Blackberry users that have switched to Android.

[Bye Berry]

Hello, I'm new to the boards and wanted to get some feedback from former Blackberry users that ditched their Berry's for Android devices. I'm currently up for my annual renewal and I am curious about trying something different. I haven't completely given up on the Blackberry platform as I'm not 100% convinced an Android or iPhone will meet all my needs. Oviously the Android OS is far supperior to Blackberry when it comes to multi media and gaming. Its the other things I'm curious about.

Maybe I should list the things I do like about my Blackberry.

Physical keyboard, I currently have the Torch 9800 so I have tried typing on the screen in landscape mode. Maybe I just need more practice, however I do find it very frustrating and much slower than using the physical keyboard. Part of the reason I'm more curious about an Android device than an iPhone, is the bigger screen's on the Android phones. I'm hoping the bigger screen makes the Android device easier to type on. I type alot on my Berry for work, emails, instant messaging, notes, typing and editing tasks. The last thing I want is to be impeded or frustrated by inputing information into my device.

Trackpad: Its pretty hard to beat the trackpad when it comes to navigating through the Blackberry.

Black Berry Messenger: The one huge advantage that Blackberry has over other platforms. Only problem is, all my friends have switched to iPhones. So as much as I'll miss BBM, I'm using it less and less anyway.

Phone: It works great as a phone which is a pretty high priority for me. I work in sales, so I'm out of the office alot. I need a reliable phone to manage my customers in my territory. The Blackberry also makes inputing and contacting your contacts very easy (maybe Android is better when it comes to this).

So I guess what I want to know from those of you familiar with both devices. Why did you switch? What, if anything, do miss about your Blackberry. What do you like better about Android than your Blackberry?

 

[JR A]

I have not switched/ditched BB. I just can't get over the great physical keyboard and the simplicity of it. The phone and push notification email and such are just too good to leave behind as well. And I'm hooked on BBM and that damn little LED. I have it set up to notify everything...



I am however getting an Android device as a second phone. Have you tried the new OS7 BB's? World of a difference than what your 9800 provides IMHO.

 

[jonathon6017]

I also came from a blackberry just recently and I'll be happy to give my input.

I have the G'zOne commando ( which has a poor touch screen) so this comment may be void but I have found that no matter what keyboard you use it will never be as fast as a physical keyboard. I have used Skype, better keyboard, go keyboard, and none of those work as well or fast as a physical keyboard.

While the trackpad is great on blackberry, touch screen is perfect on android. It is very easy to navigate and is very smooth.

As an article on this site once said, just give in to Google it will make life easier. I've been using Google talk for a while and I find it to be great.

As for your question for phone usage, I assume you mean voice quality and that one is a hard one to answer because there are so many android phones made by many manufactures some will be great and some will absolutely suck so just do your research.
Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk

 

[Bye Berry]

I am however getting an Android device as a second phone. Have you tried the new OS7 BB's? World of a difference than what your 9800 provides IMHO.

One review of Blackberry 7 will be very positive while another will refer to it as "Jr League". Hard to determine what is genuine.

 

[JR A]

One review of Blackberry 7 will be very positive while another will refer to it as "Jr League". Hard to determine what is genuine.

From what I've witnessed first hand, the ones to call OS7 "Jr. League" are ones who never really liked BB's to begin with. However in your case, if you already like BB, the OS7 will be a nice step up. The trackpad + keyboard + touchscreen of the new Bold and OS7 smoothness is just awesome


That being said, I still want an Android, mainly for larger screens, games, etc. It's gonna be a "fun" phone.


Have you looked into the Galaxy S 2? I'm about almost certain that's the device I'll be getting on my Sprint line, along with a Galaxy Tab 8.9 or 7.7 if I can hold out long enough...


I went without my CrackBerry addiction for two weeks... Boy was it painful. I was using an HTC Evo, and although it is a GREAT phone, I just couldn't use it as a primary/only device. Great secondary device for my needs. I missed the keyboard, push notification, and everything just seemed to get done quicker (probably because of the keyboard vs typing on a touchscreen or trying to swype...)

My typical day consists of 8+ hours of talk. 200-300 text messages, dozens of emails, and of course BBM. Web browsing is a tertiary purpose, but it's becoming more needed as I have found as of late. But that's why I'm going the tablet route for my web browsing needs.


Plainly put: There was just too many things I missed about BB that kept me from leaving it all together. And I can do without pretty much everything Android offers. Android is just a secondary/fun device to keep me entertained while I get work done on my BB...

 

[jbliv63]

Switched from a 9700 last month after having an 8300, 9000, and the 9700. Never looked back. You get used to touch typing. I never really used BBM ao I don't miss it. I have a Galaxy S II and LOVE IT. I loved my BBs but love this phone more.

 

[Bye Berry]

From what I've witnessed first hand, the ones to call OS7 "Jr. League" are ones who never really liked BB's to begin with. However in your case, if you already like BB, the OS7 will be a nice step up. The trackpad + keyboard + touchscreen of the new Bold and OS7 smoothness is just awesome


That being said, I still want an Android, mainly for larger screens, games, etc. It's gonna be a "fun" phone.


Have you looked into the Galaxy S 2? I'm about almost certain that's the device I'll be getting on my Sprint line, along with a Galaxy Tab 8.9 or 7.7 if I can hold out long enough...


I went without my CrackBerry addiction for two weeks... Boy was it painful. I was using an HTC Evo, and although it is a GREAT phone, I just couldn't use it as a primary/only device. Great secondary device for my needs. I missed the keyboard, push notification, and everything just seemed to get done quicker (probably because of the keyboard vs typing on a touchscreen or trying to swype...)

My typical day consists of 8+ hours of talk. 200-300 text messages, dozens of emails, and of course BBM. Web browsing is a tertiary purpose, but it's becoming more needed as I have found as of late. But that's why I'm going the tablet route for my web browsing needs.


Plainly put: There was just too many things I missed about BB that kept me from leaving it all together. And I can do without pretty much everything Android offers. Android is just a secondary/fun device to keep me entertained while I get work done on my BB...

The Bold would probably be the best option, in the Blackberry lineup, for work with its full qwerty key board. However, I really don't want to go away from the larger screen of the Torch.

 

[mbnocx]

I also switched from a BlackBerry 9800 in August to the Samsung Infuse 4G. I wanted something that would allow me to do more. I was tired of seeing friends and coworkers show me apps that they had on their iPhones and Androids that BB did not have. I was also tired of the direction that RIM is going and how slow they are with hardware updates.

As far as my Android experience, I absolutely love my current phone. It is super fast, has a huge screen, typing is fine after awhile and the bigger screen size helps, and it does so much more than the 9800 or anything even similar could do. My only negative remark about this particular phone (most Android's are similar) is the poor battery life. My old BlackBerry would last 30+ hours with moderate to heavy use. The Infuse gets only about 10-15 hours with the standard battery. I did purchase an extended battery that lasts much much longer but it makes the phone bigger and it no longer fits into any case. Even with the battery issue, I have never looked back to BB. I have absolutely no regrets for switching and I just wonder why I did not switch sooner.

 

[netwerx1]

I gave up my BlackBerry a few weeks ago for a Samsung Galaxy S II. I was very hesitant to leave the BB platform after 3 years, although I was growing to hate my Torch (whoever thought a slider phone was a good idea should be flogged). I previously had a Bold 9000 and a Bold 9700, and was one of the many waiting and waiting and waiting for the Bold Touch 9900 to be released on AT&T.

But as I was waiting, I came to realize that the 9900 and OS7 are just stopgaps for the QNX phone anyways, and my confidence in RIM to keep things rolling in a positive direction has taken a hit from the PlayBook fiasco (I own one, and it's basically STILL only a $500 web browser). Furthermore, I feel the BlackBerry phones running on OS7 will never have the rich app experience of IOS and Android because RIM is already shifting development efforts to QNX.

So far, I am very happy with my SGS2, and there is little that I truly miss about my BB. The obvious is battery life...the dual-core processor combined with the big beautiful screen is harder on the battery life than you've grown accustomed to on BB's, but I've made the philosophy shift that it's okay to have a charger at work and to plug it in for an hour a day. The benefits and speed of the platform and the hardware are worth it. The other thing I knew I would miss is the LED notifications...but that too has faded as I discover new ways to stay on top of things with this phone and the apps available. I also tried a few keyboard replacements from the app market, and found one that works very well for me, even has the autotext feature I loved from my BB. The autocorrect is phenomenal on the phone, and I'm even using the voice to text feature more often because it works so well and is really fast. There are also a few different choices for cross-platform messaging, I'm using WhatsApp with several of my Android/iPhone/BB contacts and it works very much like BBM.

Things I don't miss? Battery pulls are a thing of the past; laggy web browser scrolling and checkerboarding (my browser performance is amazingly smooth); boot times in the minutes (my SGS2 boots up and is usable in 20 seconds); small screen; hour long process to update OS and get things back where I like them (took less than 10 minutes to flash a new ROM and restore apps and settings yesterday)...to name a few.

I have mine connected to my Exchange server at work for push email/calendar/contact sync and it works great, really no perceptible difference from what I had on BES (except that I don't worry about worldwide or regional BB service outages any longer).

Now that the Bold 9900 is being released on Sunday by AT&T, I don't even have a thought about switching back, and at this point I have no regrets whatsoever about making the switch to Android and the SGS2. It's an extremely powerful and flexible platform, with a huge developer community, and exponentially growing support. It was the right choice for me.

 

[doni49]

I switched from BB Tour 9630 to a Motorola Pro in March. I chose this phone because of the physical keyboard. I HATE virtual keyboards--my fat thumbs don't do virtual keyboards very well.

I'm extremely pleased with the phone overall. Contact management is great--a HUGE improvement over BB.

When I first got my Droid, I DID miss the trackball (I didn't have the pad). But I quickly got used to the touchscreen and only rarely wish I had a trackpad/trackball.

GMail pushes messages instantly just like BB push does. But I always found the BB email app SEVERELY lacking--the ONLY positive thing I could ever say about BB mail was push capability.

Phone calls: Android's phone dialer is good (at least as good as BB)--but there are a number of minor issues that I still think they could improve on. I found an app that addresses most of these issues. I paid a couple bucks for the app (TakephONE from ShSh Software).

 

[kishanthj]

I had alot of BB's in the span of 6 years, most likely a different one every year.
Got tired of being behind in technology except for the main feature of "BBM".

Last phone was the BB Torch. AND THATS IT..

Now I love the Android, but its getting me into a lot of problems because I always want to mod it, or want to keep changing the look... Lol

Hopefully we get something as good as BBM across all platforms.

 

[Bye Berry]

Now I love the Android, but its getting me into a lot of problems because I always want to mod it, or want to keep changing the look:

What do you mean by getting into a lot of problems?

 

[Piney Boy]

I had a 4 year addiction to the crackberry, but I have since been cured. 8300, 9530, and finally the 9630. What did me in was the 9530. What a horrible device. Not enough memory so apps that I could load were limited. Touch screen......why would you want push the glass in. Ugh!!!! The 8300 Curve and the 9630 Tour were good devices. Loved the physical keyboard though the trackball would not respond all the time. Yeah dirt. Loved the Tour though. Enough memory to load enough apps. Still you do not want apps loaded to the phones physical memory. Very limited to how much you can have. Then you get to Blackberry app world. What a hog to run and not much there. That finally did me in.

I turned to AT&T with the Inspire and have never looked back. Fast, responsive. Yeah email does not push like a BB, but it is good enough. I guess you can say apps is the main reason I went with android. Ssssoooo many apps compared the BB. I love it.

The virtual keyboard is ok and will never match a physical keyboard.

 

[skych8ser]

I was a very reluctant Blackberry to Android convert but finally left BB after being sick of the phone freezing up, lagging, pulling the battery. I use my phone mainly for heavy typing tasks so leaving the real keyboard was the toughest thing to get around. I've had the HTC EVO Design for a week now and here are the issues I have that I haven't been able to come to terms with:
1. Typing on the virtual keyboard is slower than BB and I don't think time will get me back to the speed I typed on the BB.
2. Spell check is non-existent. The device corrects words as you type, which further slows down the process. Worse yet is if you don't catch it correcting, it will replace a word you are typing with a word that makes no sense.
3. Email pushes fine from Exchange and Gmail but no mail notification on the Gmail icon is annoying. Push email does drain the battery a lot.
4. Cannot search for emails on the exchange server. This drives me crazy.
5. Cannot set a nickname for contacts. This was useful on the BB as I didn't have to type the whole name ie, Liz instead of Elizabeth.

These issues were some of my biggest fears and they've been realized. It's nice to have some of the Apps but they don't improve my productivity and therefore are just fluff or for fun. At the end of the day, I miss the BB experience but not sure going back to the dark ages is the right solution as all phones will inevitably be touchscreen someday soon. So I'm sticking with the Droid for now and praying that Android increases the user experience when it comes to typing and email.

 

[saraera]

I gave up my BlackBerry a few weeks ago for a Samsung Galaxy S II. I was very hesitant to leave the BB platform after 3 years, although I was growing to hate my Torch (whoever thought a slider phone was a good idea should be flogged). I previously had a Bold 9000 and a Bold 9700, and was one of the many waiting and waiting and waiting for the Bold Touch 9900 to be released on AT&T.

But as I was waiting, I came to realize that the 9900 and OS7 are just stopgaps for the QNX phone anyways, and my confidence in RIM to keep things rolling in a positive direction has taken a hit from the PlayBook fiasco (I own one, and it's basically STILL only a $500 web browser). Furthermore, I feel the BlackBerry phones running on OS7 will never have the rich app experience of IOS and Android because RIM is already shifting development efforts to QNX.

So far, I am very happy with my SGS2, and there is little that I truly miss about my BB. The obvious is battery life...the dual-core processor combined with the big beautiful screen is harder on the battery life than you've grown accustomed to on BB's, but I've made the philosophy shift that it's okay to have a charger at work and to plug it in for an hour a day. The benefits and speed of the platform and the hardware are worth it. The other thing I knew I would miss is the LED notifications...but that too has faded as I discover new ways to stay on top of things with this phone and the apps available. I also tried a few keyboard replacements from the app market, and found one that works very well for me, even has the autotext feature I loved from my BB. The autocorrect is phenomenal on the phone, and I'm even using the voice to text feature more often because it works so well and is really fast. There are also a few different choices for cross-platform messaging, I'm using WhatsApp with several of my Android/iPhone/BB contacts and it works very much like BBM.

Things I don't miss? Battery pulls are a thing of the past; laggy web browser scrolling and checkerboarding (my browser performance is amazingly smooth); boot times in the minutes (my SGS2 boots up and is usable in 20 seconds); small screen; hour long process to update OS and get things back where I like them (took less than 10 minutes to flash a new ROM and restore apps and settings yesterday)...to name a few.

I'm thinking of switching to the SGS2 from a blackberry also.
And playing around with my friends' android phone, I know i won't miss the laggy web browser, boot time, small screen, battery pull, and lack of cool apps. Although I love the bb keyboard, design, and trackpad, I think it's time to move on into the fast and more convenient life of an android.

 

[DrLouie]

I gave up my BlackBerry a few weeks ago for a Samsung Galaxy S II. I was very hesitant to leave the BB platform after 3 years, although I was growing to hate my Torch (whoever thought a slider phone was a good idea should be flogged). I previously had a Bold 9000 and a Bold 9700, and was one of the many waiting and waiting and waiting for the Bold Touch 9900 to be released on AT&T.

So far, I am very happy with my SGS2, and there is little that I truly miss about my BB. The obvious is battery life...the dual-core processor combined with the big beautiful screen is harder on the battery life than you've grown accustomed to on BB's, but I've made the philosophy shift that it's okay to have a charger at work and to plug it in for an hour a day. The benefits and speed of the platform and the hardware are worth it. The other thing I knew I would miss is the LED notifications...but that too has faded as I discover new ways to stay on top of things with this phone and the apps available. I also tried a few keyboard replacements from the app market, and found one that works very well for me, even has the autotext feature I loved from my BB. The autocorrect is phenomenal on the phone, and I

Things I don't miss? Battery pulls are a thing of the past; laggy web browser scrolling and checkerboarding (my browser performance is amazingly smooth); boot times in the minutes (my SGS2 boots up and is usable in 20 seconds); small screen; hour long process to update OS and get things back where I like them (took less than 10 minutes to flash a new ROM and restore apps and settings yesterday)...to name a few.

I have mine connected to my Exchange server at work for push email/calendar/contact sync and it works great, really no perceptible difference from what I had on BES (except that I don't worry about worldwide or regional BB service outages any longer).

Now that the Bold 9900 is being released on Sunday by AT&T, I don't even have a thought about switching back, and at this point I have no regrets whatsoever about making the switch to Android and the SGS2. It's an extremely powerful and flexible platform, with a huge developer community, and exponentially growing support. It was the right choice for me.

I'm another one who started with a BB Pearl -> Bold 9000 and then got tired of AT&T not releasing the 9900 and switched to T-Mobile for the 9900. When I made that switch, my wife got a Galaxy S. I started playing around with her phone (and Swype) and found that you know the bigger screen is nice and with swype I wasn't much slower than I was on the BB. It did take me a couple of days to retrain my self to think in terms of swype vs two thumb typing, but I'm pretty good with it now. I guess I should mention that I took my 9900 back and got a Samsung GSII.

Things I miss: the led notification. However, I have heard about the "noled" app that puts notifications on the screen. The spell checker that will just underline misspelled words and allow you to go back and correct after the fact. BBM, however I was down to 3 people that I would use bbm with most often. The trackball/trackpad is still easier than my finger to click on certain links.

Things I thought I would miss, the keyboard and I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. My battery life wasn't that good with the 9000, so I thought it would be worse with android but it hasn't bothered me.

I'm happy with my switch and would do it again. I'm still working on figuring out how to do somethings that I just got used to with BB, like the shortcut hitting c to create a new message.

 

[DrLouie]

3. Email pushes fine from Exchange and Gmail but no mail notification on the Gmail icon is annoying. Push email does drain the battery a lot.

What do you mean by "no mail notification"? Mine will alert me when I have new mail.

 

[Xopher]

I think the big thing about switching is making sure to approach an Android phone without thinking of it like a BlackBerry. From what I have seen, people who try to apply the BlackBerry mindset to an Android device usually get frustrated. After all, it isn't a BlackBerry,

That being said, you have to remember that everything on an Android device is an application. The bad thing about that (compared to BlackBerry) is that everything isn't as integrated as BlackBerry. The good thing is that if you don't like a specific app, there are plenty of other choices. If you don't like the default email app, switch to MailDroid, K-9 Mail, Touchdown, or one of the other email apps. Want to have the calendar look different, try a different calendar app. It was a nice change to be able to use a widget on my screen that shows my appointments (lie BlackBerry today's screen) along with Tasks (something BB doesn't do).

The other thing to realize is that Android is made to be tweaked. Change the way screens look, change widgets, try different keyboards. The entire platform is made to be flexible. On the BlackBerry, other than changing themes, everything is pretty much set up from the beginning. Expect to try different apps.

Keyboards are something that get very preferential. When my wife and I had BlackBerry devices, she loved the Curve keyboard, but hated the keyboard on my Tour (and the 8830 prior). I liked the Bold-style keyboard, but didn't like the Curve keyboard. I could type very quickly on my Tour (although the tips of my thumbs hurt at the end of the day). I was concerned about typing on a virtual keyboard when I got my SGS. After a week of using Swype, I could swype out things almost as quickly as I could with my Tour. SwiftKey makes it really easy to type with its text prediction. I'm amazed at how many words it can predict in a row sometimes - it can make typing out some sentences as easy as one click per word. Even after having my SGS for almost a year, I still jump between keyboards quite often. I like SwiftKey, Swype, TouchPal, and FlexT9 on my SGS, and lean towards Thumb Keyboard on my tablet. The one thing to get used to is that the spell check is part of the keyboard, rather than an integrated part of the OS (like on BB).

I think BlackBerry's advantage is that everything is already laid out for you. One calendar app. One email system. Everything pretty much integrated into the OS. You can figure out how to do it since there is really only one way to do it (the BlackBerry way).

Android's advantage is flexibility. This can also be ts downfall, since you may need to play with different apps and such to get it to your liking. Personally, I have my SGS set up to make it easy for me to use. I can pretty much run my business from my phone if needed. If you like the way BB is set up, then that's what is best for you. It's all about personal preference. I think the best thing to do is go whichever direction you want, but do it with an open mind.

 

[Bye Berry]

I have another question about Android. When it comes to finding contacts on the BB, you simply start typing the name and it continues to narrow it down. With my job in sales. I always enter the customers contact information and add notes with a date. Over ten years, I have over 1300 contacts on my BB. I was watching someone with an iPhone last week trying to find a contact and it looked very slow and frustrating. Do Android devices make it easy to find contacts? Or do you need to scroll through all your contacts like an iPhone?

 

[doni49]

I have another question about Android. When it comes to finding contacts on the BB, you simply start typing the name and it continues to narrow it down. With my job in sales. I always enter the customers contact information and add notes with a date. Over ten years, I have over 1300 contacts on my BB. I was watching someone with an iPhone last week trying to find a contact and it looked very slow and frustrating. Do Android devices make it easy to find contacts? Or do you need to scroll through all your contacts like an iPhone?

Yes it does do the search as you describe. However there is room for improvement. I'm using Takephone instead of the android dialer. I really like the way it does the search.

Both the android dialer and TP do the searches fairly quickly though.