New Blackberry User: Comments and Questions
Hello,
I am a new blackberry user and thought I would share my thoughts on the experience, and maybe some other new or prospective users might find some of it useful (oh and I have a few questions too).
First let me say thanks to the entire crackberry community. This resource has been a lot of help in entering the world of blackberrys.
This is my first smartphone, though I have used Palm and WinMo PDAs before. I got the Verizon curve about two weeks ago and I am mostly happy with it. I do like the hardware very much. I find the trackball and keyboard very easy to use. Overall the phone seems very responsive. Of course I wouldn't mind a bigger screen, more pixels, and faster processors :) but these are available on other blackberrys (just not at Verizon, besides the storm which I wasnt too keen on).
I will point out that I am not in a corporate environment and am using BIS. Some of my issues stem from this fact and I know this but I still feel they are things RIM should address. Not deal breakers but niceties such as wireless sync of PIM data and full IMAP support (like folders) would be nice to have on BIS. As I do like to use outlook on my computer I have tried a 3-way sync between outlook, blackberry, and google as the middle man but encounted too many problems with duplicate entries and what not so I gave up on that. Has anyone else had experience in trying this? Do you have all three syncing both ways or what?
With email I use LogicMail to take care of my IMAP needs though I really would have just like to see native standard email client on the blackberry. Push is nice but I would trade it for full IMAP any day.
Categories in the calendar would be nice but overall I find the PIM programs on the blackberry full featured enough for me and easy to use. Media playback works well, internet browsing isnt great but good enough on the curve (opera mini helps with this). Also I find the OS very stable which is good because it was one of the main reasons I wanted to try out blackberrys.
My only other complaint is with 3rd party support. While there are a good number of apps available the selection still feels anemic (especially when comparing to winmo). Maybe this will get better, maybe not (though I suspect it will).
All in all I am pleased with the blackberry Curve and the blackberry platform as a whole. I will certainly keep my Curve but I may be looking else where when it comes time for a new phone if a few things do not change, but that is a while from now so they may. For me blackberries are good devices deserving of their praise, just not great ones.
Thanks again, hopefully I will be able contribute to this community and sorry this post is so long, didnt really mean for it to be :)