On January 28, 2009, my Blackberry was finally in my hands. It was supposed to arrive a day earlier but the icy weather delayed it.
I have had my Treo about 6 months and it is a great device, I am extremely happy with it. In that time, I have gotten used to it and am pretty familiar with it’s features. The Blackberry, on the otherhand, is completely new to me so I have a lot of learning to do.
After a few days, I have had a chance to get some apps set up and begin playing around. Some things I like are the trackball, the easy navigation, BES and the many apps available for it.
Some things that haven’t struck me quite right are the trackball, the slowness of the response time, especially on the internet, and BIS.
The Treo, on the Sprint data network is definitely faster than the Blackberry on the U.S. Cellular data network. I haven’t looked at the processor speed for each device so I don’t know how they compare.
The main reason I have the Blackberry is for work e-mail and in that regard, it rocks! The push e-mail is great and I’ll be able to be notified if a server loses connection or a system goes down.
I did set up BIS for my own personal e-mail and it is disappointing, seems to be a POP3 kind of protocol, as opposed to IMAP. On the Treo, I get my e-mail and it is constantly sync’d up, so once I read an e-mail anywhere, it’s read everywhere.
So, BIS is getting ready to come off. Maybe I need to dig into it deeper and tweak some settings.
Overall, the Blackberry is a nice device and it’s really all that I expected it to be. It’s allowing me to be much more connected to work by having e-mail, tasks, appointment reminders and my calendar always with me.
The Blackberry’s keyboard is slightly larger but I think it steals some space from the screen. One irritation that I’ll have to put up with until I truly get down to a single device is the keyboard is enough different and I’m having to learn a second set of alt keys.
I have a 4gb micro SD card that I’m getting ready to install, then I’ll probably reinstall all the apps I have installed on the device.
I’m not desperately in love with it at first glance but I’m sure it will grow on me. It’s a huge asset for my job and I’m thankful for that. It’s far from perfect, but it does add a lot of value.
This serves as my initial review and comparison of the Blackberry Curve vs. the Treo 800w, which is biased due to my strong affection and attachment to my Treo. Stay tuned for more.
Not sure why you’re having trouble with the BIS. I know both Gmail and Yahoo mail work fine. If you read them on the BB, they show up as read in the appropriate Inbox. Deletions occur correctly too. You should even have the option to originate an email on your BB using your primary account or any that have been set up via the BIS.