BlackBerry to Android; What should I expect?

[Shad0w26]

Ahhh!!! I'm so excited for the Inspire 4G! I pre-ordered mine at RadioShack on Monday. I got the call on Friday to confirm if I am going to pick it up Sunday morning, hell yes.

I currently have a sucky BlackBerry Torch 9800 (you can read my mass flame thread on CrackBerry =X Bye BlackBerry! - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com). I'm really excited to move Android after sticking with BlackBerry for so long.

Anyway, I was wondering what I should expect tomorrow. How can I transfer my contacts to my Inspire 4G? I currently have Gmail, will that be all I need to sync contacts?

I currently have an Unlimited BlackBerry Data Plan. I will be able to grandfather it into the 4G Unlimited Data Plan right? Will RadioShack know how to do that?

Thanks in advance! And PS: I'm really jealous at the people who got it early at Sam's and Costco!!!

 

[mrnserv]

Shad0w26,

As I long time BB user of 6 different BB models, most recently the Torch, I recently switched from the Torch to the Captivate/Android and will be getting a Inspire, likely Sunday.

Pretty much what I miss most is Blackberry Push E-mail and Blackberry Messenger. Everything else, Android wins.

Depending on how the email program works on the new Inspire, get K-9 Mail and you can do a lot more with email that the stock Android email program, at least on the Captivate.

Still haven't found the perfect replacement for BB Messenger. GTalk works OK, but doesn't give you the delivered and read notifications, so a couple of messages I sent to my wife's BB never made it to her and I didn't know until later on. For me, many in the family were using Blackberries by the time I switched, so I lost that reliable method of communication. Still working on this one.

With the Captivate, battery life was a big issue at first, but after a couple of days of use and tweaking some settings and using Wifi at home and work, I can get 1 1/2 - 2 days of use with moderate use.

The over-the-air syncing works so much better and makes everything easier, no more cables. I was having lots of problems with Google sync on the BB and if you are already using GMail and the Google programs, it will be easy to get everything going on the new phone. I was syncing a Blackberry, iPhone, iPad and Galaxy Tab, all to Outlook and this involved plugging 3 devices in and keeping them in sync and syncing between Outlook and GMail. Now it is all done over-the-air with needing to do anything. Change or add on one device and they are all updated within a few minutes. For some reason my iOS devices worked well with this before but I always had to abandon that as the Blackberry caused issues.

As far as syncing up you new phone, you should be able to set-up your GMail account and configure everything and you info it will populate the new phone within a few minutes. Be aware of where you are adding new info, as depending on some options, you can have a choice to store on the phone, on the SIM card or as part of the GMail account.

You absolutely can keep you unlimited data plan. If the Radio Shack store says you can't, run away and find a corporate AT&T store with someone more knowledgeable. I went to an AT&T reseller at some point and they said you can't when you move from BB to Android and when I checked with AT&T by phone and at a store they said you can, absolutely. You can move from Apple to Blackberry to Android and back again and keep unlimited plan as long as you don't ever cancel it or change it to a non-unlimited plan. This also may be true if you try and change to a tethering plan if I understand, so be cautious of that too.

As a convert of only 2-3 weeks now, I can tell you the first 3-4 days were rough, not sure about it, missed some things and questioned it, but by the end of the first week, I sold the Torch, never to go back and now I am looking to move forward with the Inspire.