BB10 or WP8

[Laura Knotek]

Way to look at the time stamps guys... This thread has been dredged up from the bowls of the forum... No posts for almost a month and we're posting on it now?

It makes sense, since some of the people who posted are new to the forums. It's not that ancient of a thread.

 

[hopmedic]

They still make Blackberries??? Seriously??? Did they ever get BB10 to talk to BBES?? I mean, seriously, what an embarrassment THAT is.......

 

[brmiller1976]

BB10 is arriving January 30th, and it's supposed to be the bee's knees, if you believe RIM. We will have to see what they come up with.

Although, it's likely to have more apps than WP8 launch for two reasons:

1) RIM says they're shipping with 100,000 apps in their store;
2) It will run tweaked Android apps with just a couple of button clicks. That means there are up to 400,000 other apps that could come across with minimal effort.

 

[hopmedic]

BB10 is arriving January 30th, and it's supposed to be the bee's knees, if you believe RIM.

Believe RIM........ Attend RIM's funeral......... Believe RIM.......... Attend RIM's funeral................

I'd say I'm leaning to the right on this one.

 

[brmiller1976]

I wouldn't get too cocky. RIM has a large established base -- if even 25% of their existing users buy a BB10 device in 2013, that's 20 million sales. If Nokia sells 20 million Windows Phones in 2013, it will be a VERY good year.

 

[anon(5370748)]

My wife was a staunch BB user who finally got fed up with Blackberry's stagnation and decided to switch. She tried an iPhone (twice), but returned it both times and went back to her Curve. Too much of a mindshift there (from a business device to a toy). Recently she picked up a Lumia 920 at the same time I did, and she's been happy with it so far. If you're an email power user, you're going to be disappointed with anything else out there at the moment. Blackberry nailed mobile email - their functionality, feature list and push tech is astounding and incredibly reliable and nothing has been able to touch it. If you switch away, whether or not you get reliable push email is wholly dependent on which email service you use. We both use Gmail and Outlook.com right now, and both are great on WP8 - zero complaints with speed and reliability. iOS was horrific with Gmail until recently, and most POP3 accounts had to be jankily routed through Gmail and even then it only checked the server once every 5 minutes at best, and usually closer to ever 30 mins, so it was nowhere even approaching "push". This is something you never had to worry about on the BB because of BES. I haven't tried a POP3 or exchange account on WP8, but you might want to check with those who do if you use or rely on that. Be prepared to do without things you take for granted now like "mark all as read". Maybe these features will come, maybe not.. and maybe RIM won't include them in 10 - who knows?

You'll also miss BB's battery life. The Lumia is excellent, but even its impressive two days it doesn't touch the week (or sometimes two) of battery life on a charge my wife got out of her Bold. Granted the screen was tiny and the phone didn't have many battery-sucking features, but still - it's a change from not having to worry too much about battery to living from charger to charger (this is true for any modern smartphone at the moment).

The cool thing about going from BB to WP8 is that since damn near no apps were written for BB, it won't be a huge change to the current state of WP8 (which will evolve quickly, but right now it's pretty lean). It's much harder coming from iOS or Android where you're used to a huge variety. If you do use any apps, make sure whatever platform you go to has equivalent versions, or you can deal without for the time being. Coming from Android, I'm missing Spotify, Google's turn-by-turn directions and Google+ pretty badly on the phone, but I like it enough to stick with it and wait. It's only a matter of time before the major apps appear for it.

So really, it's a matter of what kind of user you are, what will annoy you or what you can live with, and what you expect to be able to do with a phone. It might help to list all this out and make your decision based on what hits all your criteria whenever you're ready to make your move.

 

[DroBoy]

In all honestly I am excited for BB10. Looks promising and will have more features than WP8.

 

[socialcarpet]

I really enjoyed the BB I had years ago. The excellent physical keyboards are the one thing that appealed to me most about them, that and the robust mail client.

I'll be interested to see what they come up with.

 

[1jaxstate1]

BB10 is vaporware until I actually see it released, on a phone, working.

 

[riceboyler]

<snip> Coming from Android, I'm missing Spotify, Google's turn-by-turn directions and Google+ pretty badly on the phone, but I like it enough to stick with it and wait. It's only a matter of time before the major apps appear for it. </snip>

Wondering why you're not using the awesome Nokia Drive for navigation. I've used both Google's TBT directions and Nokia Drive, and Drive kills it IMO.

I have Spotify on my Lumia 900, so I'll have to check the wife's 820 tonight to see if it hasn't been ported to WP8 yet.

Otherwise, excellent points in your post. One huge benefit of leaving BB behind? Many IT departments are planning to discontinue support for BES in the next 6-12 months because they have so few users on it, it makes no sense to continue to invest in it. Coming from that world, BES is a colossal pain in the butt to manage and maintain, especially compared to the relative ease of ActiveSync. IMO, you'll see more companies shift away from BES in 12-18 months, and RIM will have to come up with a better solution, or license ActiveSync to stay relevant (if they're even still relevant then)...

 

[hopmedic]

I ****HATED**** the BB that I had to carry for one job that I used to have. I carried it on one hip, and my own Windows Mobile on the other. Its little tiny keyboard that I would poke at with a pen paled in comparison to the slide out landscape keyboard that I had on my Touch Pro I was carrying at the time, and the Touch Pro II I picked up into that time. As far as the battery, I don't know about the weeks, because I always charge every night anyway, so more than a day doesn't matter to me. I think there were like twelve apps in the store at the time. All three developers must have worked their butts off around the clock. At one point I looked into writing an app, but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Yes, I know some people love their BBs. But there are those of us who absolutely, without a doubt, could not stand them, and their little track balls. I was so thankful for the day I left that job.

But yes, I am realistic enough to know that there is no phone that will EVER be THE phone that will satisfy everyone. Perhaps BB10 will save RIM. I have my doubts. But if it does, good for them. Personally, I won't be in line for one, but I know there are those who will be. But if it saves RIM, all the better for competition, for competition fosters innovation.

 

[gavlop]

Former BB user here,
my last phone was the blackberry tour. Just switched to the HTC 8x and have been using it for almost 2 weeks. The one thing i certainly miss is the qwerty keyboard. This is my first touch screen phone, so i am still used to having my words spelled without errors. However, the autocorrect is very accurate on the phone and is not too difficult to adjust to.

As for tasks and appointments, I am not the biggest fan of the agenda/calendar layout, as all of my weekly events seem to blend together. There is not much distinction between the days, unless you pan out to the entire months views. Maybe if they update it so that there are lines between the days separating them so it does not look too confusing.

Another thing that I used on my bb was the task manager. It does not come with a built in application, but I found a great app in the store called "Tasks" (go figure). there are different categories you can label your tasks as, and each are labeled as active projects or simply as tasks. The layout looks great as well.

Overall, I feel that WP8 is an easy phone for a former BB user to get used to. However, if I had the patience to wait for the N series of BB10 I would have gone for that

 

[the_thunderbird]

I used to be a personal BlackBerry user, and still am a forced BB-user for work.

Having owned Bolds, Torches, that little candy bar one, whatever it was called, and a PlayBook I had the platform nailed down tight for several years. My first resentment started with the PlayBook. Bought as an early adopter and watched the price drop immediately. However, I did use the thing a lot and felt like I still got great value all said and done.

The day I left BB was an easy decision, though. I had purchased a Torch 9810 as I had moved and was able to break contract for free as my service provider does not work at my current home. Was very happy to have OS 7.1 running and thought it would be an improvement. Somewhat akin to transitioning to WP8, though, I found myself without many apps. It also froze more than my previous 9000 or 9800 which were already somewhat unreliable. So, with this in the back of my mind I was already somewhat cheesed at the BB platform - then I got hit by a drunk driver. It was a hit and run. Dialed 911, and my phone froze. And wouldn't recover. Thankfully I had my work BB with me so I called on that, and it is so stripped down it essentially gets e-mails and phones people so it is quick enough.

I wasn't hurt - although my car was - so I walked to the mall which was only about a kilometer away and got a Lumia 710 as they were available outright for something like $210... Loved it and have been with WP for a while now.

Chenging from BlackBerry wasn't hard for me, with the caveat that my power-e-mailing is still done for work on a BB. Any light weight e-mail I do is more than handled by WP, no issue. And faster. Playing all forms of media is better, BBM has been dead in my peer group for years, and the OS is just generally "more fun." By the time I got to the 900 I felt (and continue to feel) many apps are pointless as I could render full website quickly and accurately.

I am curious to watch how BB10 works out. Not going to get it myself, but when my work starts buying them I intend to stand out in a rain storm with my current 9780. Frankly the renders I have seen already look dated - even for a business/productivity device. Hopefully it gets sorted out.

 

[Ruined]

If you buy BB10, it will be the last BB you buy. Because it will be the last BB.

 

[Villain]

Huge WP fan BUT there is a lot of small things I miss on the Blackberry... not enough to switch back but a lot of small little things are missed.


I don't know if I got a bit of biased to Blackberry because I worked as a tier 2 on blackberry tech OR hate RIM because I got laid off hahahaha

 

[darthtata85]

This a serious question? Blackberry have hands down admitted they are tailoring their business towards business and commercial interests. So RIM'S already poor service will begin to get even worse when they take your $$$$ and run. WP8 or IOS every time. I have just come from android and although I still have a NEXUS 7. Android feels so all over the place in comparison to IOS AND wp8, android feels almost cheap. flexible....but cheap.