The Smartphone Round Robin continues... and while I'm playing with the iToy this week (final review coming before end of weekend, see first impressions video here) there's some great BlackBerry coverage for you all to check out.
Dieter was tied up with CES, so like me was a little late in getting his last review up. Dieter really gave the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Storm2 some good thought in his final BlackBerry review, so you'll definitely want to jump over to PreCentral.net and check it out if you haven't done so yet. There's some shocking and unexpected twists in this one... he praises the Storm2's keyboard and RIPS into our beloved BlackBerry Messenger. Read it here.
And this week it's Phil who's rocking the BlackBerry Bold and Storm2. If you missed his hands-on impressions video, you can check it out here. Be sure to give him a hand on his CrackBerry forum thread and keep your eyes on our Round Robin latest updates page for his final review.
Reader comments
Smartphone Round Robin Catch-Up: Windows on BlackBerry First Impressions; Palm on BlackBerry Final Review
FIRSTT
NOT FIRST!!!
I definitely liked Deiter's review - very level headed and precise.
Do I understand this right, a Palm enthusiast prefers the Palm os to BB's os? He does bring up some valid points, I agree with him on the BBM. It would be great to have one IM that you could use across all platforms.
Googletalk!
I really liked that review. I have always been so put off by the 'uglyness' of palm devices that I have never given them a fair shot as a serious smartphone. That said, I love my BB, and I love the consistency of the UI in the OS across the board (just the other day I grabbed my friends Curve and showed him some options he didn't know of, and he was shocked that I had a Storm and could even use his phone, lol) Some people want complete over hauls of operation systems and user interfaces, but I am not one of them.
This guy is really out there when it comes to his comments on the BBM. There are certain things that are just perks that come along with using a certain "brand" and BBM happens to be ours. That's like me buying an Compaq computer but i get mad because it doesn't have Apple's Safari browser. You will never realize the beauty of an Blackberry device until you own one on a day to day basis. So if Mr. Dieter wants a messaging system on his piece of crap Pre, he should go invent it!
if you want an IM client that EVERYBODY can use, go get beejive or aim....leave BBM to the people it's meant for and stop hating, or acting like there is no other way to universally connect with people regardless of phone brand. that was just a useless rant SMH
So I can get a BlackBerry from almost any carrier from high-tier (AT&T, Verizon) to cheap ones (MetroPCS), regardless of technology being used (CDMA, GSM, UMTS even iDEN). With WebOS I'm stuck with Sprint, with Verizon devices coming soon. I'm still out of luck if I want to use WebOS with AT&T or T-Mobile service... forget about Nextel or MetroPCS! Talk about openness! Also, I can use a BlackBerry without being forced to surrender my personal life to an unreliable cloud profile, unlike WebOS or Android. Again, Palm has a LOOOOONG way to go before WebOS can be considered as open as BlackBerry or Windows Mobile.
On a separate note:
@mrich70 You can get Safari on a Compaq computer (or any Windows PC for that matter.) I kind of agree with Dieter that all successful IM tools have been platform-agnostic (heck you can even do Windows Live messenger on Linux through the use of 3rd-party clients), therefore it is not unrealistic to wish for BBM to become open to other platforms. As to whether that will happen or not I don't really care, as I don't care for BBM for anything more than making sure it is not installed on my BB.