[Triskeliongirl]

I just got a free upgrade from sprint to a curve 8330. I have used palms for yeas and years (treo755p), so wondering if I'll miss the palm desktop (I see I can do contacts and calendar in outlook, but what about memos??). I am not fond of outlook, I use eudora for email (on a winXP box), but I could probably adapt. I have never used a blackberry, but I do like to text and email on my treos (treo 600-650-755p).

Also, I just realized that the tour 9630 has a better camera and accepts a GSM SIM card which is nice for travel, so was thinking to swap the curve 8330 for the tour 9630 when it arrives prior to activation (they said I can do this for $150). I do have a gsm treo I can also use for foreign travel with a GO-SIM global card, but liked the idea of only having to bring one phone.

Any thoughts? The problem is once I accept the curve I won't get another good deal on an upgrade for 2 years, so do you all think I'll regret it if I don't spring for the tour?

But, then you are all posting about so many problems I am a little scared of the tour despite its great reviews everywhere else.

Please help.

[naiverida]

tour tour tour i just upgraded from curve way better smoother and it comes with the case will set you apart from curve users and is a great phone louder smoother keyboard just all around better pic etc etc.

[freakboy2539]

def the tour! ive owned both... they are great phones but the tour is alot faster has more memory and also a better display

[lastraid]

Tour is the better device.

As far syncing, the device is best suited for outlook, but you sync with yahoo or Gmail as well if you account with them. Yes outlook will also do memos

[GG1]

OP, you know this will almost be unanimous, definately the Tour.

[kjjb0204]

Get the Tour. Early release tours have the issues worked out. Awesome device.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[ElSteve9]

Right. Tour. And I haven't looked, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the BB syncs with Eudora for email. If you want to google it, you want to know specifically if "desktop manager" syncs with eudora. That should help narrow down your search.

-Stephen

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[ElSteve9]

Sorry, I didn't provide any reasons for the tour. I moved to the tour from a curve, which was my first blackberry.

1) Before I forget, I would wait a bit and see if the Tour 2 comes out in the next 2 or 3 months. There are rumors it will be released that soon. If they pan out, it would be a distinctly better device for two reasons, though not HUGE reasons.

2) The Tour is better than the tour because the internet is faster. This is pretty handy. The curve isn't bad, especially since it sounds like this will be a business phone for you, but it's an extra piece of convenience.

3) The screen is much nicer. The resolution is higher and this makes it more useful. You can actually accomplish more since that basically translates into more stuff on the screen. Productivity is up. Unless you're eyes have started giving you trouble, in which case you'd probably increase the font size anyway... :-)

4) Camera is WAY better. First time I've ever had a phone with a camera that is actually pretty useful.

5) More memory is REALLY great. An issue with blackberries is particularly annoying with the curve. The system memory essentially IS the RAM. So when you open programs it eats up more of this. If you eat up more than about 3/4 of this the system starts giving you an hourglass a lot, etc. The only way to really fix this is to reboot. I used to need to reboot my curve about once a day. The other benefit to the (way) more memory in thr tour is that I can keep way more messages (email/sms, etc.) On the phone. I keep 6 months of messages on my Tour and only could keep 15 days on my curve. YMMV, but that was my experience. The extra memory really is SO useful. It is reason enough for me to upgrade alone. I'm a regular guy in grad school. I try to live cheap andput up for stuff that actually will make a big difference in my life, not for toys. I am glad I got the tour.

6) The Tour can run 5.0 Operating systems. This new OS has a few new things in it that really will help you be more productive, but also its just that the curve, which I think maxed out at OS 4.6 is going to be out of date soon.

7) The biggest problem with trackball blackberries is that they have the same problem old mice had: they get dirty and you have to clean them. The curve had that. The tour has a laser trackball (like a laser mouse, if I understand correctly) and that's just going to be so much less a PITA. Now, the Tour 2 is supposed to have a trackpad which fixes the issue altogether, so you might consider waiting for that just to save that hassle.

That's my feedback anyway. :-)

-Stephen

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[kyledylanconner]

Go with the Tour. Just upgraded from the Curve about two months ago. Waaaay better.

[lorrix]

I just upgraded to the Tour from a Curve. I loved my Curve and was kind of nervous to upgrade, but I have not had any regrets whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong-the Curve is a great device, but to me, the Tour is a distinct improvement from the Curve.

[4 Star General]

A choice between the Curve and Tour? Thats not even a choice, and I'm a Curve user. Even if you go with the Tour 1 which has the trackball its still a upgrade(+memory, OS, pic res.,etc...). My solution for that was I bought a extra trackball and dome covers for my Curve, just in case. Which I haven't had to use. The Tour 2 is a NO BRAINER! Im gonna hold out. My Curve does its job for sure, but hurry up Tour 2.

[Triskeliongirl]

Thanks for all the useful feedback. I can't wait for the tour 2, I need to do this on monday. Two of the four phones in my family were lost/damaged, and sprint offered us a great retention package but I have to do it now to get my other family members their phones.

From what you all say, if I go blackberry, its definitely worth the extra money for the tour (remember, I said curve would be free, tour would cost $150). For me, I like that its a world phone and I think can replace a travel camera, 3MP is fine for family photos, etc. I am also thinking even if I hate it and decide to reactivate my treo 755p, I can still keep it for travelling to Europe.

So, all that's left is deciding if I am ready to give up the palm OS. I have no complaints about my treo 755p. I could also go with a palm pre to keep the palm OS. Anyone here migrate from treo/palms with no regrets?

BTW, where in outlook would my memos transfer, I can't find that category and when I synced my palm with outlook (in office7/winXP) I didn't see any memo category.

Assuming I go with the tour, is it best to go from my palm to outlook to the blackberry in terms of swithchin my data over, or to first sync the palm with the blackberry and then to outlook?

[jeffh]

... where in outlook would my memos transfer, I can't find that category and when I synced my palm with outlook (in office7/winXP) I didn't see any memo category?...

Memos on the BlackBerry sync to Notes in Outlook. The sync is seamless and automatic.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[wojotiger]

This is no contest, I had the 8330, and although it was a great phone, it is no comparison to the tour, this phone has completely sold me on blackberry for life, lol

[Triskeliongirl]

OH, I got it, thanks. I just wasn't familiar with outlook.

I just took another look at the pre, and realized it doesn't even sync with my old palm desktop either.

SO, I am sold on the 9630 tour. At this point I have all my palm stuff transferred to outlook, so I am guessing all I'll have to do is sync the BBtour with outlook when it comes.

You guys have been great!

[Triskeliongirl]

Does anyone one know if the car charger for the 8330 works with the 9630 tour. Just wondering cuz I have one of these on the way and wondered if I'll need to exchange it if I go with the 9630.

[jeffh]

Does anyone one know if the car charger for the 8330 works with the 9630 tour. Just wondering cuz I have one of these on the way and wondered if I'll need to exchange it if I go with the 9630.

The car charger for the 8330 will not work with the Tour because the Tour has a different USB connector. You will have to purchase a different charger, or a USB connector adapter to convert the connectors. The voltage and current are compatible, just not the connector.

[LoveAtFirstBerry]

def the tour. i came from having a curve for like barely 2 months and was blown away by my tour!

[huinoelle]

Was faced with the same dilemma, my friend. It took only a bit of research to see the Tour is a better device by far: better screen res, faster workings, more memory.

Though users here are vocal about the early problems, you'll also see many posts about issues being resolved.

GG1 is right...you're prolly gonna get a unanimous TOUR.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Triskeliongirl]

I posted this elsewhere and got no replies. Have any of you ever used a GO-SIM brand global sim card in the tour? Just wanna make sure it will be comptable at least for voice and texting.

This works on one of those call back schemes. Its a nice international option cuz the minutes never expire and you can add time easily from anywhere, unlike most of the country specific cards, and you don't pay for incoming calls, even from the US while abroad. (International SIM Cards from GOSIM™ - cheap mobile calls from abroad). I am asking cuz it works fine with a treo700 but I did have some issues getting it to text from the GO-SIM menu on the treo650.

[Triskeliongirl]

For those of you that have used both the 9630 tour and 8330 curve (ideally on sprint) did you notice any difference between call quality and reception between these two devices? I don't have a land line so call quality is also really important to me.

I already decided to get myself a tour instead of the curve, now wondering if I should do the same for my husband, although I think the curves are fine for the kids.

[curve0644]

The new curve is about to come out.

But anyway, I came from Palm treo and centro to BlackBerry. I first got a curve 8330. Loved it. I was very impressed with it.

I got an early upgrade from Verizon in the mail so I decided to get a Tour. One thing I noticed about the tour that I liked is it's much faster. I have a ton of pictures in each folder. When I click a folder all the pictures are instantly there. With the Curve it took a few seconds.

When sending an MMS message with a picture in it, the curve a lot of times would take forever and sometimes freeze. The tour never does that. Since the tour has more ram it handles sending pictures better.

The camera is superb on the Tour. I have a 7 megapixel digital camera and honestly it's hard to tell a difference in that and the 3.2 BB camera unless you zoom in a lot. I no longer have to carry my digital camera around anymore. I just use the Tour. The video quality is also great.

Another issue, with the curve, when I watched YOUTUBE videos it would not play them full screen. I never watched them because the video was so small I could barely see it. For some reason they wouldn't make it full screen.

First day I got the Tour I noticed they fixed that. Youtube videos and videos saved to your card are full screen. So, you once again can enjoy streaming online videos to your phone and actually see them.

The speaker is great you can hear the videos or music well even without headphones.

The Tour is REV A and the internet seems to work a lot faster than the curve, which is not REV A.

The browser on the tour I like more. Some apps that work with the curve won't work with the tour. I'm not sure why. At first the Myspace app would not work. But they put out an update that finally fixed that.

The tour looks and feels better and the keyboard is by far the best I've used. The tour comes with a 2 gb card, atleast it did with me and Verizon. I put an 8 gb card in it.

I have 2 email accounts going to my tour and it works perfect. The BB desktop software works great for backing it up.

You won't miss your palm software. Everything is much easier with BlackBerry. Sending e-mails from your phone is a lot easier than with Palm. I've never used outlook or had the need to. I have my e-mail accounts on my BlackBerry. When you receive an e-mail on your BlackBerry it will come to your inbox just like a text message and make a sound just like a text message. You can have your e-mails in the same inbox as your text messages or have them separate.

You can also use web e-mail in your browser if you want to look at maybe e-mail you sent on your computer or something in your trash can. But as far as having to deal with outlook you won't have to.

You can also sync your blackberry calendar with google calendar which works well.

You also will have full turn by turn GPS on either the curve or the tour with BlackBerry maps. Just remember to turn the feature on in your options. Take it from 911 only to on.

Another thing that is different, no longer will you hit the red button to exit an app like you did on your palm phone. BlackBerry is like a computer. If you hit the red button it basically just minimizes the app. It's still running in the background. If you keep everything running it will start going slow. So when you don't want to use something anymore you need to hit the menu button and hit close. Unless you do still want to use it and you just want it minimized and to go back later. Then you hit the red button.

Hold ALT-BACK to see all the programs you have running at once. This seems to be the leading problem with new BB users not liking their BB. 99% of the time when someone complains about it being too slow it's because they got 30 apps open.

The internet will work much better than the palm phone did and you'll also have a ton more apps than palm has. Palm has hardly any. so almost anything you want to do, it's out there and probably for free.

For example if you don't like the memo pad that the BB comes with then you can go download BB notes for free right here on CrackBerry in the free apps store.

I know this was long but I hope it helps. That is all the things I noticed when switching from palm to BlackBerry.

[Triskeliongirl]

Thanks curve0644, that was super helpful. I want to be sure I understand how I am going to replace my palm desktop, if I want to sync data between the blackberry and my laptop. Does the blackberry come with its own calendar/contacts/memos program (i.e. like palm desktop) I can install on my laptop, or must I find subsitutes.

If I understand, my choices of program are outlook which does calendar/contacts/memos/email, or google calendars (but this is just a calendar, right, or does it also do contacts and memos?) and BB notes.

[jeffh]

The BlackBerry does not come with any equivalent to the Palm Desktop. It is designed to work seamlessly with Outlook. The BlackBerry Desktop Manager coordinates the synchronization between Outlook and the BlackBerry, but does not hold any actual data. Outlook includes tasks in addition to the calendar, contacts, memos, and email. There are other apps such as Google Sync that you may be able to use, but I have no experience with them.

[Triskeliongirl]

Could you please elaborate on HOW to sync email between outlook and the tour. I have the blackberry desktop manager set up to sync my contacts, calendar and memos, but the check box for email is whited out and not available. I am using the BES push through server (sprint, windowsXP, outlook07).

I am especially interested to know if it lets me sync emails that were SENT from my blackberry, since obviously both devices can download incoming emails (or do I have to copy myself on sent messages, that's how I did it on my treo).

Also, I am new to outlook. I notice it puts my incoming attachments in a temporary folder. Is it not possible to specify a different folder where the attachments will come?