My conversion from the Palm Centro to Blackberry Curve:
After 13 months of using the Palm Centro, I gave into Sprint’s holiday deal of $99 for the Blackberry 8330 Curve. Here are my initial thoughts: BB vs. Palm
· BB: Good camera and video. Higher quality than Centro
· BB: Good battery life. Aside from the first day I used it (in which I used it about 10 hours of the day) the battery life is much longer than a full day. It also will depend on how many apps you’re running and what you’re connected to the Internet for.
· BB: The ‘double space = period’ feature is great. I find it much easier to type faster with that feature.
· BB: There are tons of more apps for the Blackberry than there are for Palm. Palm used to be the leader in the Smartphone industry, but now with the corporations taking advantage of Blackberry’s ease of email use, and the attractive multimedia options on the iPhone (and the ‘cool’ factor), the popularity and the variety of apps has dramatically decreased, which leaves Palm users to create their own apps… which isn’t going to happen by me.
· Palm: The Centro had a lot more shortcut buttons to choose from. Four on the front (which I had assigned to SMS/Text Messages, Calendar, Phone, and Home), one on the side (which I assigned to Sprint Mobile Email), and 26 assigned “Speed Dial” buttons that you can assign to any App found on the Centro. That is such a great feature. The Curve has only 1 on the left side, one on the right side and truly none on the front of the phone. It has speed dials, only for individual contacts, not for Apps. And it has 4 buttons that can’t be changed: Talk, End/Power, Back, Menu (like Alt on Windows). Because of this, it takes longer to find an application and choose it
· Palm: The Touch Screen…. Oh the touch screen. If only I could touch it once more. No, seriously, this is a must have feature in my mind. Everything is moving to touch-screens. Laptops, LCD monitors, thermostats, clocks, calculators, everything. Cell phones should be no different. It gives you the option to be more free with your phone and avoid having to use the mouse (which I really hate using. Stay tuned for my ‘Extermination of the Mouse’ entry).
· Palm: The Blackberry is simply too much, too complex! You know why Blackberry users are always looking down at their phone? You think they’re typing emails and being productive. They’re actually always trying to figure out how to change an option on the Blackberry. Palm was much more simple and intuitive. Here’s an example:
· Sound change. Say if you want to create a new profile so that new messages don’t vibrate. You navigate to the home, go to Profiles and Create a New one. You have 15 menus to choose from with sub-menus! And it’s not intuitive. I would think, Sound or Ringer would be the obvious choice, but it’s not the case. Here’s an example: For my email option, there are the following options:
· For ‘Out of Holster’
· Ring Tone
· Volume
· Number of Beeps
· Repeat Notification
· Number of Vibrations
· The same options for ‘In Holster’
It’s too much to try to grasp. The days of simple living are done, but that doesn’t mean that everything has to be complicated!
· Palm: Alarm – Multiple options for everything on the BB, but only 1 Alarm option??? How does that make logical sense? I’ll be looking for free software for a multi-alarm application. Anyone have any suggestions?
I have a lot more thoughts, but those are just initial ones. I’m not a die hard Blackberry fan as yet and there are a lot of downsides, but I'll join the Blackberry nation for sometime.
BTW, anyone want to buy a Centro for cheap and no contract?
Here’s an article on the hope that Palm will turn around:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/12/can_palm_reboot.html
