Posts Tagged ‘ Blackberry ’
According to research firm Canalys, over 33m smartphones running Android were shipped in Q4 2010. This marks the first quarter that Android devices has outsold Nokia’s Symbian phones. What makes this even more remarkable is that a year earlier, in Q4 2009, only 4.7m Android phones were sold. At that point Nokia had 44% of the smartphone market. This has now dropped to an estimated 30.6% compared to 32.9% for Android.
It has been more than a month since my last post. Sorry for that. Moved house, been on holiday, kitesurfed, now I am back. Not that much has changed on the smartphone front during this time. Still waiting on the release of Nokia’s new qwerty slider the E7, although having had the N8 for a while now, I doubt that the addition of a physical qwerty will be enough. Compared to iOS and Android, Symbian^3 is pretty pathetic, with or without a keyboard. O, and I see there are a couple of Windows Phone7 phones available in SA. Too early to buy a Windows phone I think. Not nearly enough apps and developer support for Microsoft’s new phone platform.
I have also been using an HTC Desire Z aka TMobile G2 for a month or so now, so expect some comments in future posts about this phone. Or maybe not. It is good, runs Android 2.2 and has excellent qwerty keyboard, but is somewhat boring. So maybe I won’t have much to say about it.
Now the Droid Pro looks a lot more interesting. I haven’t got one in my hands yet, but hopefully will soon. It is the first Android phone with a candy bar form factor and fixed portrait qwerty keyboard a-la Blackberry. Motorola is clearly taking aim at Blackberry with this phone, especially when you look at the activesync enterprise features loaded on the phone.
The Pro has a 1GHz processor so I expect it to be very nippy. Screen is a bit small for my liking at 3.1 inches but that is the trade-off to get the fixed qwerty I guess. Should be great for one handed use, and will also be great to not have to flip the phone landscape every time you need the keyboard.
It is also a true quad band phone with support for GSM and CDMA. So you can use it in the USA (CDMA) and the rest of the world (GSM).
Will let you know what I think of this phone soon as I get it.
Motorola has been turning out Android-based smartphones at a rate of knots, and in every conceivable form factor. Have you seen the Flipout or the Backflip? I think they are simply throwing designs out to see which ones will stick. The Droid Pro is one such design which is going to stick I think. It is a design that has been used successfully for years by Blackberry – portrait with a fixed qwerty keyboard. Coupled with a 1GHz processor and Android 2.2 which provides enterprise email integration and document editing capabilities this promises to be an impressive device. The device will come with other enterprise goodies, such as remote wipe, complex passwords, device and sd card encryption and VPN ability.
If you are a corporate Lotus Notes user you will be very pleased to hear that Notes Traveler for Android is in beta. Hopefully by the time the Droid Pro lands on your desk you will be able to sync your Notes email, calendar and contacts using Notes Traveler.
The Droid Pro will launch on Verizon in the States in the next month or so. No word yet on a European launch, but if Motorola does release it in Europe it is likely to be called the Milestone Pro. South African droiders shouldn’t hold their breath though, as Motorola has been very slow in releasing their Android phones here. Point in case: the Milestone was launched in Europe/UK a year ago, while it became available in South Africa only a month or so ago.
Thanks to my trusty on-line mobile phone retailer Ca-Cellular I have the new Blackberry 9800 aka Torch in my hands. It is AT&T branded but that is the price you have to pay to be the first Torch owner in South Africa. Actually I bought two Torches. Gave one to my wife who is now completely in love with the device. She moved from a Blackberry Curve to the Torch, which is like moving from chalk to cheese. She loves the combination of large(ish) touchscreen, usual blackberry keyboard, and slicker new OS. I am somewhat more jaded and critical, having used the latest high-end Android devices and iPhone 4. But even I am taken with the device, which strikes a nice balance between touchscreen and keyboard. The new OS works well with both, making it easy and smooth to use whichever interface you want. Web browsing is also much improved, and the Torch has a proper Youtube client, not as good as on the iPhone or Android, but nearly. I quite like the new notification system and home page, and the integration with Twitter and Facebook is very good. Even though the OS is new, Blackberry users will be instantly at home, as the new UI is very similar to the old one. And the Blackberry’s bread and butter – email and messenger – work as well as it always has.
The device looks great and feels great in my hand. The spring-loaded slide mechanism works well also, making one handed use of the Torch a pleasure.
My only real complaint is the speed. It is not that the device is slow, but it is not snappy.
Will people queue for hours to get their hands on this device? No, but if you are a Blackberry fan you will love it. O, and if you are going to upgrade from your existing Blackberry to the Torch, make sure you download and install the latest version of Blackberry Desktop Manager on your pc. It will move all the data from your old Blackberry to the new one – contacts, emails, text messages, pictures, videos, wifi settings, everything.
RIM launched its version of the iPad yesterday. It is called the PlayBook and as you can see from the picture, it looks cool. Impressive specs also: 1GHz dual-core processor, lots of RAM, 7 inch 1024 x 600 capacitive multi-touch screen, front and rear facing cameras, Flash support, hardware graphics acceleration, 1080 HD video, HDMI output, and weighs only 400g (compared with iPad at 730g).
The software also looks promising. It uses an OS developed by QNX, who was recently acquired by RIM. The interface looks a lot like WebOS, which can only be good from a UI perspective. Apparently the PlayBook will also sync with your Blackberry phone (remember the Palm Folio?).
The biggest hurdle for the PlayBook is going to be to get developers to write apps for its new software platform. No apps no play.
The Blackberry Torch was launched yesterday. I can already see the word plays on that name: Will it set the mobile world alight? Torch keeps RIM’s flame going, etcetera. Palm Pre-ers will recognise the familiar form factor with portrait slide-out keyboard. Nevertheless I think the Torch is a step in the right direction for RIM – keeping the physical qwerty keyboard that BBs are renowned form while adding a capacitive touch screen a-la iPhone/Android/Pre. The version 6 of BB OS also looks like a solid improvement on the old one, with web browsing and social networking on par with the competition. Initial indications are that RIM hasn’t succeeded in surpassing Android or iPhone in any way, but has at least done enough to prevent more high-end BB users from jumping ship. On a related note, it is ironic that the Blackberry’s famed security has resulted in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE banning BB Messenger, emails and even internet access on the BBs in those countries. Reason being that the high security provided by the Blackberry prevents these governments from spying on their citizens’ communications. Crazy.
Did you know that RIM sold nearly 11 million Blackberry smartphones during Q1 2010? This places them 4th in terms of units sold behind Nokia, Samsung and LG. Not bad for a company that sells only smartphones. You could say RIM is now the world’s 4th largest mobile phone manufacturer. It shows the growth in smartphones as well as RIM’s success in expanding their market. Nokia sold 150 million phones in the same period, so RIM has a way to go still though.
I have had a few Blackberries over the years. Best one was the Bold, worst one the Storm. That clickable no-multi touch screen of the Storm made interacting with the phone slow and painful, while the aging Blackberry OS did not lend itself to touch screen operation. While Blackberry is still renowned for its excellent email capability, as well as Blackberry Messenger, the OS has fallen behind the likes of Apple OS, Android and WebOS. Browsing on a Blackberry is very unsatisfying, youtubing even more so.
All of that is about to change I hear with the release of the Blackberry Bold 9800 next month. This will be a Blackberry with a difference, sporting a capacitive touch screen and a slide out portrait qwerty keypad a-la Palm Pre, as well as the new version 6 of the Blackberry OS. Version 6 is rumoured to have a new Webkit based browser (same technology as used in WebOS and Apple OS browsers) as well as support for multi-touch and pinch to zoom. Details are a bit sketchy still, but this promises to be a phone worth keeping an eye on. I might even buy one, if I can get both my corporate emails and gmails in HTML format on the phone that is. 
Thanks to Chris at iMod for blogging this interesting comparison done by GigaOm:
I have always been a qwerty man, well at least since qwerty phones became available. I have had many, including Palm Treos, Blackberries, Nokia 9300, E90, E71, E72, N97, HTC TyTn I and II. And now I have the Motorola Milestone, which is the non-US incarnation of the Droid, and I think it may well be the best qwerty phone available today. Let’s take a look at the competition:
Blackberry
All the Blackberries, except the Pearl and the Storm, have qwerty keypads. They generally work well as phones, and the Blackberry signature dish, its push email, is legendary. However, the Blackberry OS’ age is starting to show and smartphone activities such as web browsing, youtubing and tweeting are less than satisfactory on the Blackberry.
HTC
HTC has not produced a qwerty phone in a while. I think their most recent one is the Touch Pro 2 which was released early last year already. If you can remember that far back, it runs the now pretty much defunct Windows Mobile, has a resistive touch screen and 528MHz processor. HTC also produced the G1 which was the first Android phone. A good device but very much first generation Android, while the Droid is 3rd or 4th generation.
Nokia
Nokia has produced many excellent qwerty phones, from the brickish 9500 to the latest and very sexy E72. All very good phones, but boy Symbian is old now and it shows. The internal mail client still cannot handle HTML mails properly. The user interface is clunky. The E72 looks gorgeous until you switch it on. The resistive touch screen on the N97 is junk. The list goes on.
Then there is N900. Doesn’t run Symbian which is good. Instead runs Maemo 5. Not many people has heard of Maemo, but it is an open-source development environment and may be Nokia’s strategy for high-end phones into the future. Maemo looks very promising, with over a 1000 apps available already, but the N900 is very much still a work in progress, and lacks too many features to be a serious contender for the top spot.
Palm
Palm has the Pre and Pixie, and the Plus version of each. The Pre is a portrait slider, which is novel. The keyboard is small but very usable. The WebOS software is a slick and very user friendly platform, arguably the best modern phone OS available today. The appstore is also growing by the day. Ignoring Palm’s financial woes, I’d put the Pre into the second spot after the Droid. Its small screen and keyboard counts against it. Also doesn’t help that the appstore is not available to all users, including yours truly
Motorola
Motorola has one or two other qwerty phones, such as the Devour, but the Droid/Milestone is their flagship, so it is safe to assume that it is their best.
The Droid/Milestone
The first time you clamp eyes on the Droid, I doubt that the words “this is the best qwerty phone in the world today” tumble from your lips. It is quite ugly at first glance, and at second and nth glance to be honest. But use it for a month or two, and you will be impressed. It has a large screen (480 x 854 pixels, 16million colours) making it a pleasure to view web pages and videos on. The screen is a capacitive touchscreen requiring the lightest of touches to interact with. It is fast with a 600MHz ARM Cortex processor. It runs the latest version of Android, namely 2.1, which provides multi-touch, excellent gmail integration, and thousands of apps via the Android market.
So there you have it. The best qwerty smartphone in the world today is the Motorola Droid/Milestone. C’mon HTC I know you can make a better one.
Check this graph from Business Insider. Tells a story doesn’t it. RIM has been steadily increasing its smartphone market share in the US, mainly by expanding into the consumer market. I have been seeing this strategy here in South Africa as well, with multi-coloured Blackberries heavily advertised on TV and print media, clearly targeting non-business users. The fixed-price surf-all-you-can subscription is a good strategy that is winning many new users.
The graph also shows how badly Microsoft needs Windows Phone 7. Apple has had a strong run but have leveled off recently, maybe because people are waiting for the next OS release. Google’s Android going the right direction also. I guess Symbian has yet to break into the US market, but what can be said about Palm? Or more importantly what can Palm do to reverse the trend? WebOS is excellent, but I think Palm needs better hardware, it needs a killer device. In the meantime it needs to push the Pre/Pixie through as many networks as possible, in as many countries as possible, it needs to spend aggressively on advertising, and of course it needs to open its app store to everyone, not just to US users.
I thought I saw Mark Benford, played by Joseph Fiennes, use a Palm Pre in this week’s episode of Flashforward. Couldn’t be sure as the phone was not displayed prominently enough. Anyone else see it?
A few days ago RIM announced the new free version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.The new BES Express allows users to sync their BlackBerry with a Microsoft Exchange Server or Windows Small Business Server. Sorry Lotus Notes users nada for you. The new BES Express is free, and allows small businesses to have a cost effective solution, without all the advanced features. For consumers BES Express will allow:
◦Wirelessly synchronize their email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks
◦Manage email folders and search email on the mail server remotely
◦Book meetings and appointments, check availability and forward calendar
attachments
◦Set an out-of-office reply
◦Edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files using Documents To Go(R)
◦Access files stored on the company network
◦Use mobile applications to access business systems behind the firewall
The new BES Express is expected to launch this March. You can find more details at www.blackberry.com/besexperss.
Looks like this will be my last day with the Storm2. I may come back to it after a few days as I tend to do with my phones, but right now I am missing the smooth UI, featherlight touchscreen and real qwerty of my Pre too much. The Storm2 by contrast feels clunky. It feels as heavy as it did on day 1 and the outdated UI combines with the SurePress screen to create a very unsexy clunky experience. Bummer.
It looks solid and feels heavy. Those were my first impressions when I took the Storm2 out of its box. It has a nice metal feel to it. And is this touchscreen weird or what. That was my second impression. It is unlike any other touchscreen I have experienced. Typing on it feels nearly like typing on a real keypad. If that was RIM’s intention then they have succeeded. Am actually typing this post on the device. Going slowly and probably pressing harder than I need to. Think in time I will be able to type fast on it, faster than on my Hero with its capacitive screen. Mostly because I think the Storm2′s SurePress screen will result in fewer typing errors.
The battery didn’t quite make it through the first day. Only 1400mAh. What was the RIM engineers thinking. Had to resort to a few power saving tricks like turning the backlight right down, switching 3g off and so on. Hopefully the battery will get better after a few overnight charges. Otherwise Seidio has a 1600mAh battery….
Strangely enough I am looking forward to getting the Blackberry Storm 2 in a few days. Unlike most of my mobile phone acquisitions, this one is coming my way courtesy of a network contract renewal. Blackberry is the preferred, actually the only officially sanctioned, push email mechanism provided by my employer, so I have had my fair share of Blackberries – Pearls, 8800, Bold, etc. The Bold is very good and I still use it from time to time. It sucks in a few areas though, specifically web browsing, youtubing and doing my gmails in html. Overall the BB experience is somewhat boring and falls short of the user experience on the iPhone, Android, WebOS and even Symbian I think. I considered the Storm when it was released but decided against it as it had no wifi – what was RIM thinking. And then everyone complained about the SurePress clickable touch screen. The Storm 2 looks quite a bit better though with an improved screen (read somewhere that this screen is the closest you will get to a physical keyboard with a touch screen one), wifi, and 2GB ram. And the web browsing is better than on the Bold. Maybe this will be the phone that converts me to a virtual keyboard. Will see.
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