WillBraunstein(.com)

Jul 26 2009 ∞
Two Weeks of Loving my Blackberry Tour About two weeks ago I got the Blackberry Tour after almost two years with my Blackberry 8830 (World Edition).   The 8830 was missing many basic functions that are expected on smart (and not-so-smart) phones, such as a camera. The Tour had been incredible and actually beats the iPhone (gasp!) in some regards. The first game changer for me was the camera- it captures pictures at a more-than-respectable 3.2 megapixels.  The above is a picture I took at night at Washington Square park. The second feature that has been even more of a game-changer for me is actually quite simple- it’s comes with 2gb of space on a mini-sd card and has a regular (instead of Bberry mini) headphone input.  This means my Blackberry has turned into my iPod, which is a big “duh” for the iPhone toting crew, but from my 8830 has been fantastic.  My iPod usage has sharply dropped- at this point I bring it to the gym, but that’s it.  Instead of carrying a big ole iPod in my pocket, I just bring headphones and can listen on my phone (again, I know how old fashioned this sounds to my iPhone friends, but bear with me). Adds perspective on Apple’s earnings last week: One weak spot was the iPod business. Apple said it shipped 10.2 million of the digital music players in the quarter, or 7% fewer than it did a year earlier. There’s also a great video camera on the Tour.  The other media capability that I have gotten a lot of use out of is the VCast Song ID.  Vcast is the same as Shazam on the iPhone, it can listen to a song playing (even somewhere loud like a restaurant or bar) and identify the artist/album/song title.  The functionality is the same as Shazam (about the same speed), but the usability is not nearly as smooth on VCast ID (because it’s made by a phone company).   It’s a ton better than NOT having it though.  Also, the speaker is great- I compared playing music on speaker phone through the Tour and an iPhone- the Tour’s quality (and volume) surpassed the iPhone. Beyond the media capabilities, the final improvement I found is in the keyboard.  The Tour’s keyboard is the best Blackberry keyboard I have experienced.  I can type at comparable speeds to a regular keyboard.  And blow my iPhone friends out of the water. The Tour runs on Verizon, so it has great phone service, at least in NYC.  It’s also about the same size of an iPhone (same width, .1” shorter, and .12” more depth). If it sounds like I’m thrilled with my Tour, I am.  If it sounds like I have a bit of iPhone envy, I do as well.  Bottom line is the typing is not nearly as smooth on an iPhone and while it’s on AT&T, there’s no way I’ll switch.  The Tour has made a few giant steps towards becoming a real iPhone competitor, just need to start getting developers to add to the Blackberry App World and we’ll have a ballgame.

Two Weeks of Loving my Blackberry Tour

About two weeks ago I got the Blackberry Tour after almost two years with my Blackberry 8830 (World Edition).   The 8830 was missing many basic functions that are expected on smart (and not-so-smart) phones, such as a camera. The Tour had been incredible and actually beats the iPhone (gasp!) in some regards.

The first game changer for me was the camera- it captures pictures at a more-than-respectable 3.2 megapixels.  The above is a picture I took at night at Washington Square park.

The second feature that has been even more of a game-changer for me is actually quite simple- it’s comes with 2gb of space on a mini-sd card and has a regular (instead of Bberry mini) headphone input.  This means my Blackberry has turned into my iPod, which is a big “duh” for the iPhone toting crew, but from my 8830 has been fantastic.  My iPod usage has sharply dropped- at this point I bring it to the gym, but that’s it.  Instead of carrying a big ole iPod in my pocket, I just bring headphones and can listen on my phone (again, I know how old fashioned this sounds to my iPhone friends, but bear with me). Adds perspective on Apple’s earnings last week:

One weak spot was the iPod business. Apple said it shipped 10.2 million of the digital music players in the quarter, or 7% fewer than it did a year earlier.

There’s also a great video camera on the Tour.  The other media capability that I have gotten a lot of use out of is the VCast Song ID.  Vcast is the same as Shazam on the iPhone, it can listen to a song playing (even somewhere loud like a restaurant or bar) and identify the artist/album/song title.  The functionality is the same as Shazam (about the same speed), but the usability is not nearly as smooth on VCast ID (because it’s made by a phone company).   It’s a ton better than NOT having it though.  Also, the speaker is great- I compared playing music on speaker phone through the Tour and an iPhone- the Tour’s quality (and volume) surpassed the iPhone.

Beyond the media capabilities, the final improvement I found is in the keyboard.  The Tour’s keyboard is the best Blackberry keyboard I have experienced.  I can type at comparable speeds to a regular keyboard.  And blow my iPhone friends out of the water.

The Tour runs on Verizon, so it has great phone service, at least in NYC.  It’s also about the same size of an iPhone (same width, .1” shorter, and .12” more depth).

If it sounds like I’m thrilled with my Tour, I am.  If it sounds like I have a bit of iPhone envy, I do as well.  Bottom line is the typing is not nearly as smooth on an iPhone and while it’s on AT&T, there’s no way I’ll switch.  The Tour has made a few giant steps towards becoming a real iPhone competitor, just need to start getting developers to add to the Blackberry App World and we’ll have a ballgame.

Page 1 of 1