Blackberry instead of Android or iPhone

I personally own a Blackberry Bold 9700 and I would have to say that I am not really in love with it. I found jumping from an Android device to a Blackberry a very depressing experience. The OS seems to lack a lot of polish and necessary features. I'll enumerate some of my concerns here:

1. SMS experience is significantly worse than the iOS and Android OS

2. "I want to find a restaurant near me" experience is far worse (Poynt, kinda sucks)

3. Google Maps on Blackberry feels like it hasn't changed since 2004

4. Podcast application is flaky, it doesn't keep feeds up to date

5. Syncrhonization with Gmail services is flaky

6. Not really sure what anyone does to manage contacts on the Blackberry?
Syncing with Google Contacts has left me with duplicate contacts and screwed over my contact list once. How is anyone expected to manage contacts on this device? Outlook?

7. Same problem as 6 for Calendar syncing. Over the air syncing with Calendar and Contacts doesn't seem to work consistently

8. Why can't I map the media keys on the Bold 9700 to whatever I want

9. The Apps on this platform are overpriced and there doesn't seem to be many that are good.

Just wondering for the people who are in love with the Blackberry, have you considered any other platform? What makes Blackberry a better option than iPhone or the Android?

Originally Posted by coaxial

1. SMS experience is significantly worse than the iOS and Android OS

How is it worse? Texts come in and go out, I do admit I send less than 200 per month, because I have BBM as does the majority of my friends and colleagues

Originally Posted by coaxial

2. "I want to find a restaurant near me" experience is far worse (Poynt, kinda sucks)

I use Google maps for this, never had an issue, though normally I am searching a specific type of food, and even so that is at most a once a month usage

Originally Posted by coaxial

3. Google Maps on Blackberry feels like it hasn't changed since 2004

But it works when needed

Originally Posted by coaxial

4. Podcast application is flaky, it doesn't keep feeds up to date

I don't use Podcasts

Originally Posted by coaxial

5. Syncrhonization with Gmail services is flaky

I don't use gmail services except for MAIL which works fine

Originally Posted by coaxial

6. Not really sure what anyone does to manage contacts on the Blackberry?
Syncing with Google Contacts has left me with duplicate contacts and screwed over my contact list once. How is anyone expected to manage contacts on this device? Outlook?

Contact management is done with Outlook for me, I found google apps to really suck at contact management, which was a shame

Originally Posted by coaxial

7. Same problem as 6 for Calendar syncing. Over the air syncing with Calendar and Contacts doesn't seem to work consistently

I use Wired Outlook syncing. so I don't run into this

Originally Posted by coaxial

8. Why can't I map the media keys on the Bold 9700 to whatever I want

Agreed, I wish I could map my keys to anything I want, more so than just the media keys, but it isn't a deal breaker, really Autotext helped with somethings I would have mapped

Originally Posted by coaxial

9. The Apps on this platform are overpriced and there doesn't seem to be many that are good.

I don't use any Paid for apps yet, nothing seems worth it, I have Doc2Go which works best on Blackberry over any other platform when dealing with large excel files,



It seems you should have stuck with your Android
I use BB's because of the keyboard, because of the universal email box, and because of Doc2Go being preinstalled, as well as battery life and BBM

Originally Posted by coaxial

I personally own a Blackberry Bold 9700 and I would have to say that I am not really in love with it. I found jumping from an Android device to a Blackberry a very depressing experience. The OS seems to lack a lot of polish and necessary features. I'll enumerate some of my concerns here:

1. SMS experience is significantly worse than the iOS and Android OS

2. "I want to find a restaurant near me" experience is far worse (Poynt, kinda sucks)

3. Google Maps on Blackberry feels like it hasn't changed since 2004

4. Podcast application is flaky, it doesn't keep feeds up to date

5. Syncrhonization with Gmail services is flaky

6. Not really sure what anyone does to manage contacts on the Blackberry?
Syncing with Google Contacts has left me with duplicate contacts and screwed over my contact list once. How is anyone expected to manage contacts on this device? Outlook?

7. Same problem as 6 for Calendar syncing. Over the air syncing with Calendar and Contacts doesn't seem to work consistently

8. Why can't I map the media keys on the Bold 9700 to whatever I want

9. The Apps on this platform are overpriced and there doesn't seem to be many that are good.

Just wondering for the people who are in love with the Blackberry, have you considered any other platform? What makes Blackberry a better option than iPhone or the Android?

1. How? The layout? The customization? What is worse about texting? I do admit I love texting on Android because I have my app completely customized and neither BB or iPhone can have the setup I have.

2. Poynt always worked great for me. Don't know what to tell you on this one.

3. Google maps is not as good on a BB as it is on an iPhone. Google maps on Android is better than both.

4. Use Viigo? Or are is your 9700 on OS 6?

5. Gmail is better on Android and on the iPhone in my experience. You get more with it out of the box.

6. Don't know what to tell you with this. I managed my contacts myself on my BB and just imported my contacts from my Google account.

7. Don't know what to tell you with this one as well.

8. Are you talking about the convenience keys on the side? If so, you pretty much can.

9. Agreed. BB apps are overpriced. There are good apps, they may not look as polished though. I recommend QuickLaunch. It is a highly customizable app and allow for quick access to anything you want and has some other perks.

I use to love BB, but I switched to Android. It does everything I want better and it is extremely customizable so I can personalize my device much much more than any other platform.