The following is my obligatory "New Playbook" post...
I was patient. Once I knew for sure that I wanted it, I asked for Best Buy gift cards from family for Christmas and birthday. It's not that I couldn't afford it, I just couldn't justify it in my family budget with new house and baby. Anyways, I finally accumulated enough and choose the 32GB. Of course, Best Buy doesn't have 32GB in stock at any stores around here so I had to order and wait for it to come. And just in time! It came two weeks ago on a Thursday. The next morning our second child was born! I got to exercise that camera right away.
With a little over two weeks under my belt, I have to say, I am really pleased. To top it off, a coworker was going through Staples and saw the BB PB Convertable Case was on clearance for $5.50!!! On a side note, this convertible case is awesome. Looks great, good quality, form fit. I don't like the cases that have leather straps holding down the device and covering the front of the device.
I use my PB for work, personal organization, media, games, etc... I love the size! My 2 year old already has learned where his folder of apps is on it and how to get to it, open apps, close apps and pretty much do whatever he wants. My wife has become a fan too. I love how the bridge can be set up for both my phone and my wife's. That way in the evening when she is doing a bunch of BBM, she can pick it up and switch bridge over to her phone.
While I think this is a great product, there are a number of enhancements that I would like to see that will make it better as well as more familiar to a seasoned BB user like myself. If anyone has any comments on the following (like perhaps I listed something that is actually there and I haven't figured it out) please let me know!
Features
- Notification icons should be more specific like on BB. For example: twitter, FB, linkedin icons rather than all being lumped into envelope icon.
- When I click on notifications, specifically envelope since that is the only messaging notification icon, I want it to drop down to tell me something about the notification, like a slight preview. Maybe just who the email is from. Much like the white "!" shows what App World updates or what not it has in the drop down.
- More gestures! Even better yet, allow a certain number of user defined gestures. I have seen a lot of great ideas here for gestures.
- Please allow push notifications in apps like Score Mobile!
- In the messaging application, I want more features like I am used to such as filters on email. I have a similar email address set up on my BB and PB and on my BB I have certain messages filtered out for being nuisance, but they continue to come to my PB because there is no option to filter
- In messaging application, allow more integration with FB, Twitter and Linkedin. Much like on our BB phones, allow me to choose what kind of notifications show up from those sites.
- I know this is coming, but I still have to say, I REALLY want feature to be able to run multiple Android apps simulataneously.
- Please improve the Adobe PDF application. At least allow notes, highlighting, markup features, bookmarks. I like how it acts as the native app very well, but if you are going to weave that into the device in such a way, give an app that does more than just open for viewing.
- Allow me to edit bookmarks in the native browser. Why can set the name of a bookmark on my homescreen, but not in the browser. Also, allow the bookmarks in the browser to be reorganized and placed in folders.
- Speaking of bookmarks, I would prefer to use favicons or even customizeable pictures rather than previews.
- News App... I use BB News on my phone and thought by using the same on my PB it would cooperate. While it pulled through my subscriptions, I have yet to notice it sync what articles I have read.
- News App... I really think this could be a great useful app. It is my goto app on my phone but on the PB I think it needs work. It doesn't stand out what subscriptions have new articles in a big obvious way.
- I would also love to be able to integrate the News App with the messages app like on my phone for select subscriptions, but that would also require it to run all of the time.
- While viewing a specific subscritption in the news app I can view other subscriptions in the menu bar at the top, but there is no indication there about which ones have new articles.
- Also, I would love to be able to edit names of the subscriptions as some of the ones I have are filtered feeds.
- There is no feature to share an article in the news app. I do that often from my BB.
- I like how the files on my phone via bridge are made available in a lot of places but one place I think is very important is to make it easily accessible as playlists in the Music app. I know I can open music files by going through file browser, but I want to see those available straight from Music app.
- Why can't I select multiple messages?
- "Mark prior read" please.
- I have BB Podcast app on my phone and PB, but they don't sync. I have always felt the Podcast app left a lot to be desired, most importantly individual subscription settings.
- If we can get Podcast app talking between the two, I would like a "play on PB" feature.
- Also, if the podcast app is talking, I would love to have a podcast playing on my phone, pause and pick it up from where I stopped on my PB. That may be asking a lot though.
Universal search seriously needs to be available.- Just noticed that I can't attach a contact to an email from PB. That is a common thing in business and I feel it is important.
- I know this is coming, but I REALLY want to see bridge SMS.
- Alarms. Just make it like the phones pls. No sound preview? No integration of music on device? Appears to be very little effort in this.
- I would like to see the bridge browser integrated more with the native browser. If I click on a bookmark on my homescreen and I am not connected to Wifi, figure it out and open the bridge browser for me. Maybe someone can think of a reason that this would be a bad idea...
I have noticed in the web browser that previews in the tabs aren't always correct. Also it seems to only be interested in rendering the part of the page that I am viewing.
Some other problems I have had that I haven't found solutions to yet...
- Bridge icons disappear some times. Names are there, but icons are gone.
- I have a BES connected 9550, my wife has a BIS connected 8530 and I noticed she doesn't have bridge browser when connected.
- Occasionally, the Wifi disconnects and disables a saved profile.
I have set the dimmer to help on battery life, but often once it goes to stand by it doesn't pay attention to the setting, until I click on battery.- Wifi name is wrong sometimes. It will connect, but use another saved profile name.
Two things I really love about the PB is the depth of the integration of bridge. I was shocked when I was on my PB playing a game and all of a sudden it told me I had a call and who it was. I also like that if I open an article in the News app it shows the web page within the app. No extra windows and full content. Very nice!
Here is my app Wish List. I know these are ones many others want, but add my name to the list:
- Kindle
- Skype
- Netflix
- Google Maps
- Hulu
- Gtalk
- Dropbox (one that I don't have to download from and save back to dropbox)
*I realize I can sideload some of these, but I would love to see them native and available through App World.
Favorite app so far is Picinote. This app is great for me as an engineer and project manager. I continue to think of new ways I can use it. I think this app will continue to get better and it is a great price!
Finally... One thing I REALLY, REALLY want for my work side of things is to access my BES "Files" app on my phone from my PB. Has anyone figured this out?!?! This would send my PB experience over the top. Right now I would have to access the files from my phone and save to the phone or dropbox then open on my PB. Just being able to browse from the PB would be a huge help.
So many people ask me about my PB and they seem to love most the features for the price. Please continue to improve this RIM. I don't think it's too late.
[/my 2 cents]