9800 Slider vs. HTC Incredible vs. iPhone 4G

Hey everyone. I've had a Blackberry curve on Verizon for the past two years and it's time for an upgrade. I've been looking at the HTC Incredible, the iPhone, and the new Blackberry Slider 9800 which is supposed to come out by September. Here is what is important to me in a phone based on the apps/programs I currently use the most.

1) Native GMail application- I have this on my blackberry now and I love it. It's nice to be able to see threaded messages, star emails, archive, label, and search all of my gmail emails. A native Gmail app is available for both Blackberry and Android. There isn't one for the iPhone and I don't think there ever will be. I know I can go to gmail.com on the iphone but it's not the same. Also the native Mail application does not do any of the things I mentioned above.
2) BBM Black Berry Messenger- I'd say 50% of my friends have blackberries and so I have about 70 BBM contacts. I use BBM all the time and I'm not sure if I can give it up. How did those of you with a lot of BBM contacts who switched from blackberry to the iPhone or Android deal with this? I know GChat (Google Talk) is another option which brings me to my next point.
3) Native Google Talk applicaiton- I use GChat (Google Talk) all the time to talk to my friends on my blackberry and laptop. It runs in the background and it's nice getting chats instantly on my phone. The iphone does not have this.

Nonetheless, I really like the iPhone because of all the apps and games it has. There aren't many for the Blackberry now and it makes my phone experience boring. Secondly, I usually carry around an iPod touch for my music. No phone handles music as well as the iPhone and syncs up to iTunes as easily. Also, I played with the Droid Incredible and loved it and its widgets and its speed. Basically the only thing holding me to the blackberry is BBM and it's support of a native gmail and gtalk app.

Thoughts?

I'm a BlackBerry smartphone fan so I would get the slider. I have heard that the Incredible has some issues. The iPhone 4G looks sweet, but I don't know a whole lot about it. I think that the new slider will have everything that the BlackBerry owners have been looking for. I think that the games will come soon with the new OS for the 9800. But to be honest, I don't think that you can go wrong with any of those devices.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

The slider will probably be nice. It's hard to say since not many details are available. I would say the iPhone can be usable but you would come back. Since you got an iPod that should do just fine IMO.

The Incredible is... well, incredible. It's an amazing phone that I enjoyed using/testing and is hands down the best smart phone on Verizon (yes, that includes BB's). The EVO is better, though :P

The iPhone is tiresome and frustrating. Even with multitasking... it isn't that great.

Like the guys on Engadet said . "This Is the best time to weight". Dont do anything now. About a month ago I up graded to an andorid phone and gave my wife my BB curve 8530. Now I am trying to get it back from her but she wont give it back. So dont make the same mistake I did. Plus the month of June is when all the new phones are announced I think that you will find some good BB phones with OS 6 coming later this year that will meat all the requirements that yo have listed above. So hold on. I wish I did.

Start asking your BBM friends what other chat applications they use, and if they are willing to add you to Gtalk or some other chat application,

if you can migrate the bulk of your friends off of BBM, then BBM isn't what is holding you back.

You like iTunes, so my biggest negative about the iPhone is not a negative for you, the hardware is solid, and there are many external battery options to make up for what the iPhone lacks in battery life. once you've migrated your BBM contacts it will just be gmail support you are lacking .

The Droid phone does look great, I like a Portrait keyboard, so the Droid phone wont work for me, though I am excited for a Mediaplayer that runs Droid, or when the iDroid, Droid for iPhone/iTouch has been made bug free.

Originally Posted by groundkontrol

Hey everyone. I've had a Blackberry curve on Verizon for the past two years and it's time for an upgrade. I've been looking at the HTC Incredible, the iPhone, and the new Blackberry Slider 9800 which is supposed to come out by September. Here is what is important to me in a phone based on the apps/programs I currently use the most.

1) Native GMail application- I have this on my blackberry now and I love it. It's nice to be able to see threaded messages, star emails, archive, label, and search all of my gmail emails. A native Gmail app is available for both Blackberry and Android. There isn't one for the iPhone and I don't think there ever will be. I know I can go to gmail.com on the iphone but it's not the same. Also the native Mail application does not do any of the things I mentioned above.
2) BBM Black Berry Messenger- I'd say 50% of my friends have blackberries and so I have about 70 BBM contacts. I use BBM all the time and I'm not sure if I can give it up. How did those of you with a lot of BBM contacts who switched from blackberry to the iPhone or Android deal with this? I know GChat (Google Talk) is another option which brings me to my next point.
3) Native Google Talk applicaiton- I use GChat (Google Talk) all the time to talk to my friends on my blackberry and laptop. It runs in the background and it's nice getting chats instantly on my phone. The iphone does not have this.

Nonetheless, I really like the iPhone because of all the apps and games it has. There aren't many for the Blackberry now and it makes my phone experience boring. Secondly, I usually carry around an iPod touch for my music. No phone handles music as well as the iPhone and syncs up to iTunes as easily. Also, I played with the Droid Incredible and loved it and its widgets and its speed. Basically the only thing holding me to the blackberry is BBM and it's support of a native gmail and gtalk app.

Thoughts?

On iPhone Gmail works easy in iPhone's Mail; you can also easily sync calendars, contacts and have Push for you email; For chats IM+ or Beejive works pretty nice.

Have no idea about Droid; for Blackberry you also can use Gmail app and Beejive for all IMs and sync everything. The difference is that you can't really access non-Gmail IMAP folders on Blackberry simple way, but not necessary you need that.

Originally Posted by philbert81

Like the guys on Engadet said . "This Is the best time to weight". Dont do anything now. About a month ago I up graded to an andorid phone and gave my wife my BB curve 8530. Now I am trying to get it back from her but she wont give it back. So dont make the same mistake I did. Plus the month of June is when all the new phones are announced I think that you will find some good BB phones with OS 6 coming later this year that will meat all the requirements that yo have listed above. So hold on. I wish I did.

If you are within 30 days you can just return it.

They're all cool, high end smartphones but if I were to choose, I'd go with the iPhone 4G. I think the OP should have switched the Incredible in place of the EVO.

I would suggest you grab the Nexus One or incredible they both have native GTalk apps, (NexusOne has a better stock battery though, and has been out longer meaning less problems). I don't know if the iPhone has a native GTalk yet i don't believe so, but they dohave EBuddy and what not to substitute. I honestly haven't heard to many bad things about the incredible though in terms of software problems and what not. Plus when i had mine it worked great. umm thats about all i got as far as the slider goes i would wait on that for a while its bound to have software issues like all smartphone due upon release.