BlackBerry, Android, or iPhone... The Sequel

A while back, I wrote a blog on my assessment of each of the three mainstream smartphones that were out in the market at the time. I think its time for a sequel.

I still have the BB - mainly used for receiving/sending work related e-mails and keeping work related calendars - although not much action here. iPhone is my device of choice and I won't leave home without it. As for my Android phone, my one-year old daughter uses it as her toy phone; although she is quickly catching on that this phone doesn't work. She rather use my iPhone.

BlackBerry 9000 Torch

• The phone is fast becoming useless. The battery life between charges is shorter than a mayfly. Lucky if this thing lasts through my morning coffee run. I could get a new battery - which is by the way one of the positives about BB, where I can actually change the battery on my own. But then the phone is not worth spending another $60 to keep it alive any longer than I have to. 
• BlackBerry World is slow and prone to crash. Besides, its useless without desirable apps. 100,000 apps can't complete with 800,000.
• There is very little support for the apps that I have, so I deleted most of them since I don't use them anymore and were using up my precious memory. 
• Getting sick of seeing hour glass flipping over and over again.
• Should I upgrade to BlackBerry Z10? It does look appealing; but my firm will not support BB10, or at least not for a while until they get comfortable that the investment to upgrade the enterprise servers to BB10 is worth the cost and effort. 
• Verdict: BB is waiting for its slow death and it eventual resting place - in my daughter's toy bin.

Android - SonyEricsson Xperia X10

• Haven't used it in over a year.
• SonyEricsson does not exist anymore; its Sony now.
• If close to 40% of the smartphone users are choosing Android phones, then it must be doing something right. I see more and more people using the Samsung Galaxy III. But in my opinion, they don't look all the pretty; too big and too curvy. At the end of the day, I still think that Android phones have too many bells and whistle that most users do not need and use up too much memory and power.  
• Verdict: I passed my verdict long time ago and I stand by it. 

iPhone 4S

• My iPhone is the device of my choice. I use it for all my calls, apps, etc., except for work related e-mails and scheduling. I am considering switching my work related e-mails and calendar to iPhone. Good apps does not appeal to me - not so user friendly. But I'm willing to consider living with some inconveniences. For now, the only real downside (beside having to carry two devices) is that my calendar in BB don't sync up with my calendar on my iPhone. 
• The apps for iPhone are the latest and the greatest - we get more of them and the best of them. 
• I'm glad that they got Google Maps for iPhone. One thing that I did not like about the iOS6 upgrade was the Apple Maps. Can't complete with the number of years Google spent developing their maps. 
• iPhone 5 upgrade? Maybe. But I haven't found any reason to upgrade, except perhaps the bragging right - to say I have the latest gadget. Sure, it runs on 4G LTE. But the speed isn't all that noticeably different from the current 4G; did an unscientific test with a friend and wasn't all that different. I can wait another 6 months for the next iPhone to decide whether to upgrade or not. 
• Verdict: I'm now a true Apple convert. There, I said it. 

I recently cracked the screen on my iPhone 4S. I did not buy insurance so I had to replace it on my own. With iPhone 4S, the glass comes with the digitizer attached to the glass so it was expensive and much harder to replace the screen. But with some helpful guidance from iCracked.com, got the screen replaced this past weekend. Its good as new now. Better looking than how my BB looked after one year. I must say, it is hard to wear out iPhone's looks. Furthermore, learned that it is very easy to replace the battery on the iPhone as well. Probably I'm breaching a covenant on my warranty so that the device is no longer covered. But I'll replace it with iPhone 5 if this thing breaks anyway.

BlackBerry, Android, or iPhone...

Now that I've used my first iPhone for close to a month, its time for me to compare it with Android and BB. I've been a BB user for over six years. As for Android, I own a SonyEricsson Xperia X10 but used it for about   eight months before it went out of commission and haven't used it since. More on that later. So what do I think about each? Here it goes.

BlackBerry 9000 Torch

• My firm only began to support non-BB devices recently. So by necessity, I've been using BB for work. 
• Having the keyboard is definitely a plus. 
• BBM - the best mobile instant message apps. Too bad it's only supported within the BB platform and BB users are quickly diminishing. Hello WhatsApp. 
• Easier access and better sync with work related e-mails. 
• OS is slow - takes for ever to switch open or close apps and eats up memory quickly.
• Browser is a piece of shit - not worth spending the time to surf the web. It takes forever to download pages and when they do, can't read easily

Android: SonyEricsson Xperia X10

• It does have the look and feel of an iPhone; but it ain't an iPhone.
• Not as user friendly as iPhone; but, allows the user to customize the phone more to his/her liking. This means that if you have the time and the know how, you can customize a lot of the features on the phone to fit your needs. This also means that an average user will not be able to use half of the features on the phone.
• Google kept coming out with newer versions of the OS; but SonyEricsson was always slow in rolling out the upgrades to its phones; and ATT further delayed the roll out to its branded phones. So I had to flash my phone to get the upgrades. 
• Crashes too often, especially if I ran one too many apps. Sometime crashed over 10 times a day, which was the reason why I stopped using it, even before my contract expired. Maybe partially due to the fact that I flashed my phone with upgrades without ATT's approval, which is also the reason I didn't go to ATT to get the phone fixed. 
• Never will I get SonyEriccson phone (now Sony); and, not likely to get Android phone either.

iPhone 4S

• Made me appreciate perfectionist Steve Job's insistence of design and user friendliness. 
• There is not much you have to do to set up the iPhone; most of its features, etc. are already decided for you; which may be frustrating to some who wants to customize, but because this product was very well thought out - it is so easy to use and the features that are build in are those features that we would want and use.
• OS is excellent - transition is smooth without noticeable lag
• Browser is 100 times better than BB - quick and fast and makes web surfing relatively easy
• Camera - again, its very quick and you don't notice any lag between pictures (unlike other phones where each time you take a picture, you have to wait for 2 second for the camera to process the image - that 2 seconds can feel like eternity).
• If you have a large iTune collection, you really need the iPhone. 
• Display - everyone is talking about Galaxy SIII with its 4.8 inch screen. I kind of like iPhone's 3.5 inch screen. Any larger screen and the phone will be too wide for me to carry on one hand comfortably. In this case, bigger doesn't necessary mean better. 
• Frame is solid. 
• Siri - well, we don't get along too well, too many misunderstandings. Let's hope she will improve over time.
• Lack of physical keyboard is definitely a negative; but, I guess I'll have to get used to the virtual keyboard. With iPhone, I can live with that.  

Needless to say - I really enjoy my iPhone. It will be interesting when BB 10 comes out. Will I upgrade my 9000? Stay tuned.