Blackberry user for years going to Fascinate!

[Archerdude]

Just a quik note I use K-9 mail. I was having problems with the android mail on an imap server. Downloaded K-9 and have zero problems. Not sure how it effects battery life.

 

[KB3MMX]

Thank you very much for your input! You make some very good points. The email thing is kind of turning me off. I due get frustrated with Blackberry but you are right that when there is a problem they fix it and no tweeking needed to my device. I guess there is a lot of good and bad points no matter what you are going to use.

Battery life on the Samsung is at least as good as any BB, especially if you get the extended battery.
Email: you can set the update interval for email to whatever you want if you want once a hour, every couple hours or frequently.
Another bonus is not doing the battery removal BB drill because of lockups, that has to be one of Blackberry's worst things besides super slow speed.
The keyboard accuracy can be learned to your fingers as well as using text prediction or spell correction if you desire. I use both personally and can hit wrong keys and the words still come out right when hammering out texts, I love it!!

 

[Q-fugee]

How is push email a toll on battery life? This is something that nags me about BB vs Android, there are always conflicting stories like this... The "push" system used by BB not only means instant email delivery but it means no wasted cycles on your phone "pulling" for email even if its not there. Hence, the life of a BB battery depends only on interactive use; if you let it sit even with ten apps running it won't drain the battery any faster. Is the same not true for Android?

Push email on the Blackberry works like this: Huge server farms located in RIM's facilities in Canada and co-located with several carriers and ISPs actually connect to and constantly poll all of your email sources. If you have BES at work, RIM polls your work Exchange Server through the BES server, too. Your phone stays off the air and silent. When mail arrives at the server farm, RIM signals their equipment co-located on the cell carrier's network to notify your phone over a low-bandwidth, low-power, one-way paging channel dedicated to Blackberry. The phone then grabs the header and first few Kbs of the message.

RIM cheats. All the work is done by server farms on RIM's network, the carrier's network, and if you use BES on your employer's network. There's nothing battery-draining for your phone to do. Your phone only wakes up when paged. It's a legacy of Blackberry's days as a two-way pager. It's also why BBs cost an extra 20 bucks a month on top of your regular cellphone bill. That's the Blackberry tax. It's also patented so no one else can do the same.

ActiveSync/Exchange server push email requires that the server knows the IP address of the client, and that some connection be up between the two at all times. IMAP, GMAIL push and Apple's Mobile Me are similar. POP3, used my most ISPs, requires the client poll the server. That's where the battery drain on all non-BB devices comes from. They call it "push" but it's not "paged."

One way to minimize drain is to set up GMAIL to do all of your polling. Have one GMAIL account poll all of your POP3 mail clients, then forward them to your handset at once. That will stop all polling initiated at the handset. Then set up an Exchange Server account for work, if needed, and your phone only needs two outbound connections. I can't remember if GMAIL can poll IMAP accounts, too. If the boss enables IMAP access to the Exchange Server you could do it all through one GMAIL account, then.

Hope this helps.

--Qfg

 

[coltsbr]

I finally got a chance to go play around with the Fascinte yesterday. I must say I'm very impressed and with the email being able to be set at 5min intervals or longer that doe snot seem like a bad deal. I have the say the device itself is sweet! So light weight and the screen is very bright! I think as soon as I can get one of these I will be letting my BB Bold go. I'm not up for a new phone till Feb and hate to pay full retail for one.

 

[Jrid32]

I have been a long time BB user: 8700, Pearl, and Storm1 until yesterday when I switched to the Fascinate. After one day of use I can honestly say that I have no plans of ever returning to BB. I use my phone for both work and pleasure, so the android system is a perfect match.

Pros:

1. Screen: enough said
2. Exchange Sync and email: I haven't noticed any drop off compared to my former BB email. Most of my emails and updates get there as fast as my BB did. I am able to open attachments and modify them just like with BB.
3. Customizalbe: The BB had oportunities for customization.
4. Battery Life: The fascinate is just as good as any BB I owned.
5. Speed and Performance: This isn't even a fair fight....Android runs circles around my Storm.
6. Call Quality: Just as good or better than BB
7. Sexy-Factor: I just made this up, but the Fascinate is allot sexier than the BB line.

Cons:

1. Less of a work out: Normally I had to conduct a battery pull once or twice a day for my Storm, so now I will have to spend an extra few minutes at the gym to make up for it.
2. Suretype and BB keyboard: I actually liked the Storm keyboard better than the Swype of the Fascinate. Maybe with time I will change.
3. Sync of Taks: Can't do it with the Fascinate

Overall I love my Fascinate!