Mobile Breakdown: BlackBerry 8900 vs. iPhone 3G S
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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