Blackberry To Evo

[StraightWisdom]

I went from bb to the evo back to bb.... but ultimately back to the evo

 

[npark]

You can also use the HTC Sense mail applications to check work email. You don't have to necessarily forward it.

You used a Verizon phone while working for Sprint? Interesting.

I get about 200+ work emails a day, and probably 5-15 personal emails on gmail a day.

To be honest, I can't imagine a phone where it's possible to triage that many emails that require a professional response, and I've used a lot of different phones. I rely on my phone for the after-hours, or really long lunches to avoid "oh $h1t" moments for missing something really important. Other than that, I don't think it's possible to adequately read, digest, and make coherent, intelligent responses on any phone to so many emails.

Anyway I digress. I'm sure if you used a Moment before, this will be better... the adjustment to the screen keyboard will probably be your biggest hurdle. All your phones seems to have had physical keyboards.

 

[mrpatience]

yeah the emails and blackberry -- they are still the most reliable.

 

[Lord Vader]

yeah the emails and blackberry -- they are still the most reliable.

I agree! My BlackBerrys would push my Hotmail Emails to my phone in about 20-30 minutes; whereas my EVO would do it within 2 to 3 minutes, sometimes 4 or 5, sometimes even 1 minute. How inconsistent and unreliable! At least with the BBs Emails take consistently longer and are therefore more reliable.

 

[DEEP3R]

The only thing I miss about my BB was BBM and battery life. I use KIK which is close to BBM, but will never be BBM. Use the WIMAX notifier to make use of the EVO's other LED light. Which helps because now I can decipher the difference between text messages and everything else.

 

[dtreo]

I went from bb to the evo back to bb.... but ultimately back to the evo

LOL! I love it. So funny reading this post since I know the feeling.

 

[dtreo]

I agree with what most are saying, and I personally don't think I could EVER go back to my Tour... but at the same time, I am NOT out shouting from the rooftops for everyone with a BB (especially entrenched users) to convert for a few reasons...

Battery - It's been mentioned, but it's really hard to describe to those that aren't coming from BB's. I could go DAYS with normal use on my BB, not so with the EVO. I've compensated by having charges all over the place, and even keep one in the glovebox in case i'm somewhere out of the norm for an extended period. It helps that everything that I am doing on the EVO just is so much a better experience to make me think it's worth the hassle...

Keyboard - Don't be fooled. There is a difference between a physical keyboard and a touch one, no matter how good it is (and the EVO's can be great with it's size). I think (with Swype) I'm back up to something of the same speed, but it was a tough few weeks for a while. I still don't crank out emails as much, instead waiting until I get to my desk.

Non-Ggmail Email - I use an old hotmail account (don't judge me ) and although the actual push wasn't working when I left my BB, it was superior to the regular 30 min interval pull that I get on my evo, which is necessary to save battery life. I am not that heavy an email user so it doesn't matter much to me, but it's noticeable, probably more-so if you were a heavy user.

BBM - If you used it actively on your BB, there is just nothing like it. It's hard to explain to those that weren't heavily into it, but those that were know what I'm talking about...

Combined Message Box - This was one that I got over pretty quickly, but wouldn't mind having back. It was nice to just have one 'bucket' for everything that I needed to attend to. The notification area does a pretty good job of creating a quasi-one-stop-shop though.

Notification LED - The evo has one, but it's a pale comparison to the sheer visibility and flexibility of the BB's

Random Little Irritants - Every once in a while I do something on my evo and it just sorta smacks me that it's using a relatively young platform. Nothing major, but some things that mar an otherwise perfect experience. Great example... I just got off the phone with a friend, who when they called had their pixelated photo show up on my caller ID, even though I have added a high def one (syncing causes this). In the middle of the call, I ignored another call who turned out to be my brother, but for some reason, it doesn't give me caller/contact info when somebody tries to click in... I called him back, which in addition to the pixelated picture gives his GTALK status from a week ago, which has changed since then, but for some reason not updated... None of these are game changers, but just little things that make you go hmmm as you see them crop up.

Now before I must don the flamesuit to protect me from Android's most zealous defenders, most of these items can/are addressed with 3rd party apps and/or workarounds/patches/prayers. I LOVE my phone and it's system... Heck, the fact I get email looking the way it's supposed to (HTML) is worth it's delay in arrival. I've done things on my rooted EVO that I wouldn't have even dreamed of on my BB. But with that said, there are definitely some things I miss about my old tour... Not enough to go back, just fond memories Hope it helps.

This is my favorite post in a long time. So many things you discuss are just those little "I know...I totally get that" things that pop into your head when you change phones or try a new OS. Normal people don't even notice these things, you know. It's just us dorks that read smartphone forums.

 

[dwilli]

Agreed. 500+ customer accounts and many I just don't remember the contact's name but DO know the company.

Love my evo. Came from three blackberries before getting the evo. One annoyance I have found is the sorting of contacts on the evo cannot be done by company. You can go through and manually create a group and associate any contact you wish to that group but that is a lot of work to do for something Android should do automatically. So if you have Mary Andrews saved and her company is saved under her contact info there is no(zero) way to search by the company saved in her contact. I need this. This is making me really look hard at the blackberries again. Seriously.

 

[olemil#AC]

I've owned my BB Tour for over a year now and loved every minute of it. The EVO is by far a huge jump in technology no doubt and all the free apps are almost overwhelming. One thing the EVO lacks compared to the Tour in my opinion is audio quality. Not to impressed with the EVO's sound especially the speaker phone. But having both phones active, I have the best of both worlds for sure!!

 

[bhawkfan31]

I went from a BlackBerry Tour to the EVO, best move I have made. I had that BB for 1 year and had to replace parts multiple times, had poor reception and dropped calls, and overall a bad experience. I get better reception on the EVO and have yet to drop any calls in the same coverage area.

Love my EVO!

Dave

similar story for me. First BB was Tour. Nothing but trouble. I was tweaking it almost daily and bringing it in to Sprint for work every 3 - 4 weeks. After a year, I upgraded to Evo and Love it. I haven't made the root jump because of all the trouble I had with BB. Then again, if Sprint comes out with a 2Ghz phone.....

Decisions, Decisions.

 

[snowwy66]

there are settings you can change for your email sync. it will also pull down when you have the email app open. email is no big deal for me as i get nothing but **** anyways. but i've had it for 15 years now and it's had to inform everyone that i have changed. but if i start using a new email account then it won't be long before the **** starts rolling in again. as everything on the internet requires an email address.

as for BBM. i can't for the likes of me figure out why anyone would have a need for BBM or anything for matter. it's just another form of text messaging. how many ways does one need just to send texts. isn't the phone itself good enough??????

back in the day. i beleive sprint was the first one to experiment with aol instant messaging. aol was popular back then. then sprint advanced to yahoo, msn, and even icq. it was what started text messaging. only you could talk to the other end on there computer. or phone if they were logged in. don't usee it anymore now. no need for any programs.

 

[ssinaz]

there are settings you can change for your email sync. it will also pull down when you have the email app open. email is no big deal for me as i get nothing but **** anyways. but i've had it for 15 years now and it's had to inform everyone that i have changed. but if i start using a new email account then it won't be long before the **** starts rolling in again. as everything on the internet requires an email address.

as for BBM. i can't for the likes of me figure out why anyone would have a need for BBM or anything for matter. it's just another form of text messaging. how many ways does one need just to send texts. isn't the phone itself good enough??????

back in the day. i beleive sprint was the first one to experiment with aol instant messaging. aol was popular back then. then sprint advanced to yahoo, msn, and even icq. it was what started text messaging. only you could talk to the other end on there computer. or phone if they were logged in. don't usee it anymore now. no need for any programs.

Reading your posts leads me to believe you never used BBIM, yes it's an instant messenger, but because BB uses a BES / BIS environment you don't have to log into it. it's always on and BB pushes your messages to you. You don't have to do anything but give your pin to your friends and your good to go.
Every other IM service does require to be logged in, and that's what makes BBIM so great is that it's always there and on and ready to use.

 

[Pre-dawn raid]

E-mail is brought up.
I love the full html e-mails the evo does. Not some stupid plain text e-mail the black berry does. In this media rich day and age, surprises me rim is so far behind.

Check your facts before you give inaccurate info. I had full HTML emails on my BB Pearl back in 2008 with OS4.5. Switched to the Evo from my Blackberry Tour and I must say, for pure messaging and emailing, the BB has proven to be superior. I STILL can't get my Gmail to sync properly and often have trouble forwarding/sending messages over wifi.

 

[TScottTC]

Check your facts before you give inaccurate info. I had full HTML emails on my BB Pearl back in 2008 with OS4.5. Switched to the Evo from my Blackberry Tour and I must say, for pure messaging and emailing, the BB has proven to be superior. I STILL can't get my Gmail to sync properly and often have trouble forwarding/sending messages over wifi.

I know exactly what bhappy is talking about. On the Tour and Bold, the E-mail client didn't display the images properly, something that I've never had a problem with on my EVO.

Yes, the BlackBerry is better at e-mailing (it has a hardware keyboard, for one) but I think the multimedia aspects of the phone make up for any email deficiencies. As far as messaging, I don't think it's inferior at all.

 

[Pre-dawn raid]

I know exactly what bhappy is talking about. On the Tour and Bold, the E-mail client didn't display the images properly, something that I've never had a problem with on my EVO.

Yes, the BlackBerry is better at e-mailing (it has a hardware keyboard, for one) but I think the multimedia aspects of the phone make up for any email deficiencies. As far as messaging, I don't think it's inferior at all.

By messaging I meant emailing, sms, and IMing. I've seen many posts on these forums about the software keyboard (which granted you DID mention) and how many users will now wait until they get to a laptop/desktop to crank out a longish email whereas with the BB they would've have just done it on the device. I find myself in this same boat. No biggie since I am not a business exec. I simply make too many errors typing on the evo and it takes much longer (for me). The Droid Pro keyboard looks pretty comparable though. As far as multimedia, hands down Evo but I hear BB OS6 has made some big advances in the browser dept.

 

[Dukins]

If emails are your concern, two words for you. "Message truncated"

None of that EVOs. The only real concern is battery life.

 

[Pre-dawn raid]

Can't throw a foreign SIM card into my Evo. Could with my Tour.

 

[JohnAlpha]

If emails are your concern, two words for you. "Message truncated"

None of that EVOs. The only real concern is battery life.

Too true. I had actually forgotten about always seeing that.

I had 3 BlackBerries (Curve 8320, Curve 8520, Bold 9700) before I switched to my Evo. Battery life was definitely my biggest shock. With my 9700 even with heavy use I could go for a couple of days between charges... and this included having Twitter query for updates every 5 minutes and using BBM constantly. It was a little difficult coming to terms with setting my sync times for apps like that much higher on my Evo. It wasn't a huge deal since I work at a computer all day and can charge my phone pretty easily, though. If that isn't an option, a spare/extended battery will probably be very useful.

The other big jump for me was the keyboard since the Evo was also my first touchscreen phone and, quite frankly, BlackBerry physical keyboards are pretty amazing. Typing was a little frustrating at first, but if you stick with it you can speed up pretty quickly. It's also definitely worthwhile to test out some different keyboards to see what works best for you.

 

[bnrbranding]

You will want to go through and follow all of the battery life recommendations. You will definitely not go days on a charge unless you get the extended battery. To me it looks huge, but people that have it say its not as big as it looks and they get days on a charge. I don't mind charging once a day. You will charge daily, even if you get great battery life.

You already mentioned forwarding your email to Gmail. If you don't mind doing that or outright switching to Gmail then I would dare say that the Evo is every bit as good at Gmail as BB is mail. I often get mail on my phone faster than my laptop or desktop. Gmail push is highly reliable and insanely fast, IMO you could only equal it's speed and reliability, you just can't get any faster.

BBIM I have no experience with, so you will have to listen the BB users on that.

Other than that, Evo leaves any BB phone in the dust. Apps, multimedia, screen quality, internet, you name it.

 

[JohnAlpha]

If you're really big into BBM, you can try to convince your BlackBerry-using friends to install PingChat, which will basically do the same thing. I actually prefer Kik, but RIM kind of went on a rampage on them.