iPhone -v- Blackberry Bold

11 Oct 2008

Well, I normally don’t ‘go it alone’ and review phones, but as a self confessed iPhone ‘freak’ I thought I should take a look at the Blackberry Bold to see what I was missing!

Actually, I had a conversation with David Terrar (http://www.biztwozero.com/) and he has done a review for his own blog and was telling me how the Bold was ‘better’. Now once I got over the ‘as if’ attitude that anyone knocking the iPhone normally brings out in me, I thought, well, lets take a look.

I got hold of a Bold for a couple of days, so first, the declaration that I did not use the Bold for a prolonged period

of time and it did take me a few days to get ‘used’ to my first iPhone (Oh how I remember the days).

I think the size of the Bold is OK, a bit chunkier to hold, but, not bad, feels good in the hand. In fairness I have to have a case on my iPhone, just to protect it – not because its easily damaged, but because I love it so much!

In short (yes I know I said review, but comment is more to the point) I think I agree with everything that most industry pundits are saying, the Bold is great, and if you don’t need a *real* web browser option, and perhaps want to do some copy and paste functions (I don’t, but then the iPhone does not do this, so that might explain this), with creation of documents at the top of your list, then its a good choice, however, the iPhone just does SUCH a better job if you need to browse, well not just a better job, but, a PROPER job.

So, if you want to use your OpenCRM solution, on the hoof (so to speak), then get yourself an iPhone, its just what you need.

I actually do not create long documents whilst I am on the move and if I do, then I use one of the AppStore applications for text creation and email the text to myself for formatting at my desk, and I would find it difficult to do anything else as the format of our documents has to follow a specific format, with headings and colours and we link these to OpenCRM for distribution and document management.

Oh, by the way, yes, the keyboard is good and if you like the physical keyboard type, the BB is for you, but the virtual keyboard is fine by me, I am not as quick at this typing lark anyway, so I am not interested in the max clicks per second that one BB Bold review spouted (not David’ I hasten to add), I just don’t think that fast, so iPhone or BB Bold makes no difference to me, its just preference.

Sales Pitch -If you want a mobile device that you can use with OpenCRM or any other web site for that matter, iPhone wins (in my opinion) hands down. But BB Bold is a good mobile, if browsing is not your main use for the device. Oh, and by the way, watch this space as the Google Android OS is going to be the big contender, especially as we have a team of ‘traditional’ web developers who can all write applications straight out of the box!