Considering Leaving BlackBerry

[rjansen3]

I would like to start out by stating that the fact I am even writing this post is nearly unbelievable as I have been a die-hard supporter of BlackBerry and have owned more than 10 BlackBerry devices since my first one in 2004. However, as developers start to build for the PlayBook, my brand new BlackBerry 9930 with OS 7.1 is being almost completely ignored, unless of course companies are pulling support (Starbucks, US Bank). To make things worse, I was hoping to have my hands on a QNX BlackBerry before summer, which I'm sure many of you have heard just isn't happening. I have found myself very interested in WP for a few reasons. I own an Xbox 360, a computer running Windows 7, and a Zune HD with a Zune Pass. So these things all being connected is quite intriguing. There are some things that worry me about switching to WP that I'm hoping some people in this community can help me get answers about. I have compiled a short list of things that are most important to me that would need to be fulfilled on a WP device.

Things I LOVE about my BlackBerry:

Keyboard
Notification LED
Fast Email
BBM
Security

Must Haves:
Weather App (Currently using BerryWeather/BeWeather)

Hardcore Twitter App (Currently Using UberSocial, the deepest Twitter app available on BB)

Maps with public transit (currently using Google Maps for BB)

Security App (Currently using BlackBerry Protect)

LED Notifications (Currently using BerryBuzz/BeBuzz) (Does WP even have a notification LED?)

Advanced Device Monitor (Currently using MeterBerry)


I'm hoping someone might be able to point me in the direction of apps that can fill these needs and put my concerns to rest over joining the WP crowd. I am considering a move from Verizon to AT&T for the Lumia 900 upon its release. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[based_graham]

You should look into buying a HTC Radar or Titan apparently they have a notification LED other WP don't.

Couple things
Keyboard - Is amazing blazing fast and percise I find it alot of fun to use compared to the others and I find it faster than a Blackberry hardware keyboard.
Fast E-mail - E-mailis great very fluid and everything is presented nicely if you have bad eyes the big bold letters will really stand out
BBM - Is tought but if you have friends on Facebook or MSN you can add them and the cool thing is all conversations are listed in 1 thread
Security - No hardware encryption yet if your company really needs hardware encryption then I dont recommend WP

Weather App - I personally use Weatherlive its pretty sweet and it has a live tile so you can always see whats going on. Or you can check out this app its pretty sweet Amazing Weather!! for Windows Phone 7 - YouTube

Twitter - I use Rowi its pretty cool it has notifications and Live tile support but I personally use the People Hub to check for tweets and the ME tile to update my status. I use Rowi for the toast notification. The cool thing is all FB and Twitter updates will show up in your ME tile. The only problem is it pulls data not pushes hopefully its fixed soon.

Maps - If you buy a Nokia phone you will have access to Nokia Map/Drive/Transit/City Live. Transit and City live are still in development.
City Live - Nokia City Lens beta on Nokia Lumia 900 at 2012 CES - YouTube
Transport - Nokia Transport on Nokia Lumia 900 from 2012 CES - YouTube

You could also download the app Transit (I think thats what its called) which has bus routes etc

Security App - not sure I dont use one

Advanced Device Monitor - never use one WP never crashes so i dont need to see whats going on

And thats my input I hope people can fill you in with regards to the Security and Advanced Device Monitor apps

 

[rjansen3]

I appreciate the response. Just a note, I don't use MeterBerry for crashes, as my phone runs for 9-10 days before I even think about a restart, but more to monitor battery and memory stats as well as temperature of the device.

 

[Duvi]

Weather app - there are several on the market that have lots of functionality like live tile updates. I use AccuWeather or WeatherLive.

Twitter... There are lots of choices to choose from that work great. Rowi and Mehdoh are my two choices.

gMaps is Google maps for wp7. They use their APIs.

The security app is built in and can be accessed from any computer. You can ring, lock erase or find your phone from windowsphone.com

No LED notifications, but HTC does have one on the titan that can't be customized from what I know. It does missed calls and some others.

Advanced Device Monitor... Not needed. I have a blackberry 9930 and worrying about those things is never a concern for me on my WP device.

I too plan on getting the 900 when it drops. Nokia rocks.


Sent from my Windows Phone 7 device using Board Express

 

[jdevenberg]

WP has very limited support for notification LED's and only HTC even includes them on their devices. That said, Email, Text, Missed Call, and Voicemail notifications can al be seen on the lock screen just by hitting the power button, no need to unlock the device and go any further. WP supports Push email so it should be just as fast as BB. As far as keyboard, very few Windows Phone devices have physical ones, but I have recently been using a Samsung feature phone with a keyboard to tide me over between my Titan's return and the release of the 900 and I have to say, WP's virtual keyboard and auto-correct are so good that I am slower on the physical keyboard then I was on my Titan. I can go nearly as fast on a Windows Phone as I can on a laptop. Twitter is integrated in the OS (I believe) and there are several good apps available (though, I don't use twitter). Security app is built in. Just go to Windowsphone.com and you can Ring, Lock, Locate, and Wipe your device remotely. If you lock it you can even put a special message on the lock screen iirc. I use weather bug or AccuWeather, I like them both. I have never needed a device monitor. My device never gets close to over heating, my battery lasts all day (sometimes a day and a half), and WP manages memory usage well enough on its own that I have no need to check into it.

 

[rjansen3]

I'm glad to learn that WP has BlackBerry Protect-like features as far as remote tracking, locking and wiping. I also just happened to run across a device monitoring app called WinPhone Info, that seems similar to MeterBerry. It even gives the ability to Pin various pieces of info to tiles, which is right on par with MeterBerry. Twitter still stands out as a problem-point as the apps mentioned here don't reach the depth of Ubersocial. This isn't a dig on the apps, but an observation. Ubersocial offers Facebook syndication, geo-tagging, link shortening, and various other awesome features all in one screen.

 

[Blacklac]

LED notifications are all but non-existant on WP, except for charging and maybe missed calls.

One thing that drives me nuts about integrated Twitter is, you cant email tweets from it. Such a basic ability. I understand its limited, but man. Whats the point of the integration if you need a 3rd party App to fill its needs.

Coming from Blackberry myself, WP is excellent, but I do miss some things from Blackberry. Over all its been a positive change. That said, I love my Playbook and may look to Blackberry again for their new Platform on my next uograde.

 

[Duvi]

LED notifications are all but non-existant on WP, except for charging and maybe missed calls.

One thing that drives me nuts about integrated Twitter is, you cant email tweets from it. Such a basic ability. I understand its limited, but man. Whats the point of the integration if you need a 3rd party App to fill its needs.

Coming from Blackberry myself, WP is excellent, but I do miss some things from Blackberry. Over all its been a positive change. That said, I love my Playbook and may look to Blackberry again for their new Platform on my next uograde.

In all honesty, I'm glad they don't on WP. Having a do-it-all app slows down app development.

How many good twitter clients are there on BlackBerry? I actually dislike UberSocial's UI with a passion and never returned. SocialScope is ok, but in beta STILL! T4BB is IMHO, the best client out, made through RIM.

 

[Blacklac]

To be honest, I only used T4BB. I'm not a hardcore Twitter user. I did use to send a lot of tweets to friends via email though, or IM. Like tweets with links. Kind of annoying I can't do that simple task with the integrated Twitter. That's about the only think I really find lacking about the built in Twitter. I agree lighter is better, but the ability is already there. Just add email as an option. Or IM. It kind if defeats the purpose of "integration" if it doesn't integrate with the native capabilities.

 

[Duvi]

To be honest, I only used T4BB. I'm not a hardcore Twitter user. I did use to send a lot of tweets to friends via email though, or IM. Like tweets with links. Kind of annoying I can't do that simple task with the integrated Twitter. That's about the only think I really find lacking about the built in Twitter. I agree lighter is better, but the ability is already there. Just add email as an option. Or IM. It kind if defeats the purpose of "integration" if it doesn't integrate with the native capabilities.

I get you... have you sent that suggestion in through the suggestion box?

 

[crystinonfire]

As shocked as you are that you wrote a post about this, I'm even more shocked that I actually switched from Blackberry to Windows. Last week, I went from a 9700 to a HTC Radar. So far I really like it.
Re: your concerns:

Keyboard - easier to type on than an iphone or android, IMO. not as easy as a blackberry QWERTY, but definitely tolerable and better than you'd expect

Notification LED - not on my htc radar

Fast Email - depends on which email service you use. I use yahoo, so I only have the option of pull. i get updates every hour. if you use gmail it's push, not pull….
PLEASE NOTE: that there aren't toast notifications for emails! there is a tile that will update with the number of new emails, but that is about it. (you can set a ringtone...but it's nothing like a blinking red light).

BBM - i miss this like crazy. there is no getting around the hole that this will leave in your life. i'm finding that i actually talk to some people a lot less because i don't have bbm. i'm trying to get my bb friends to get on kik or what's app or something, but no one wants another service to deal with

Security - remote wipe

Weather App - i also used berry weather on my bb. i've tried a TON of windows weather apps, because i was looking for something as close to that as i could get to my berry weather experience. i've settled on weather master. it's the only app that didn't give me problems in terms of actually/consistently updating the live tiles with temp updates. i was used to berry weather updating every hour and that's what i wanted on this phone. a lot of apps promised that and some temporarily delivered, but i ended up having issues will all of them eventually…except for weather master. let's hope it stays that way.


Hardcore Twitter App - i was a VERY hardcore socialscope user. I got in during the alpha stage and have enjoyed it ever since. (i'm actually keeping my blackberry as an ipod touch sort of a thing just to be able to use socialscope) it's not exactly uber (which I’ve repeatedly downloaded and eventually deleted over the course of my blackberry days), but it's closer than any other blackberry twitter app, so i totally get where you're coming from. unfortunately, you're just not going to find anything close to what you're used to. i've tried out Rowi (paid version), moTweet, Birdsong, and Mehdoh. i personally like Rowi....it comes closest to giving me the features of socialscope that i liked the most (@/dm alerts, photo previews, email a tweet, set up your own columns (timeline/mentions/messages/lists/searches, etc). but it's still a subpar experience compared to what i'm used to. I miss muting people, I miss inline previews, I miss cached tweets/always having a twitter app open in the background, I miss drafts, etc) i'm hoping that amit from socialscope is going to come out a windows beta soon. Essentially all of the big windows twitter apps lack something, if we could somehow combine rowi, birdsong, and mehdoh into one app, we’d be onto something.

Maps with public transit - i like bing maps (what came on my phone) it's worked well for me so far, but I don't use it for public transportation. I have seen a lot of apps in the marketplace for things like BART/MUNI, etc. (not sure where you live...but you should check out the marketplace & see what’s available for your area)

battery life - i did some research on this and the htc radar is supposed to be outstanding in this category. so far it seems to be. i think it will really depend on which particular phone you end up getting. i'm on t-mobile, so battery life is why i went htc radar vs. nokia 710

if you have any other questions, let me know. i feel like i can relate to your struggle since i just went through it myself. i basically just bought the phone knowing that i had 30 days to return it... shock of shocks, i really like it and am going to keep it. I do, however, have a friend who just switched from an iphone to a windows Samsung flash. She is having all sorts of problems. Her phone keeps freezing, etc. So don’t get one of those! Your overall experience might have a lot to do with which phone you end up picking. I might have given up my bbm and fantastic twitter experience, but I think I’ve gained a lot of other things….like being able to stream Netflix on my lunch break, an awesome camera, and browsing web pages without them closing themselves saying “page is too large to load”.

 

[J4rrod]

I have not once in my 3 years of using Twitter ever desired, or even heard of, emailing tweets.

Sent from my Samsung Focus S using Board Express.

 

[crystinonfire]

I have not once in my 3 years of using Twitter ever desired, or even heard of, emailing tweets.

Sent from my Samsung Focus S using Board Express.

How else would you share an interesting article/tweet with a link in it to someone who's not on twitter?

 

[rjansen3]

Thanks a lot Crystinonfire for the in depth post from a similar point of view. I have been doing research on Twitter apps and I think Tweetcaster looks pretty decent. It seems to have more features and abilities than many of the other apps. In the end, I am excited about giving WP a shot and look forward to the release of the Lumia 900.

 

[crystinonfire]

I just tried out Tweetcaster. Didn't love it. You can't do anything directly from your timeline in terms of replying to a tweet, etc., i.e. you have to actually click into the tweet. But the big disappointment was that there is no live tile.

I did really like the "zip it" (aka: mute) feature and the app seemed pretty quick to load. I think it's the only windows app with twitlonger support, so it gets major points for that.

Let me know which twitter app you end up going with!

 

[Blacklac]

I get you... have you sent that suggestion in through the suggestion box?

Ability to forward tweets via Email in People Tile

 

[freestaterocker]

I'm glad to learn that WP has BlackBerry Protect-like features as far as remote tracking, locking and wiping. I also just happened to run across a device monitoring app called WinPhone Info, that seems similar to MeterBerry. It even gives the ability to Pin various pieces of info to tiles, which is right on par with MeterBerry. Twitter still stands out as a problem-point as the apps mentioned here don't reach the depth of Ubersocial. This isn't a dig on the apps, but an observation. Ubersocial offers Facebook syndication, geo-tagging, link shortening, and various other awesome features all in one screen.

Fb and twitter are harmonized beautifully in the baked in features, and for the other stuff Mehdoh is great. Birdsong, I've heard, is also good. And just to reiterate what others have said, the WP soft keyboard is incredible. I was a physical keyboard fanatic, but my HD7 converted me.

 

[freestaterocker]

How else would you share an interesting article/tweet with a link in it to someone who's not on twitter?

Copy the link from the tweet by long-pressing on the link and paste it into whatever (email, mms etc) OR open the link, and when your browser pulls up the page, tap the options (...) and select share page, which gives you a list of methods to do so.

 

[nrguser]

I appreciate the response. Just a note, I don't use MeterBerry for crashes, as my phone runs for 9-10 days before I even think about a restart, but more to monitor battery and memory stats as well as temperature of the device.

Battery life on my WP's are well above average. Up time is even better, my personal best is 30 days, no problems at all.

I have an HTC arrive and I last around 18 hours a day, depending on usage.

 

[crystinonfire]

Copy the link from the tweet by long-pressing on the link and paste it into whatever (email, mms etc) OR open the link, and when your browser pulls up the page, tap the options (...) and select share page, which gives you a list of methods to do so.

but then they wouldn't get the tweet/context. doing it straight from the app is a lot easier and more complete.