

You may want to wait for the Tour 2 (9650). It should be out within a few mos

Unfortunately, I am unsure I can wait that long. I went from a TMO Curve to a Droid. Droid is proving less than satisfactory for me, to the point where I am seriously contemplating going back to the BB.

For me, it was a surprising thing the past two days about the Droid: Battery life. Unplug at 730 am, and am down to 15% or less by 6pm. Wholly unsatisfactory. I don't do anything on it I didn't do on my curve, perhaps browse a little more...but I've made fewer phone calls, and sent fewer txt messages/BBM messages (since Droids don't have that).

Thinking Storm2, but read about battery life issues. Wife's boss has a Storm 1, and says he never gets below 50% during the week after a long day of use, mostly email, calendaring and some browsing, with a few calls. On weekends, little-to-no email, more phone calls. Based on his estimates, he can go 2 days before having to recharge.

I am reading that Storm 2 users are getting maybe a good day, but having to recharge.

I never thought of the battery thing as being an issue for me...but now that I think of it, I could easily get 3 days, or more, out of my TMO Curve. Once went for a long camping trip and never recharged it, even though txt to my wife frequently (camping is being generous...it was a national guard FTX drill weekend).

I like the Storm2, but am used to the Curve. I am finding battery life to be more important than I thought. Lack of WiFi was never an issue, since I never used it on my Curve except to try it out.

Thoughts?

[andyb101394]

the tour is much better for a few reasons:

my trackball doesnt get stuck nearly as much, its a lot faster, better camera, better keyboard

but if u like the touchpad wait about a month for the tour2 (essex)

[TimW]

As indicated, I won't have that long for the Tour2...I am 7 days into my 30-day exchange period.

Thanks for the info on the camera and keyboard...

[Raptor_01]

Originally Posted by TimW

As indicated, I won't have that long for the Tour2...I am 7 days into my 30-day exchange period.

Thanks for the info on the camera and keyboard...

I made the change to the Tour from the 8530 recently, and before that the Hero. I like what Android has to offer, but the poor battery life coupled with the dust in the screen, the Hero was a deal breaker for me.

Tried the 8530, but was not impressed with the screen quality(especially when reading text) nor the trackpad. My trackpad was unlevel and was hard to navigate. Did not use wi-fi at all, so I went with the Tour.

No comparisons....

[TimW]

After evaluating the Droid for 2 weeks, I ended up back with a Blackberry.

The battery issue was resolved by changing the screen timeout to 30-seconds...I had it set for 2 minutes, and that just killed battery life. I had it set that long because of the main reason I went back to a BB:

The "unlock" procedure.

Blackberries are easy to unlock with one hand. The Droid was awkward, at best. After removing from the holster, you had to try and find the small power button, press it, and THEN do the swipe thing to unlock the phone. It was the "wake up" portion of that which was awkward. To have to do this after a mere 30 seconds stunk. Even my BB won't lock if I set it down for a few minutes.

I was able to cobble together solutions to get the Droid to do what I needed it to do...
* receive email from my Internet business (via POP through GMAIL, not elegant),
* get my contacts onto the Droid (upload a .csv file to GMAIL, synch contacts to Droid, then delete the contacts from Gmail...I didn't want my contact's info in Gmail)
* Synch my calendar to Outlook (which I use at home for my email client). Gmail has a Synch tool, which worked, but you can't accept appointments sent to you on the Droid. (Yeah, maybe with an Exchange server, but I don't use one).

After using it for 2 weeks, one of which was at a major trade show, I decided I needed a phone that did email and calendaring really well, not a micro-PC that happened to also make phone calls.

The Droid is a very capable device, just not for me.

So, I went with a Tour. I had thought about the Storm 2, because of the larger screen, but after playing with it more during my hour wait for service at the Verizon store (!!), I realized I liked a physical keyboard much more than I had thought (I used it whenever possible with the Droid), and going to a Storm2 would probably cause the same frustrations as with the Droid.

[fratts]

I love my Tour, esp when you load it with 5.0. Runs like a dream. The camera is great, keyboard is a smaller version of the Bold's keyboard (which I like) and the screen is nice and clear and easy to read. The only con to the Tour is the lack of Wifi. But with 3G networks who really needs it anyways?