[moneymatt]

Never would I have thought it a million years that upgrading to this phone would have taken me on such a chaotic adventure with no end in sight.

It's quite an interesting device with it's shares of major pros and cons and i'm compiling my own personal list to make some sense of the madness.

Positives -

* The Verizon network is by far the superior network for reliabable coverage. You're only as good as your network and in my line of work i can't accept second best reliabllity.

* The VZNavigator as a Turn by Turn nav system is 1st RATE. I have a great charging mount in my car as a base and it makes driving random places a breeze.

* The speakerphone is loud and first rate. The speaker sound quality in general is something to be very proud of.

* The keyboard, when properly configured, is GREAT! that means you're only using thumbs, you've corrected your loose screen, and using a laster build.. Typing is a PLEASURE and over time I now prefer it to the bold.

* The whole blackberry philosphy is intense and took some tme to get used to. The idea that ALL your communication data is FORCEFULLY and IMMEDIATELY pushed in front of you is pretty damn amazing.. SMS, MMS, Facebook. Twitter, email, Voice Mail, flight iteneraries, you name it... give it its own sound effect. As a business professional I can really take my operation to the next level. It's by far the most integrated communications retrival system i've EVER experienced and allows immediate responses to people in my work flow. Love it. and it lets me stay away from my actual computer for hours at a time. This in itself is a dream..

* Browser works at 3G speed.. I don't want to say it's a superior experience, but it gets the job done in a pinch.

* I can tether cable-modem speeds from my phone to the laptop. No more wi-fi.. thank god.

* AP Mobile News is an AMAZING app and feeds me data the way i want to be fed.

* Task Manager + Calendar work well and are useful.

* Media when played back plays strong, hard, and LOUD. It's just not so easy to get to work..


now... the NEGATIVES.

* This phone right out of the box SUCKS. You stand a good chance of having a faulty screen which doesn't click properly.. you have either 3-4 returns to verizon or you're stuffing gum wrappers under your battery.. bleh!

* you need PATIENCE.. when decide that you want to do something, you find your button, be prepared to wait 3-4 second before your applicaion launches. You can get into a groove after ahwile but after using the iphones snappiness it just doesn't seem right.

* BUGGIER THAN ALL ****!!! This thing crashes all over the place, memory leaks, things don't work the way they're supposed to.. basic functionality like answering a phone still has MAJOR issues attached to it.

* THE CAMERA IS A JOKE. all around nightmare. wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

* Media playback utilies are tuggy and hardly work.. but when actually playing, video and sound is increidble.

* BATTERY LIFE IS WACKED .. I fell asleep with a full charge and woke up and the phone was empty.

* You need to dedicated a LOT of time to get over the Blackberry learning curve.. It's not trivial and most shortcuts are unintutive.


So all in all. you really have to be a hacker to enjoy this experience... downloading the leaded updates, loosening screws to fix screen tension, and be comfortable monioring memory leads and rebooting on a moments notice.


Bottom Line, I like what they are TRYING to do. I love the blackberry philosophy and their vision trumps apples hands down.

It's just a long matter of time before the RIM coding team pullls there heads out of their butts and get us a real functioning phone!..

I will continue to wait for that day..

Matt

[Iptorrentin]

What a great review! Thanks for your time. (I believe I will stick with my BOLD for a while longer...)

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Human Driftwood]

'chaotic adventure' thats comedy! good description of owning the storm...every time i pick it up im thinking hmmmm will it be working this time? LOL