I am sure there are a lot of former Blackberry users that have taken the Droid plunge - so I wanted to start a thread that details my experience and hopefully provide a transition for those of us that are leaving the world of Blackberry and the BES - (5 years I think -67??,72??,Curve 8330,Storm,Strorm2) Dont get me wrong, the BES was awesome even though it could be a pain in the a$$ to configure and maintain at times.
My plan is to try the X for a month and then switch to the Fascinate and then decide. Luckily I am on a corporate plan so our 30 return policy is nice since they only charge the account after 30 days. The original plan was to do the X, Fascinate and then go back to the storm until the end of the year when big red announces the iphone.. However, after spending 2 days with a friends I phone and now a week with the X - I am going to stay with android
My overall impressions from a former crackberry addict - I now prefer the X to the storm2. Took about 2 days for me to figure that out! I thought surepress would be the only touchscreen style I liked.. turned out I was wrong.
First off - I decided to explore other options because I thought Blackberry is / will always be one step behind - turns out I was right for some of it. Sure the Storm3 is around the corner and then there is the Storm2 refresh that will run OS6 and who knows what LTE will bring - but from what I have seen with Droid - it will be the place to be if email is not your extreme focus. Also, the screen is soooo nice on the Droid X compared to the Storm.
Web browsing-
Android - hands down. Another plus - from being on the BES - was if the BES had issues or our network at the office was down, web browsing didnt happen because the web was always redirected though the BES
User interface -
Android. Widgets and the fact that it is incredibly easy to customize give the edge to the Droid. Yes there are a ton of themes for BB - but the problem is finding the one you like the best. I would say the hidden today features on the BB were a nice touch - but from what I have seen there are widgets that will do the same thing. The keyboard options are nice, and swype may actually turn out to be my favorite - sure type on the storm was nice, but I think swype has more promise.
My initial thoughts - The phone rocks!!
Apps-
Droid. I have found several of my usual websites have apps on droid that blackberry does not have (ESPN radio, Gasbuddy..) Although - BBM was awesome..
Email-
Blackberry does email better - period. However, it was fairly easy to set up our exchange server and contacts / calendar came over just fine. But - being on a BES was light years ahead of activesync push and if email is your absolute lifeline - then Blackberry on a BES cant be beat. I like the fact that I could search the corporate desktop for any email as long as it was on the server and the fact that I could find files on the network and transfer them the storm - the downside was the storm had a hell of a time displaying most of them. Other email such as our local isp - Blackberry was just better - but thats to be expected since I believe they have patents and a whole server farm dedicated to email - aka the Blackberry Tax
PDF's/Word Docs...
Droid. If you have ever tried to look at a PDF on the storm, you know what I mean. slow and hard to zoom.
Calendar-
Toss up - however, the stock Blackberry calender is much better than the droid. I am exploring other options.
Task Management -
Blackberry. The task manager was not limited to 6 programs and you could actually kill / exit most programs - Except for Visual voice mail
OS Software-
Droid - BB OS 5 had many issues. Reboots, call craziness - ever tried to answer a call with the headset on while listening to the media player? Speaking of reboots - 23 seconds on the droid - 2-4 minutes on the Blackberry!! and don't forget the battery pulls.
Media Player -
Toss up - slight edge to Droid. So far the droid has played everything I have thrown at it (audio and video) - the blackberry did as well for the most part, but I like the blackberry interface on the music portion of the media player was better as it was easier to sort, and play specific songs with out creating a playlist. For example, I could search van halen and it would show all VH songs and play just those. When I cleared the search it went back to all songs.
Customizing the Phone (Things like sounds, profiles and other non visual impacts)
Blackberry - It was very easy to create a custom profile with different tones / alerts and it was a 1 button click to change the profile. Haven't figured that our yet on the droid. Also, the bedside mode of the storm rocked with the clock. The night thing that pops up when you put the droid in its cradle is not very night time friendly. Also the fact that the icons would show you if you had new email and or text messages and the number - Droid kind of does that, but not on all icons.
Battery Life -
Toss up - although I will say this, the Droid battery lasts as long as the storm battery ( I usually can make it from 7am to 7pm before I need a charge) and I have been beating the heck out of the droid - so I would imagine that once I use the droid normally like I did the storm, the battery will
Other things -
Being on a BES the phone was completely backed up with me doing anything. I could wipe the phone, put the latest OS on and have the phone completely restored in about 20 minutes - and the bulk of that was waiting
Issues that I have noticed -
For the most part the phone has been solid. The biggest issue I have noticed is that a notification does not always show up when I recieve an activesync email. Texts are just fine, but not corporate emails. Other than that, its been good. No crashes and only one reboot just becuase I wanted to see how you do it!
Next for me - root it and then maybe play around with a custom rom!
Questions- I have done a lot of searching and there is so much information out there its almost information overload.
What is the preferred media player? Stock? I really like the blackberry and the music search - play the results feature
What is a preferred calendar? I was looking at the pure calendar but am not sure.
If one roots, can an update be applied - ie - whenever 2.2 gets released, will it need to be re-rooted?
What happens if you do a custom rom and then need to send the phone back - can you go back to stock?
Profiles? Can they be created and quickly changed to like the Blackberry?
Blackberry tones - you know the tone you came to love for emails and texts.. how can you get those on Droid?
Feel free to share your thoughts, tips and ideas - we former Blackberry uses can speak "a common language" to benefit all droid users and hopefully bring some of those things we loved about crackberry over to Droid.
Jim
ps.. sorry for the long first post - but I am fired up about the droid!
My plan is to try the X for a month and then switch to the Fascinate and then decide. Luckily I am on a corporate plan so our 30 return policy is nice since they only charge the account after 30 days. The original plan was to do the X, Fascinate and then go back to the storm until the end of the year when big red announces the iphone.. However, after spending 2 days with a friends I phone and now a week with the X - I am going to stay with android
My overall impressions from a former crackberry addict - I now prefer the X to the storm2. Took about 2 days for me to figure that out! I thought surepress would be the only touchscreen style I liked.. turned out I was wrong.
First off - I decided to explore other options because I thought Blackberry is / will always be one step behind - turns out I was right for some of it. Sure the Storm3 is around the corner and then there is the Storm2 refresh that will run OS6 and who knows what LTE will bring - but from what I have seen with Droid - it will be the place to be if email is not your extreme focus. Also, the screen is soooo nice on the Droid X compared to the Storm.
Web browsing-
Android - hands down. Another plus - from being on the BES - was if the BES had issues or our network at the office was down, web browsing didnt happen because the web was always redirected though the BES
User interface -
Android. Widgets and the fact that it is incredibly easy to customize give the edge to the Droid. Yes there are a ton of themes for BB - but the problem is finding the one you like the best. I would say the hidden today features on the BB were a nice touch - but from what I have seen there are widgets that will do the same thing. The keyboard options are nice, and swype may actually turn out to be my favorite - sure type on the storm was nice, but I think swype has more promise.
My initial thoughts - The phone rocks!!
Apps-
Droid. I have found several of my usual websites have apps on droid that blackberry does not have (ESPN radio, Gasbuddy..) Although - BBM was awesome..
Email-
Blackberry does email better - period. However, it was fairly easy to set up our exchange server and contacts / calendar came over just fine. But - being on a BES was light years ahead of activesync push and if email is your absolute lifeline - then Blackberry on a BES cant be beat. I like the fact that I could search the corporate desktop for any email as long as it was on the server and the fact that I could find files on the network and transfer them the storm - the downside was the storm had a hell of a time displaying most of them. Other email such as our local isp - Blackberry was just better - but thats to be expected since I believe they have patents and a whole server farm dedicated to email - aka the Blackberry Tax
PDF's/Word Docs...
Droid. If you have ever tried to look at a PDF on the storm, you know what I mean. slow and hard to zoom.
Calendar-
Toss up - however, the stock Blackberry calender is much better than the droid. I am exploring other options.
Task Management -
Blackberry. The task manager was not limited to 6 programs and you could actually kill / exit most programs - Except for Visual voice mail
OS Software-
Droid - BB OS 5 had many issues. Reboots, call craziness - ever tried to answer a call with the headset on while listening to the media player? Speaking of reboots - 23 seconds on the droid - 2-4 minutes on the Blackberry!! and don't forget the battery pulls.
Media Player -
Toss up - slight edge to Droid. So far the droid has played everything I have thrown at it (audio and video) - the blackberry did as well for the most part, but I like the blackberry interface on the music portion of the media player was better as it was easier to sort, and play specific songs with out creating a playlist. For example, I could search van halen and it would show all VH songs and play just those. When I cleared the search it went back to all songs.
Customizing the Phone (Things like sounds, profiles and other non visual impacts)
Blackberry - It was very easy to create a custom profile with different tones / alerts and it was a 1 button click to change the profile. Haven't figured that our yet on the droid. Also, the bedside mode of the storm rocked with the clock. The night thing that pops up when you put the droid in its cradle is not very night time friendly. Also the fact that the icons would show you if you had new email and or text messages and the number - Droid kind of does that, but not on all icons.
Battery Life -
Toss up - although I will say this, the Droid battery lasts as long as the storm battery ( I usually can make it from 7am to 7pm before I need a charge) and I have been beating the heck out of the droid - so I would imagine that once I use the droid normally like I did the storm, the battery will
Other things -
Being on a BES the phone was completely backed up with me doing anything. I could wipe the phone, put the latest OS on and have the phone completely restored in about 20 minutes - and the bulk of that was waiting
Issues that I have noticed -
For the most part the phone has been solid. The biggest issue I have noticed is that a notification does not always show up when I recieve an activesync email. Texts are just fine, but not corporate emails. Other than that, its been good. No crashes and only one reboot just becuase I wanted to see how you do it!
Next for me - root it and then maybe play around with a custom rom!
Questions- I have done a lot of searching and there is so much information out there its almost information overload.
What is the preferred media player? Stock? I really like the blackberry and the music search - play the results feature
What is a preferred calendar? I was looking at the pure calendar but am not sure.
If one roots, can an update be applied - ie - whenever 2.2 gets released, will it need to be re-rooted?
What happens if you do a custom rom and then need to send the phone back - can you go back to stock?
Profiles? Can they be created and quickly changed to like the Blackberry?
Blackberry tones - you know the tone you came to love for emails and texts.. how can you get those on Droid?
Feel free to share your thoughts, tips and ideas - we former Blackberry uses can speak "a common language" to benefit all droid users and hopefully bring some of those things we loved about crackberry over to Droid.
Jim
ps.. sorry for the long first post - but I am fired up about the droid!
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