We’ve now looked at our devices in the 3 major functional categories, but what about all the other little applications out there? What about the things we want our ‘phones’ to do that we don’t even know about yet. This is where we have to consider how well our device functions as an overall platform that can be extended and built out.
Today’s hands down winner in the Platform category is:
iPhone
Honestly, I don’t even need to dissect the differences here. One word says it all “App Store”. After less than a month I use my iPhone to track my run times distance and routes, listen to Pandora, update Facebook, ping a server, buy movie tickets, make Skype calls, match paint colors, etc, etc, etc. Apple made a brilliant move by opening up the platform for 3rd party development and sale through the iTunes app store. ’nuff said.
So where does this leave us in an overall analysis?
In my opinion the iPhone is the clear and convincing winner.
iPhone
From what I understand of the first 2 generations of iPhone, I probably wouldn’t have liked it, but the speed, storage capacity (mine’s a 32G), GPS and voice dialing of the 3Gs make it the complete package. I can’t imagine using anything else. (I must admit though, that my first unit crashed and had to be replaced. If anyone from AT&T is reading this, please tell your customer support that you shouldn’t be charging me a 10% restocking fee on an exchange of a bad unit! But, that’s AT&T – a totally different review.)
My final confirmation of iPhone’s magic was in an anniversary gift to my wife last month. When I gave it to her she told me to take it back…she didn’t want it. She’s not a techie and just wants basic functionality because she will NEVER read a manual or user guide. Two weeks later I couldn’t pry it out of her hands. She’s texting, staying up with friends on Facebook, paying bills and taking pictures and videos of the kids. She’s thoroughly enjoying the benefits the phone has brought to her life and she’s never read a single instruction. In fact, it could ALMOST replace a computer for her. She just started using it and she now does over half of what she used to do on her computer on the iPhone.
Blackjack I (Windows Mobile)
My daughter has my Blackjack I and loves it. She uses it to make calls, check email and (of course) for texting. If you’re looking for a basic phone with some PIM capability and over the air syncing this is probably your best bet.
Blackberry Bold
As far as Blackberry goes, I honestly have to say that you would have to pay me to use it…a lot. It has an awesome keyboard but that was pretty much it. I was thoroughly disappointed and have no idea what the crackberry addicts see in these.
In the end, these are all just my opinions and observations. Yours may be totally different. That’s why our Hosted Exchange 2007 service supports all three devices. To each his own.
by David Setzer on August 6, 2009 · 1 comment
Ok, now that we have the serious productivity issues out of the way lets look at how these devices stack up against each other in the area of entertainment.
Today’s winner is…
iPhone (did we really even think it would be close?)
Here’s the Lowdown
Blackjack I (Windows Mobile)
First, let’s look at Windows Mobile. I tried to use Cingular/AT&T’s video service to no avail and even loaded some MP3’s on my phone before an international trip. The videos were just too small and I was forced to use Samsung’s headphones because they didn’t have a standard headphone jack. The internal memory was too small, so I added a 1GB micro SD card which gave me some more music, but I generally didn’t have time to decide on which music I should take on a trip. I found myself always trying to guess what mood I’ll be in and I hated that. After one or two attempts I finally just gave up trying to use it as a music player.
The Blackjack’s camera had a delay that was so bad that it is virtually non-functional. I rarely took pictures.
iPhone
The iPhone is, of course, at it’s heart and iPod which beautifully syncs with iTunes. The only reason I started using iTunes to begin with was that a friend bought the red U2 iPod because he liked red and didn’t really care about the $50 credit for U2’s box set (which I gladly accepted and used). I’ve had a couple Nanos, but they’ve never been big enough to hold my whole catalog.
I am an ardent opponent of today’s DRM. While I wholeheartedly support a content owner’s right to profit from their work I also believe in the licensee’s Fair Use rights. I was very pleased to see Apple start offering DRM free downloads like Amazon and will be abandoning any last vestige of non iTunes based players on my systems. I love that my 32GB 3Gs can hold my whole catalog of music AND podcasts, so I always have whatever I want with me. No more carrying a separate player. I’ve even started using one of those old cassette adapters to play it in the car even though it’s hard to take a call and listen to music.
The iPhones focus selection camera along with editable video and Facebook app is great. I’m taking all kinds of web quality pictures and video of the kids and my trips. When you don’t want to carry a higher quality still or video camera the iPhone is a nice substitute.
With it’s iPod heart and App Store games this one was really a no brainer. Music…movies…TV…Autofocus Camera.
BlackBerry
The only thing I can say about the BlackBerry is that it had a Texas Hold ‘Em poker game that I liked and a nice flash on the camera. Does it play music? I don’t think it’s supposed to entertain.
While communication and productivity are definitely top concerns. Entertainment capabilities and device consolidation are making this category more important.
Stay tuned for tomorrows final installment when we look at the overall platform and extendibility of each device.
Today we’re going to look at our three smart-phones and how they perform as well…a phone. For me, this is the most important category since I want a phone in order to talk to other people. For some, this one is down the list but tops in my book.
The winner by a hair in the phone category is:
Window’s Mobile (Blackjack I & II).
Here’s how it all went down:
Call Quality:
The overall call quality of the Blackjack I and II was great. I never had dropped calls or static, always heard the other party well and basically could forget I was using a device and just talk.
I would have to say the iPhone is a close second. The only factor that took it down slightly is that sometimes I have trouble positioning the listening speaker at the right spot on my ear so I have a little trouble hearing the caller.
The BlackBerry was horrid. On my first device I would answer calls to dead air even though the caller could hear me. Or, as I was talking the earpiece would develop static and go dead while the other party could still hear me. If I called them back, no problem. AT&T did switch out the unit and the second was a little better, but I still experienced an unusual number of dropped calls.
Dialing:
This is probably one of the most important aspects of the phone after the calling issue is settled. This is also why I chose Window’s Mobile as my favorite. WM has the easiest and most intuitive dialing interface. As I would start to dial a number/name the display would populate with matches from my contact list and winnow the list down as I continued until I was ready to scroll to the name and select the number. A nice feature was that it prioritized the list with the most recent inbound/outbound calls. It just always seemed that whomever I wanted to call was no more than about three buttons away.
The iPhone is close but seems to take longer to look up and dial a number. First, since there is no dedicated keypad you have to activate the device, unlock it, click home screen and click phone. Then click keypad, contacts , etc. Or you can scroll to the search function (which we’ll talk about later this week) from the main screen. I keep my phone screen on “Recent” which handles most of my direct calling fairly well. For a phone there are a bit too many clicks to get to the number. What I’ve found though is that I use the voice dialing about 80% of the time with excellent accuracy. I don’t have to look down at the phone, keep my eyes on the road and it is RARELY wrong. Without this feature I would have serious reservations about the iPhone as a well designed mobile phone.
Finally, the BlackBerry. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone uses it. I’ve almost buried myself under more 18-wheelers trying to call someone on this phone. As you begin to type, it too brings up a list of contacts but does NOT prioritize them. You end up typing almost the whole name or scrolling through the list. But wait, it gets worse. When you start scrolling, the list dynamically expands and collapses the calling options for each contact as you pass the name. So, you can’t look up at the road and look back down at the screen in the same spot to find where you left off because it is changing the line position of each contact around. The dialing on the BlackBerry was so bad I finally found myself just dialing in the whole number each time.
So, there you have it in the Phone category. Of course there are many more features that I could have delved into, but those are the critical basics. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s run-down in the Personal and Productivity Manager category.
