[2words1day]

Recently, I had to make the decision to jump ship from the BlackBerry (Curve 8330) to the Android platform (HTC EVO 4G). Having to do so was more a thing of losing my phone and not wanting to pay for a replacement phone which is YEARS outdated. With Sprint not having the Torch (IMO the latest and greatest BB) and wanting a touchscreen-based phone, I decided to give the best phone Sprint has to offer a go. After a week with the phone, here are my biggest pros and cons of switching.

PROS

The screen - Simply put, the 4.3 inch screen on the Evo is amazing. Everything is crystal clear and fits just about any picture within it's scope.

Customization - Being able to have homescreens tailored to my needs is something I'd never had the luxury of doing. Every interest of mine has a screen to itself and I am able to switch back and forth with ease. Extremely convenient.

Widgets - To add on to the last pro, not having to completely start an app to access information makes things even easier.

Android Market - It's not the App Store, but definitely better than BB App World. You can find anything you need and a lot of what you want as far as the amount of apps are concerned.

Build - The EVO feels like it is very durable. It is built fairly solid and seems as if it will last a long time if taken care of.


CONS

The KEYBOARD! - The main reason I was extremely skeptical about switching. Almost was a deal-breaker, but I took a leap of faith and gave the virtual keyboard a chance. I am not used to it after a week, as it holds no candles to the physical keyboard of a BlackBerry.

Battery life - Of course, having all of those widgets and apps running does a number on the batter fairly quickly. I would rather have the phone attached to my hip than attached to the charger. During the past week, it leans a lot more toward the latter than the former.

E-mail - Being a diehard Yahoo mail user, I miss having my emails pop up in my mailbox in real-time on the old BB Curve instead of on a scheduled interval as Android is configured.


With that said, I am fine with the switch. I'm not one of those who will never go back to BlackBerry after going Android. If the situation ideally presents itself (i.e. a high-res screen, customizable Torch [my dream phone]) I would come back to Team BlackBerry. I like certain high-tech aspects of the Evo, but I love (and miss) many simple aspects of the BlackBerry platform. Would love to hear/see some constructive feedback. Thanks for reading!

[Artemis68]

I very recently dropped my 9700 for a G2.

Gmail is my primary email so I have push with that. My uni email is a bit slow but I don't mind, its not that noticible.

The only thing that sucks is the battery life! I bought and extra charger and carry it with me in my bag. I don't mind it too much tho. And when I travel, its by car so I'm fine with a car charger.

I'm really happy with the OS and its "hackability", haha. Browsing is great too and I have a keyboard so I'm not complaining!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Rockafella]

I just switched from the Tour to the Incredible 2 weeks ago and I have been amazed. As far as the email is concerned, I was on yahoo as well (ROCKETMAIL) domain. I decided to change over to gmail to have the realtime email. I had to pay for yahoo plus ($20 a year) and thus was able to have all my mail import to gmail using the gmail import option. It literally moves all the emails in your inbox over. After this has been accomplished you can just turn on mail forwarding from your yahoo address to go to your gmail address until you are sure you have changed your email address on everything. After that you can cancel yahoo plus and they will reimburse a prorated charge back to your credit/debit card. This was the easiest way. At first it really seemed to be a big pain but just sit down and right down all the accounts you have you need to change and run down the list one by one to change the email account to the new account if decide to go that way. I really had been missing out when I had my tour on features and capability. I also rooted my phone so that way I could wireless tether to my laptop as well as remove useless factory installed apps they load on there. Oh yeah I also loaded a rom so i could watch HULU on my phone. its awesome. dont forget to get angrybirds. that game is addictive.

[meno73]

I have had my Droid X for about a month now and all I can say is wow this phone is light years ahead of my old Storm2 someone should mail one to RIM so they can see what people want in a phone and unless they make some real giant leaps forward in their phones dont think they will ever sway me from android now that I have seen the other side.

[YMarkY]

2 months ago I switched from the 8900 to the Samsung Vibrant. I'm coming back to the Blackberry. I've listed the reasons why in another thread. In a nutshell, horrendous battery life, terrible email, and the OS just isn't ready for prime time.

[circles313]

2 months ago I switched from the 8900 to the Samsung Vibrant. I'm coming back to the Blackberry. I've listed the reasons why in another thread. In a nutshell, horrendous battery life, terrible email, and the OS just isn't ready for prime time.

How can you say the OS is not ready for prime time? The only issues I have is the email & battery life. The new blackberry OS has so many unnecessary features. Such as, most frequently used. Really? That's needed? With android 2.x you have so many options & total control over what your phone looks like & how It acts & responds. Android has live wallpapers, tons of keyboards, 3-7 main pages, 2.1 can be rooted to run 2.2 or you can download themes to act like 2.2 & so much more!

Android is 10 times better than the ios & blackberry. The iPhone comes with 1 style, 1 kind of hardware factor & apple decides what you or can't do. Blackberry has 1 OS with several form factors. Android has tons of form factors with tons of OS designs. I'm sorry but android is way better & extremely underrated!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[lssanjose]

Android is very much a prime time OS. It's just, for whatever reason, it requires prime time users . This just reminds me of how Linux is being perceived, still. It's very much a prime time OS for a majority of computer users out there, but not many people seem primed to take it up. This is in light of the newer distributions out right now making it easier to put regular users into a Linux environment. But, it seems as though many can't make the switch.

[BB.David]

The only problem I have with Android is that there's no OS identity. Yeah the core system and apps are the same but each manufacture (Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, etc.) has their own "skin" on top of Android that you can never fully enjoy a "Android experience" as oppose to an iPhone or WebOS phone. Not to mention the apps suffer in the process - with so many screen resolutions to consider - most Android apps look blurry and pixelated.

[lssanjose]

same can be said about Linux, with each distribution putting their spin on the kernel. Depending on the flavor, there's a lot of struggle, or not. At the same time, the fruit of a Linux experience will be lost depending on the distribution chosen, too.

[loki993]

Recently, I had to make the decision to jump ship from the BlackBerry (Curve 8330) to the Android platform (HTC EVO 4G). Having to do so was more a thing of losing my phone and not wanting to pay for a replacement phone which is YEARS outdated. With Sprint not having the Torch (IMO the latest and greatest BB) and wanting a touchscreen-based phone, I decided to give the best phone Sprint has to offer a go. After a week with the phone, here are my biggest pros and cons of switching.

PROS

The screen - Simply put, the 4.3 inch screen on the Evo is amazing. Everything is crystal clear and fits just about any picture within it's scope.

Customization - Being able to have homescreens tailored to my needs is something I'd never had the luxury of doing. Every interest of mine has a screen to itself and I am able to switch back and forth with ease. Extremely convenient.

Widgets - To add on to the last pro, not having to completely start an app to access information makes things even easier.

Android Market - It's not the App Store, but definitely better than BB App World. You can find anything you need and a lot of what you want as far as the amount of apps are concerned.

Build - The EVO feels like it is very durable. It is built fairly solid and seems as if it will last a long time if taken care of.


CONS

The KEYBOARD! - The main reason I was extremely skeptical about switching. Almost was a deal-breaker, but I took a leap of faith and gave the virtual keyboard a chance. I am not used to it after a week, as it holds no candles to the physical keyboard of a BlackBerry.

Battery life - Of course, having all of those widgets and apps running does a number on the batter fairly quickly. I would rather have the phone attached to my hip than attached to the charger. During the past week, it leans a lot more toward the latter than the former.

E-mail - Being a diehard Yahoo mail user, I miss having my emails pop up in my mailbox in real-time on the old BB Curve instead of on a scheduled interval as Android is configured.


With that said, I am fine with the switch. I'm not one of those who will never go back to BlackBerry after going Android. If the situation ideally presents itself (i.e. a high-res screen, customizable Torch [my dream phone]) I would come back to Team BlackBerry. I like certain high-tech aspects of the Evo, but I love (and miss) many simple aspects of the BlackBerry platform. Would love to hear/see some constructive feedback. Thanks for reading!

See for me 2 out of the 3 cons you listed are absloute deal breakers for me, this is for any Driod phone not just the 4g, or it would be the x for me. First Im very used to the Blackberry keyboard, although Ive used the virtual keyboard on a Driod and its decent, not too bad. The physical ones on the phones I hate though. Hopefully the one on the Pro will be the ticket.

Battery life. I need my phone to go all day without having to charge. I hate having to stop and charge it. Swapping bateires is a little better, but still annoying and you have to buy a spare battery. Im not completly satisfied with the battery life of my Bold, so I can only imagine what it would be like with a Driod.

With that said I really like the Pro. Im going to hold out for an updated version of it, hopefully if they ever make one, With LTE and a better screen.

[bigdaddynyy]

As far as the keyboard, Swype on the DX is an acquired taste but I think is better than the other virtual keyboards and eliminates the need for a physical keyboard (just my opinion). I personally hate sliders, and love the extra screen space so I don't need the BB keyboard taking up half of the front of the phone either (again, personal preference).

As for battery life, I have never had a problem making it a whole day (off charger at 7am, back on charger around 12am with usually at least 30-40% remaining, which is on par with my last BB), when using stock battery on my DX, this is when I use the phone as I used to use my BB (checking/responding to email, web searches, texts, phone calls, etc.). When I play games, record or watch movies on the phone, the battery does die rather quickly (especially when playing Angry Birds or using the video camera), but that is to be expected, but my Storm was the same way. Just make some adjustments to your phones settings, and you should be fine with the battery life.

[2words1day]

Great to see all of the feedback. After a couple of days, I figured out a way to conserve some battery life. Instead of being ever-logged into all of the high-tech widgets I have installed, I take the task of logging out of them (Facebook, Pandora, etc.) when not in use. There is another widget to where I can turn Wi-fi on/off, turn down backlight, etc. with one click of a (virtual) button. That helps a little bit. Doesn't eliminate the problem completely but that's just what you get when having the option of having a lot of things running.

With e-mails and the keyboard being the other two gripes of mine, I've just given up. Those are something I'll just have to reluctantly deal with for the time being.

[Tre Lawrence]

I feel your pain re: physical keyboard and email. I have been so used to BB centralized email.

One option is for you to make the Google-centric feel of Android work for you... I use Gmail as an Outlook of sorts, running all my multiple email accounts through it. I send, receive, etc with one account that is on my device. Pretty seamless operation.

You could also try K9 email to replicate the unified box. Well, kinda.

Best thing that happened to me to get over the keyboard yearning is the app that a PP mentioned: Swype. It is phenomenal in my opinion, and boosted my productivity on the Android touchscreen exponentially.

[dwaynewilliams#WN]

Great to see all of the feedback. After a couple of days, I figured out a way to conserve some battery life. Instead of being ever-logged into all of the high-tech widgets I have installed, I take the task of logging out of them (Facebook, Pandora, etc.) when not in use. There is another widget to where I can turn Wi-fi on/off, turn down backlight, etc. with one click of a (virtual) button. That helps a little bit. Doesn't eliminate the problem completely but that's just what you get when having the option of having a lot of things running.

With e-mails and the keyboard being the other two gripes of mine, I've just given up. Those are something I'll just have to reluctantly deal with for the time being.

And that's exactly what I didn't want. I didn't like killing all of the services of my phone just to have a little better battery life. It defeats the purpose of having such a capable smartphone. And even when I did stop the syncing and GPS, the battery life was still poor. I like to have my phone fully going all day and still have a lot of battery life left.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[JoelTruckerDude]

What most of you don't realize is that by rooting the phone, you can control the processor, on mine I use "SetCPU" (free app btw) which allows me to control my processor speed, when I'm in standby it's set to run at bare minimum, you can also set it to run "On Demand" meaning when using it will run at full capacity, but if you take a pause or wait it slows to basic speeds.

Having said that, IMO the "terrible battery life" is not an issue that most think it is. Just need to learn how to customize to get the most out of your phone.

[reeneebob]

2 months ago I switched from the 8900 to the Samsung Vibrant. I'm coming back to the Blackberry. I've listed the reasons why in another thread. In a nutshell, horrendous battery life, terrible email, and the OS just isn't ready for prime time.

And I'll say it again, everything you have listed is the exact opposite of what I have experienced with my Vibrant. In fact, I can't wait to get mine back - I miss that screen...
.
I don't know what you were doing, but even with facebook, email sync, live wallpapers, wifi, gps and a tonne of widgets, I was getting 24 plus hours out of that battery. And no, display wasn't off, it was at 40%

[Tre Lawrence]

What most of you don't realize is that by rooting the phone, you can control the processor, on mine I use "SetCPU" (free app btw) which allows me to control my processor speed, when I'm in standby it's set to run at bare minimum, you can also set it to run "On Demand" meaning when using it will run at full capacity, but if you take a pause or wait it slows to basic speeds.

Having said that, IMO the "terrible battery life" is not an issue that most think it is. Just need to learn how to customize to get the most out of your phone.

Well said.

[SevereDeceit]

Having said that, IMO the "terrible battery life" is not an issue that most think it is. Just need to learn how to customize to get the most out of your phone.

Exactly. My Motorola Droid 2 gets much better battery life, especially in the long run, than my 9650 Bold ever did...

[lssanjose]

Bob, any ETA on your replacement? ?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[reeneebob]

They said 2-4 weeks for the repair, in the meantime I got reimbursed for most of the replacement cost (not all, so they will let me keep the Samsung when it comes back) and have the Desire Z.

I love Froyo, I love the Desire, but I miss my Vibrant...

[BeyondTheBox]

Your pro vee con assessment is the exact mirror of mine and, what I'm confident in assuming, that of any logical and objective other's. My problem is that I can't figure out which is the better, or lesser, of the evils. On top of that I've gone and made it worse by adding an iPhone & WinMo 7 phone to the mix, creating even further inner-confliction. There's so much about each device that picks up where the others drop the ball that it's impossible to say a single one is better. However, I can admit that if it weren't for the aesthetic appeal of my BB it wouldn't stand a chance of contending and, unfortunately, I place looks as highest in level of importance.

[GG1]

They said 2-4 weeks for the repair, in the meantime I got reimbursed for most of the replacement cost (not all, so they will let me keep the Samsung when it comes back) and have the Desire Z.


I love Froyo, I love the Desire, but I miss my Vibrant...

I picked up the Desire Z last Sunday and had it for the day. It is a very nice phone but I agree with you that it just isn't the Vibrant. The Vibrant is just plain superior to me.

As for battery life, I use it heavily without turning anything off and it lasts me all day so not too sure about those who say it has a horrible battery life. I had the 9700 and tested the Torch for a whole weekend, good phones but after owning the Vibrant,there is just no way I would go back to those.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[ubizmo]

Exactly. My Motorola Droid 2 gets much better battery life, especially in the long run, than my 9650 Bold ever did...

So, do I understand that in order to get a full day of reasonable usage, without turning off data sync and so on, it's necessary to root the phone and adjust processor settings for idle, etc? I ask because I'm one who bought and returned the G2 because I simply couldn't get beyond dinner time without having to recharge the battery, with light usage. "Conditioning" the battery didn't help at all.

Ubizmo

[JoelTruckerDude]

So, do I understand that in order to get a full day of reasonable usage, without turning off data sync and so on, it's necessary to root the phone and adjust processor settings for idle, etc? I ask because I'm one who bought and returned the G2 because I simply couldn't get beyond dinner time without having to recharge the battery, with light usage. "Conditioning" the battery didn't help at all.

Ubizmo

You have so much more control of your phone when rooted, think of it as giving it "Administrator Rights" like on a PC.

And to answer your question, YES, root the phone and then get the "SetCPU" app which is free in Market, I've had ALMOST 3 full days with light to moderate usage, bear in mind I wasn't streaming or playing games, just mail, phone, some internet browsing and some texts here and there.

[jackmei2]

Swype has definitely made my switch over from blackberry that much easier. it comes on all samsung galaxy S phones and the droid x and droid 2 I believe. I could probably still type faster on my blackberry, but it's made the transition over to a virtual keyboard easier. I think there's also a swype beta out there for all other android phones, so if you're having trouble typing with the virtual keyboard, check it out.