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.