James Poling

I tried, Lord knows I tried. After being a loyal RIM BlackBerry user for years I was lured away by the sleek curves of the iPhone 3G. My torrid affair with Apple lasted almost exactly one year. After a year with the 3G and with the impending release of the 3G S I decided to make the switch back to BlackBerry.

To me it seemed like a no-brainer. The iPhone was a nice little toy to play with for a while but I needed productivity. I needed a hands on keyboard to easily reply to emails and texts on the run. I can use a BlackBerry with one hand while not even looking. Even with landscape keyboard iPhone typing is at best cumbersome compared to BB.

I practically taunted my co-workers that had stuck with or upgraded to the iPhone and made it a point to show them how much better the BlackBerry 8900's camera was than the iPhone 3G S.

Then I tried the video. The first thing I noticed were the fairly large file sizes. The 8900 doesn't use any sort of compression to send videos, not to mention it's on the EDGE network, so any video that was over 40 seconds was way too large to attach to any email from the BB. RIM may tout video on the go but even using their smaller format of MMS mode recording in 176x144 (which is virutally unwatchable on any web based player) you could only take a few seconds of video if you wanted to keep it small enough email.

Even in it's larger "normal" format, the 8900 only recorded 280x140 so if you got to your computer, hooked up and manually uploaded the video because it's so small it still looks pretty bad in YouTube or Posterous.

The final straw wasn't necessarily RIM's fault but my wife has an iPhone and I really missed her sending photos of my daughter throughout the day. She would still send them but the photos would be resized to about the size of a flip phone photo on my BB.

As much as I longed for the productivity and tactile keyboard and as great as it felt having a BB back in my hands typing away at actual keys, I realized that there was just too much lacking for me.

I honestly don't think anything will ever come close to the success of Apple's App Store and like it or not, 3rd party apps are the future of mobile technology.

One other thing that really effected my decision was Phil Bogle's decision to switch from BlackBerry to the iPhone 3G S. For those of you not familiar with Phil, he created one of the most popular and useful BlackBerry applications of all-time. Beyond411 (formerly Berry411). When you start to see long-term hardcore BB developers abandoning ship, it might be time to rethink your decision to stand by RIM.

Here's just one of the reasons Phil gave for switching sides:

My primary interaction with Blackberry developer support was when they forced me to change the name of Berry411 to Beyond411, part of their trademark enforcement of anything related to Black or Berry. Other than their friendly trademark police, I was disappointed at how little RIM had to offer to third party developers. They wanted a $2000 fee just to join their developer program, offered limited promotional opportunities, and seemed to subservient to the wishes of their carrier partners.

Thankfully for AT&T's 30-day return policy I was able to make a beeline to the Apple Store and pickup the 3G S...for good this time.

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This is the one thing that's driving me nuts and may be enough to drop RIM/BlackBerry for good and go back to iPhone. Why on earth would you have a 3.2MP camera that takes great photos and then have your video record in 240x180, which is nearly unwatchable in any sort of web based player.

iPhone 3G S video example:


BlackBerry 8900 video example:

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As an admitted technophile I love getting my hands on new technology and pride mysel on finding ways to use the latest technology to solidify and spread my brand.  Since making the switch online to using posterous full-time, it's very important to me to have a great all-in-one solution in my mobile device.

After a year with the iPhone 3G I decided to make the switch back to BlackBerry with the 8900, which at the time, seemed to be the best of both worlds. A physical keyboard, which seriously boosts productivity for email, texting and posting, a 3.2MP camera with autofocus and a flash that takes outstanding photos plus video and voice recorders. It seemed like the perfect mobile cocktail. Now I'm not so sure.

Luckily I'm still inside my 30 days which AT&T gives you to return a phone if you're not satisfied so, if I do indeed decide to switch, I will have the opportunity.  I'm still kicking the idea around and have decided to make a list of pros and cons.

BlackBerry 8900 Pros:

• Physical Keyboard makes texting, emailing, tweeting and posting extremely fast.
• 3.2MP camera takes incredibly sharp and vivid photos compared to the iPhone 3G S.
• Replaceable battery
• Enterprise email is much easier to read and access compared to iPhone

BlackBerry 8900 Cons:

• The video camera only records in 240x180 which is great if you're only watching your videos on your phone but pretty crappy for watching online either on posterous, YouTube or Vimeo.
• Even though it only records in 240x180 the files sizes seem to be extremely large. A test video I just did was only 58 seconds long but the file size was 5MB. The biggest drawback of this is that It seems like anything over 2MB (possibly 3MB) can't be sent via email on the 8900, it gives you an error that says, "The selected file exceeds the maximum allowed attachment size". It's pretty frustrating that the 8900 has such a nice camera and such disappointing video camera. What good is it if I can't even email a 58 second video and even when I do transfer it to my computer and share it on the web the video is either very tiny or very pixelated from being stretched.
• Pretty much maxes out at 16GB of storage.

iPhone 3G S Pros:

• The new iPhone records video at 480x320 which is much more suitable for web viewing.
• I haven't actually tested it yet but it also seems that the iPhone is at least capable of emailing 60 second (at least) video clips.
• The iPhone actually allows you to edit your video on the fly on your phone.
• Native photo gallery is aesthetically way more pleasing than the 8900
• Wife uses an iPhone and sends me many pictures of our daughter each day. iPhone to iPhone pics look much better on the the device than iPhone to BlackBerry photos do.
• 32GB of storage.

iPhone 3G S Cons:

• Texting, emailing, tweeting etc is much slower and a bit more cumbersome, although landscape keyboard does somewhat improve the issue.
• 3MP camera leaves a lot to be desired as far as picture quality goes.
• Enterprise push isn't as perfected as BB.

I feel like a gadget neurotic. I wish I could get someone at RIM to address these issues and at least let people know that they are/will be addressed, otherwise it's looking more and more likely that I will be taking advantage of AT&T's 30-day return policy and picking up a 3G S.

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So many people are using posterous in conjunction with iPhone 3G S to manage their lifestream. As I've already proven here, the 3.2MP camera on the BlackBerry 8900 is far superior to the 3MP camera on the iPhone.  All the other stuff, video, voice notes etc are there as well. If any of you iPhone 3G S/posterous people are in NYC and want to do a posterous showdown say the word and we can do this.

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I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and granted this is by no means an in depth review, it’s one photo, but it’s not even close. The BlackBerry’s 3.2MP camera blows the iPhone out of the water.

     

Click here to download:

iPhone_3G_S_vs._BlackBerry_890.zip (1572 KB)

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