Thoughts from a long time palm user and new BB user
Warning long post containing lots of thoughts.
OS UI has some similarities making using BB OS after long term use of palm OS made navigating in BB OS easy. The key difference is in how navigation is done (palm touch with stylus and BB nav ball). Both are equally as good as each other. With time I'm sure I will navigate just as fast with the nav ball as I do using the stylus on my T5.
It would seem that the range of applications on the BB and palm are quite similar. That is to say if I wanted to I could use my BB for everything I use my T5 for and then some or vice versa. Essentially I think if I compared software lists side by side I would be hard pressed to find something I couldn't do on one vs the other. Except perhaps in selection of games but that may have to do with the difference in the kinds of uses between the two devices. Key difference in software I notice though it would seem there is much more free/opensource software for palm. Though its possible that there may be a better selection of free/opensource for BB but just not so widely known about or advertised by the community in general.
There is some software on my palm that is either free or I bought that I would have to buy to use on my BB. Two notable examples: free professional quality solitaire suite with 24 different games I can play and splash money (purchased). Surprisingly there isn't a BB version of the software. I suppose if there was I could contact them to obtain it since I own it for palm.
But since my T5 is excellent condition there is no real reason not to use both devices, despite it being quite possible to go completely with the BB. I still like the idea of having my PDA and cellphone separate. You might wonder then why did I get a BB then. The main reason is non PDA cellphones just don't appeal to me any more. They all seen to be targeted at teens as a gadget toy. Not that I don't like to play with my gadgets I just want my cellphone to be fitting for adult purposes of having a cellphone rather than being designed as a really expensive gadget toy for teens.
Back to my impressions. The 1st advantage of the BB over the T5 is the ability to have more than one application running at the same time. That is one area I have often times wished I could do with my T5 which mainly came up when wanting to transfer info from one app to another. I could switch from one to another, but because the apps don't stay open I would have to navigate anywhere from a little to a lot each time I loaded the app up to continue transferring info. One thing I haven't quite figured out with the BB is if it's possible to copy text from one app and paste it in another.
I also find the calendar app to differ. One thing I noticed on the BB was the ability to have recurring events entered into the calendar. I hadn't ever thought about using that until yesterday when my mom was telling me the date that was settled on for the family reunion. So I checked my T5 and it doesn't appear that the calendar app that came with it has a way of setting up recurring events. However one thing I noticed on the BB is that setting it to recur on a specific day of the week for example the 3rd sunday of a specific month every year appears to not be possible and restricted to a specific duration from the original date. Unfortunately a year from a 3rd sunday of a month would not be the 3rd sunday of that month the following year.
I like both very well and will stick with both using each one for what I like to best use them for. Ultimately what I was in a PDA is a laptop in my pocket. While both the BB and T5 offer similar functions I want or need from a laptop in my pocket its just not quite there. But because I still like the idea of separate devices the good thing is the BB doesn't need to server that purpose for me. The BB will serve as my cellphone that does everything I want a cellphone to do with the ability to expand its usefulness as a cellphone. For music I'll stick with an MP3 player as they have come a long way. And hopefully in the near future my ideal PDA will be designed and I'll have my laptop in my pocket.
However I get the feeling that my ideal PDA will be designed by someone other than Palm since they appear to have lost their way and have not really innovated and advanced their devices for a long time now. My 1st palm PDA I owned was the m130, but my 1st experience with palm was the V. I upgraded to the T|E and replaced it with the T5 because the T|E was falling apart. Its been 5+ years since the T5 came out and all their devices since then are nothing more than the T|E and T5 with additional built in hardware or bargain designed PDAs in the Z line. Even the Folio wasn't completely meeting what my idea PDA was but it was getting closer to it than the T5 was. My guess as to why it was scrapped so late was to redesign it with some or all of the very things I seen it lacking in making it my ideal device or much closer to it. Though I'm sure it had more to do with late research indications that the target audience would not receive it well and its better to cut out before they lose more money than they did cutting out when they did.