[Bret69]

I recently purchased my first smartphone.... a Treo 800w (on Sprint). When I bought it, it appeared to be the newest, best phone. After about two weeks of "fumbling" with it, I'm now considering the other options - mostly the Blackberry Curve. I get 30 days to exchange. The 800w does offer alot of features, but it seems like the software could be much more user friendly. I also purchased my wife an Instinct. It's a great phone, also with many features and very user friendly, but it does not offer push email - which is also important to me.
Since I don't know one smartphone OS from another at this point, if anyone out there has used both the 800w and the Blackberry, can you please give me a brief non-biased comparison..... pro/cons of the Blackberry compared to the Treo 800w?
Thanks...... My apologies for posting about the Treo on the Blackberry forum (However, I also noticed there are also alot more prople viewing this forum than the 800w forum).

[hnsimpson]

The Treo is nice.

The Blackberry is nicer. Hands down for me.

I like my Curve. Hated the Treo's that I've had. (650/700/700)

-simpson

[Lord Chrispin]

I agree......I had a treo and it was garbage.My curve is amazing.

[poffman]

My girlfriend just switched to a curve yesterday (She is on verizon) from a treo 800w. Her treo would infuriate her from time to time but overall she was okay with it.. Her Curve is like a love affair, she absolutely, completely, loves it. She would have loved to have gotten the curve and told me she hated it (all in fun of course, but she would rather be right than have a better phone) and she hasn't complained except for the fact that it will vibrate, then ring, but wont vibrate and ring at the same time. (There is a cheap program to change that which I will probably end up getting her..)

She has said:
The curve is easier to type on
It runs a lot faster
It doesn't freeze up (It is new, so that's a little biased but still.. her treo froze all the time right from the beginning)
the internet browser is a little different but she likes it so far

Hope that helped.

[jsnole]

Originally Posted by poffman

My girlfriend just switched to a curve yesterday (She is on verizon) from a treo 800w. Her treo would infuriate her from time to time but overall she was okay with it.. Her Curve is like a love affair, she absolutely, completely, loves it. She would have loved to have gotten the curve and told me she hated it (all in fun of course, but she would rather be right than have a better phone) and she hasn't complained except for the fact that it will vibrate, then ring, but wont vibrate and ring at the same time. (There is a cheap program to change that which I will probably end up getting her..)

She has said:
The curve is easier to type on
It runs a lot faster
It doesn't freeze up (It is new, so that's a little biased but still.. her treo froze all the time right from the beginning)
the internet browser is a little different but she likes it so far

Hope that helped.

Vibe and Ring is a great little program, it works great. I have it and love it.

[stupink]

Coming from a 650 to a curve 8320. having been ont he curve now for about 3months and now know it pretty much inside out. assuming treo have done some changes that improove it from the 650 to 800, I can't comprehend the curve is better. I really regret not getting another treo, the blackberry is slow, the software is very limited in every aspect, im forever having to "pull the battery" (once a week) so that it regains at least some of its speed and things which have stopped working for no reason start again. it can't even play full screen video at any quality, a movie my curve FAILS to play at normal rate (25fps) my treo benchmarks at over 60fps :(

Anytime you want to do anything that you would expect to be able to do on a phone like this you "need to buy a cheap little program"... grrr.. push email is cool, but you can buy push software for the treo anyway iirc if you need it.

It is a good phone though.. I don't slate it for what it is, it does what it does very well. the coments above about user friendlyness etc are accurate. but sadly a lot of that comes from the fact the phone is just so basic. You just can't get any software for it either hardly. I used to have lots of things on my treo i miss, simple things like my guitar tuner, nothing is avaliable for the BB, and what is avaliable you need to expect to pay $11 for every little dumb program that should be free, ie the one above to make it vibrate and ring at the same time.. i mean come on RIM its common sense to have it do both at the same time, i shouldnt need to be paying money to get it to do that :(

Rant over.. ahh well, i am sticking with my curve as i cannot afford another treo now, i will be happy enough with it now i have got acustomed to the let down. at least its a tidy little phone.. and i hate typing on it too i should mention, not sure who said above its easier than a treo but the stupid little flat buttons on the curve make it SO easy to hit more than one i still find i watch the keyboard now rather than the screen to see what im typing, as i just keep missing the buttons if i watch the screen, means terrible spelling lol. i used to love the way the treo made it near impossble to hit more than one key evne though they were so small, just that slight dome on the buttons made all the difference meaning you could watch the screen and what you're typing not the keys.

*and breath* lol

[hnsimpson]

Stupink-

Choosing a device is like choosing a mate...Different people have different needs, that's why there are so many different one's.

As to your complaints:

Slow? My Treos could never keep up with keystrokes, especially when moving between programs.

Programs in order to do anything? I suppose there are a couple of extra programs you might want to pick up to optimize your device. I had to rework my Treos OS and buy some for it too.

Battery pull once a week? I've had to pull my battery a few (less than 5) times, but none since upgrading the OS. I was having to do a hard-reset once a day with my Treo.

Harder to type on? My Treo was so cramped I would give up on typing any email without spelling errors. This, I would guess is more just personal preference.

I am sorry that your Curve isn't what you wanted...you can always sell in on this site and pick up another Treo.

Best of luck.

-simpson