[Frozen001]

Background:

OK So I will be eligible for a new phone come March 6th. I had a blackberry Bold 9000 for a spell, but it got stolen, so I went back to my Palm Pre. The bold was one of the few phones I have had recently that I really did not complain about. I use my phone for the following: Phone (ya I still talk to people on the phone lol), txt/MMS, email (personal and work... work has MS exchange as well as BB service), and calendars (personal and work). NO I have recently pulled myself away from g-mail and all things google. I am currently using live hotmail for my personal e-mail and calendar, while not much better than google I don't have much choice... I want a "portable" e-mail service and there are not many choices. By portable I mean not tied to an ISP like verizon or roadrunner.

On AT&T I can get the latest Bold 9900 or the HTC Titan II (when released)

I am torn right now between the two. The big plus for me in the Bold is my past expeience with the Bold 9000 and the real QWERTY keybord. But my concern is how well it will work with Live hotmail for e-mail and the calendar. Anyone have experience with this? Are there any know issues witht he Bold 9900 that I should be aware of??

The HTC on the other hand has the HUGE screen which is a double edged sword, has an unknown OS for me as well as the virtual keybord. The other thing with the Titan II is the release date... rumors place it on the 18th, but I have no confidence this will be the date.

Any thoughts??

[newcollector]

I think you have already answered your own questions concerning which phone. The Bold is a here and now phone with a great OS. The newest 7.1 updates really are something. Those who have the Bold really love it.

The Titan is a phone that isn't, yet. Plus you will have to learn a new OS if you decide to wait for it. If you love a physical keyboard, then it probably will not be for you. If you are flexible and like a challenge, then it may work for you.

If you are on a restricted GB plan, realize that the Titan will burn up more data than the 9900. One advantage of a BlackBerry is the data compression (I use my phone for everything, including a lot of web surfing. My son uses his iPhone the same way. My data usage is about 1/4th his). The Titan will be an unknown but probably will not be able to compare with the Bold in this area.

The camera on the Bold is not auto focus, so some shots will not be as clear. The camera on the Titan will certainly beat the Bold.

You can go on and on, but until you can hold a Titan and then hold a Bold and play with them both, it really is hard to do a comparison. If you loved your 9000 and love a keyboard, then the 9900 is your baby. It is a powerful, fluid, and fast phone. But what do you expect me to say, I am on the CrackBerry forum!

[Frozen001]

Yea I think I have, I just keep having this lingering doubt that there will be some hicup with the integration of live hotmail that will turn me off the bold. I am not going back to gmail or google calendar. I want seamless integration, a change on the phone will cause a chenge in the web based email or calendar of live hotmail and vice verse. I don't want to have to do some hack to get it to work.

[muzichead]

The one thing you can bank on is that as with past BB devices, they are geared toward being the best with email clients, (ie POP, IMAP, and such). This is what they are designed around and no other devices on the market can compare to them from what I have experienced and read on numerous occasions. As far as the issue with the calendar, BB has its own calendar and I believe through BB Desktop you can sync some calendars. I am not sure as to whether it can be synced with a hotmail calendar. Maybe someone else here can answer that part with more hands on knowledge.

[dbmalloy]

I would be a bit leary about any phone that has not been released yet... At least the BB has had time to shake out some bugs and you are familiar with it....... As for the Titan which runs Windows 7.1 mobile I can make not comment but it is new andf I have never used it.... You may want to do some research its features....

[13echo4]

The 9900 is an awesome device. Gots to be tempting you pretty heavy. Go to att and try it out see I you like it. I hear its only $50 right now.

[BoldtotheMax]

Best advice is to wait till the Titan comes out and use it. If you really rely on Hotmail, then I'd imagine the Titan will suffice, but as we all know the BB has seamless email integration and is as secure as they come, granted Microsoft has come a long way.

I love my Android phone and hope BB wows me with BB 10, but it just didn't suffice for me when I recently upgraded. I spent hours in the T-Mobile store weighing options/comparing the Amaze/GS2 and the 9900 and walked out with the Amaze and don't regret my decision one bit.

I will say if they had a Titan there as the Lumina 710 is to small for me and not really rich in features, then I may have ended up with the Microsoft phone. 7.5 Mango is sweeeeeet! So smooth, almost as buttery smooth as IOS. My wife has the 710 and have messed around quite a bit with it. Honestly think Microsoft has a winner with that OS.

With all that said, if you are coming from a 9000, then what wouldn't you like about the 9900? It is a great Device, just fell a little short for me.

Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using Tapatalk

[ubizmo]

I've had an HTC Radar for a couple of weeks now, "on the side." My 9900 is still my main phone, but I have a pretty good feel for WP7. I have a hotmail account that I don't use much, but I used it to get the phone going. As far as that goes, hotmail contacts and calendar all flow into the device seamlessly (and so do Gmail contacts and calendar, for those who use them).

The Titan isn't the Radar, but the features will be about the same, since WP isn't fragmented at this point. I assume the Titan will have more horsepower than the Radar and more storage, but beyond that I don't know. HTC bundles some apps with WP7, such as a weather app that's pretty good. But WP7 itself is the same across devices; no "skins".

The Titan will no doubt have a somewhat larger screen than the Radar, so the virtual keyboard will be a bit bigger, but of course no match for the Bold. WP7 gives you some integration with MS SkyDrive, which is nice, and more enhancements to that are expected. Considering how young WP7 is, the number of apps (60,000+) isn't bad. In terms of notifications, the BB Bold is far superior. BB lets you creates custom sound profiles, set different volumes for different alerts, etc., etc. WP7 is very primitive in this respect. You set a ringtone, an email alert, an alert for other notifications, and that's about it. One volume fits all. No LED alert, of course. No way to set default font or size in browser or system-wide. No reflow of browser text when zoomed. The BB has the advantage in all these things.

But the hotmail interface is good, and the overall user experience emulates the best aspects of the iPhone. And you can just delete the software that's bundled with the phone, if you don't like it. No surgery needed.

The email is ActiveSync, so there's no option to delete mail on the device only but leave it on the server. The phone is always synced to the mail on the server. Apart from that, and the inability to choose the size of the email font, the overall email experience is good. You can set up a universal inbox like the BB's, if you want (not including SMS, however). You have a live tile on the home screen that tells you how many messages there are, and a small notification on the lock screen.

I like the WP7 OS, and I plan to hold onto the phone for a while. Battery life is good, but that will vary from model to model. I want to see what's coming in WP. But I still use my BB 9900 about 80% of the time. That's partly because I'm so familiar with it and have everything set up the way I want it, but also because there's no denying that the BB OS is mature (some would say senile) while WP7 is immature.

It's all about what your priorities are. I hope this helped.

[anthogag]

With the Bold 9900 you could use it as a remote for the playbook (and other devices as posted in other threads).

Pair it with the playbook if you like the bigger screen. The playbook's new email, calendar, and contacts functions are excellent

[edthebudman]

With OS 2.0 release I have been looking at email and calendar wireless sync for my phone and playbook, I have used a hotmail email for over 10 years and blackberry for 3 years no issues with push email but didn't really use any other calendar but blackberry one. Information I found out is you can wirelessly sync only if on BES, if on BIS like I am need to use Desktop Manager but I haven't tried that yet really want this to work cause I don't remember the password for blackberry email and people here on the forums say not good anyway( change carriers that email goes away). If it works would be great and also open up my use of my playbook from mostly just personal entertainment for me and my son and be a business productivity tool. Loving the update typing this on my 9700 keyboard. I think you should come back to blackberry you have 30 days and if 18th is really date you can return if unhappy. I am upgrading soon would like 9860 but don't want to loose my unlimited data(on at&t) but they don't sell in store If 9900 is really $50 I will get that!! Hope this information helps :.
Peace
EdTheBudman

[edthebudman]

With OS 2.0 release I have been looking at email and calendar wireless sync for my phone and playbook, I have used a hotmail email for over 10 years and blackberry for 3 years no issues with push email but didn't really use any other calendar but blackberry one. Information I found out is you can wirelessly sync only if on BES, if on BIS like I am need to use Desktop Manager but I haven't tried that yet really want this to work cause I don't remember the password for blackberry email and people here on the forums say not good anyway( change carriers that email goes away). If it works would be great and also open up my use of my playbook from mostly just personal entertainment for me and my son and be a business productivity tool. Loving the update typing this on my 9700 keyboard. I think you should come back to blackberry you have 30 days and if 18th is really date you can return if unhappy. I am upgrading soon would like 9860 but don't want to loose my unlimited data(on at&t) but they don't sell in store If 9900 is really $50 I will get that!! Hope this information helps :.
Peace
EdTheBudman

[tmelon]

Of course the Titan has a great large screen and the ridiculously good 16 megapixel camera as well as LTE, but Windows Phones are kind of bland and from the description of what you use your phone for it sounds like the BlackBerry is a better option.