[jonathanaf]

I am new to these boards, so I want some reasoning from you guys:

Why is the new blackberry better than the Treo 700? From what I have read on howardforums, the reception of the treo 700 is better (compared to the 7103, no review on 8703), the phone looks cooler (I disagree, I like the black BB), the screen is nicer, the voice quality is better, Outlook is much easier to link up, and overall the phone is solid.

Now, I want a BB, so I'm just saying what I'e heard about the Treo before I make my decision. I don't want any flames here, just good personal advice on why this new BB is the phone to have with Verizon.

Thanks in advance.

[NeXTLoop]

I'm a current Treo user who's getting ready to switch next week. I've been exhaustively researching the BB for quite a while now. Here's the reasons I've come up with...

1. Stability. Granted, I have a Treo 650 with Palm OS, but I've had plenty of Windows Mobile devices too. Neither platform is well known for stability. The more apps you load on, the more you try to do with it, the more unstable they tend to get. Not so with the BB.

2. Email. Other solutions have arisen for other platforms, but the BB is still the leader of the pack.

3. Battery life. Implementing one of those third-party solutions to enable push email on my Treo has reduced my battery life to a mere few hours. BB battery life is usually measured in days.

4. This may not be a big deal to you, but corporations like the BB because of the administrative options that come with BES.

5. Security. Whereas Windows Mobile, and to some degree the Palm OS, have security added as an afterthought, the BB is designed from the ground up as a secure device with data communication being encrypted.

6. Future. Coming from the Palm OS, I'm used to an OS that is stagnating. I've used Windows Mobile many times as well, and hate it. Whereas those OSs are either stagnating or bloated, the BB OS is designed for handhelds and is constantly improving, with important new features being added to it. Take the 8100 media capabilities as a case in point.

I'm sure some of the experience users can add even more reasons, but these are just a few of the ones that helped me make up my mind.

[junior1790]

The main reason for me is this, stability. I have had the treo 700w and motolrola Q, as well as always having my blackberry just to see what i was missing out on. Turns out i missing out on zero, multimedia capabilities are ok on windows phones but how usuable are they really? If your are looking for a device that will help you be productive then blackberry is the champ, also as stated above, the e-mail solutions are second to none!!!

[takeshi]

Stability's my top reason. Hardware durability is another one. The only tougher phones I've used have been the low end Nokias.

[Tri-Tip]

It's not Windows based!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enough said.

[dolo]

Share my piece on this:

I echo many of nextloop's points. I had a treo 600/650 --> vx6700 before jumping ship to Cingular's 8700c.

One side note - the Palm OS is night and day different then the 700's ppc OS. That being said - if email isn't a top 2 priorities for you and you want the flexibility of having many applications palm OS is tough to beat. It will take a bit to get it stable, but it's a pretty decent OS with alot of expanding options.

For me - i realized i didn't need multimedia as much as i thought i would. I realized this over time which made my change over to the 8700 much easier.

If you get over the multimedia aspects (camera, videos, etc.) BB is tough to beat.
- Stability
- Speed (OS & general functionality)
- sturdy build
- email, email, email
- Opera browser (small font makes this browser run the best IMO)
- EASY synching and Backup features to outlook
- always on

Email outside of the corporate use is very handy for me. gmails, yahoos and private domain email addys allow me to be bridge that gap of "im too busy" and keeps me better in tune with friends and family.

Now - I switched to verizon for the Q - bad move...but phone reception/quality is fantastic. I will be making the plunge to the 8703e shortly.

Hope this helps - YMMV.

Regards,
dolo

[jonathanaf]

Originally Posted by dolo

Email outside of the corporate use is very handy for me. gmails, yahoos and private domain email addys allow me to be bridge that gap of "im too busy" and keeps me better in tune with friends and family.

Can you really make Gmail available with the push of a button on a blackberry? I thought it was impossible last time I checked...

[Dubdub]

I switched from Treo to the BB because the Treo hardware quality really was poor. I went through 3 Treo 600s and a 650 in less than a year before surrendering. All were hardware related issues. And no I didn't bring any on myself by dropping, throwing, etc.

[dolo]

Originally Posted by jonathanaf

Can you really make Gmail available with the push of a button on a blackberry? I thought it was impossible last time I checked...

Hey Jonathan,

I had gmail auto forward any email that to my blackberry email address. It worked extremely well.

There is also an application that allows you to change the "reply from" address as well. So you can keep message strings pretty consistent.

Not sure if the latest BIS has this auto enabled based on the address the email was sent to. I know tmo's version had this - but cingular's did not (at the time of my 8700c)

Regards,
dolo

[Hanwei]

Originally Posted by jonathanaf

Can you really make Gmail available with the push of a button on a blackberry? I thought it was impossible last time I checked...

If you mean can your Gmail emails be pushed to your BB...then yes. You simply set up your BIS to check Gmail... and the second you receive an email at Gmail, it gets pushed to your BB. It's fantastic. On your BB, your Gmail account shows up as an Icon on your homescreen.

You couldn't do this on the older BIS Version 1... It would only pull emails from Gmail every 15mins.

Hope this answers your question.

EDIT: Re: Dolo's post above mine... he does it the other way. He has Gmail forward emails to his Blackberry.net email account... which is the original push. This was the old way of getting all of your emails pushed... by forwarding all of them to your bb.net email. The problem with this was that when you replied to those emails the reply-to address could only be set to one address.

But now with BIS v2 you can simply set BIS to check Gmail, Yahoo, etc in which all emails from those non-BB acounts would be pushed to your BB. You no longer have to forward them all to BB.net. One Big reason to do this is... when a gmail email is pushed to your BB and you reply to it... the reply-to address is your gmail address. WHen a yahoo email is pushed to your BB and you reply to it... the reply-to address is your yahoo address. Etc.

[jungleland]

Originally Posted by NeXTLoop

I'm a current Treo user who's getting ready to switch next week. I've been exhaustively researching the BB for quite a while now. Here's the reasons I've come up with...

1. Stability. Granted, I have a Treo 650 with Palm OS, but I've had plenty of Windows Mobile devices too. Neither platform is well known for stability. The more apps you load on, the more you try to do with it, the more unstable they tend to get. Not so with the BB.

2. Email. Other solutions have arisen for other platforms, but the BB is still the leader of the pack.

3. Battery life. Implementing one of those third-party solutions to enable push email on my Treo has reduced my battery life to a mere few hours. BB battery life is usually measured in days.

4. This may not be a big deal to you, but corporations like the BB because of the administrative options that come with BES.

5. Security. Whereas Windows Mobile, and to some degree the Palm OS, have security added as an afterthought, the BB is designed from the ground up as a secure device with data communication being encrypted.

6. Future. Coming from the Palm OS, I'm used to an OS that is stagnating. I've used Windows Mobile many times as well, and hate it. Whereas those OSs are either stagnating or bloated, the BB OS is designed for handhelds and is constantly improving, with important new features being added to it. Take the 8100 media capabilities as a case in point.

I'm sure some of the experience users can add even more reasons, but these are just a few of the ones that helped me make up my mind.

Could not have said it better myself...

[dolo]

Originally Posted by Hanwei

But now with BIS v2 you can simply set BIS to check Gmail, Yahoo, etc in which all emails from those non-BB acounts would be pushed to your BB. You no longer have to forward them all to BB.net. One Big reason to do this is... when a gmail email is pushed to your BB and you reply to it... the reply-to address is your gmail address. WHen a yahoo email is pushed to your BB and you reply to it... the reply-to address is your yahoo address. Etc.

Ah things have changed since I have left! I'm ready to come back.

Thanks for sharing Hanwei.

Regards,
dolo

[justin.culp]

oh and stability.

[tangmu]

Originally Posted by NeXTLoop

I'm a current Treo user who's getting ready to switch next week. I've been exhaustively researching the BB for quite a while now. Here's the reasons I've come up with...

2. Email. Other solutions have arisen for other platforms, but the BB is still the leader of the pack.

I had a treo 650 and now BB8700, and I have a different opinion on the e-mail. The BB puts all your e-mail into the same folder, regardless of the account, and it will only display e-mail as plain text. No rich text or html.

[Hanwei]

Originally Posted by tangmu

I had a treo 650 and now BB8700, and I have a different opinion on the e-mail. The BB puts all your e-mail into the same folder, regardless of the account

Not true...I have my BB checking 4 Gmail accounts... each account has its own folder on my BB. You have the option of going to the Message folder where you can see ALL the emails from all 4 accounts together as well... but they do have their own separate folders...(at least on the 8703e).

[Hanwei]

Originally Posted by dolo

Ah things have changed since I have left! I'm ready to come back.

Thanks for sharing Hanwei.

Regards,
dolo

No problem man. I'm with you... this is a welcome change from the old way of doing it... and it's great!

[Aroc]

1. Push email that consistenly works (with Lotus Notes/Domino). I don't know if the Palm / windows mobile has made strides in this since Feb '05 when we had a Treo 650.

2. Stability. No flakiness. this is especially worthwhile when you are an executive traveling internationally. You just need the device to work ... for the entire trip without hiccups.

I feel those two items are holding back many of the deployments and causing corps to go with BlackBerrys and BES servers. The others will wait until Palm / Windows crowd starts to take security and encryption as seriously as RIM.

The blackberry and BES just plain work. It's sold as an end-to-end solution. That is the appeal.