Explain Blackberries to me

[Bounty]

We may get my dad a new cellphone for Christmas. All his buddies have Blackberries and he's dropped hints that he wants a phone with "a full keyboard". I'm looking at the Curve 8520.

So, is it any good, and is it easy to use? Reviews are contradictory. He needs a phone that is not hard to use, looks professional, does texting and email, wifi is a nice bonus. And it needs to have a decent keypad lock function so it doesn't start dialling on its own.

[Mr Bean]

8830 Blackberry user here.
Basically the Blackberry is a business friendly smart phone. It lets you type out at near full speed. Some users I've seen can write nearly as fast on their keypad as they can on their keyboard. With a protector on it, it's about as thick as a deck of cards and it's handy. The biggest things is how easy it is to transfer documents back an forth. The fact it can pretend to be a usb drive with one quick swich. And as for locking it. By default it's the right key on the case. To unlock you must press two keys together which means a locked phone is not easy to turn back on. It of course automatically unlocks for incoming calls or if you try to call 911.

There are better smart phones out there. But for whatever reason the fact the Blackberry is considered "A business phone" while while an Iphone is a personal cell phone. I know for one thing the calendar functions and business document viewing functions are very robust right out of the box.

[Bounty]

iPhone is out due to the touchscreen (he hates those) and price (it's ridiculously expensive here).

Do you think the interface is easy to figure out for someone who has never used anything more than a basic cellphone?

[Mr Bean]

Do you think the interface is easy to figure out for someone who has never used anything more than a basic cellphone?

Yeah everyone is labeled and iconed. You use the track ball to move around. The only trick parts are using the blackberry icon button (Switch application) and the difference between the back arrow (Close applications) and the hang up button (Stops the application but keeps it open in memory)

The issue of course is the plan as because Blackberry's have to have a Data plan (They have to, I don't think any major wireless company will let you use a blackberry w/out a wireless plan) it means a minimum of about 50$ a month phone bill.

[darkjedi521]

The biggest reason Blackberry has the biggest rep for business is the back end applications they provide to corporations suck as Exchange and Active Directory integration, as well as the ability to set policies for phones authorized for the corporate networks suck as 3 wrong unlock codes wipes device, 1 hour idle sets the security code, email retention policies, etc. Until very recently, none of that existed for iPhone, but it appears to exist for the 3Gs now, or at least my employer is supporting integration similar to the Blackberry for the 3Gs.

[Sarevok]

As Mr Bean mentioned the Blackberry models are fantastic devices. However if for some reason blackberry can not be choosen yet same features are require I present an alternative. The Nokia E71 is meant for professional people rather than personal use. It is easy to use for anyone who ever used a nokia in their life. But it is loaded with a qwerty keypad, wireless lan, gps, internet browser, email, video calls, vpn client etc. It can also open,edit and create most microsoft office files. There is a pdf reader, zip file utility, 3rd party utlities like answering machines and call recorders etc. Basically all the power of a pocket pc without a steep learning curve. The phone has a titanium casing that makes it very sturdy I might add.

[General Zod]

The biggest reason Blackberry has the biggest rep for business is the back end applications they provide to corporations suck as Exchange and Active Directory integration, as well as the ability to set policies for phones authorized for the corporate networks suck as 3 wrong unlock codes wipes device, 1 hour idle sets the security code, email retention policies, etc. Until very recently, none of that existed for iPhone, but it appears to exist for the 3Gs now, or at least my employer is supporting integration similar to the Blackberry for the 3Gs.

There's also Push email, which is a big selling feature for a lot of people. Which basically meant your email went through instantly instead of idling on the server for a few hours. For anyone that depends on snappy email communication this was a killer app that made Blackberries a hit. I've got a Storm myself, but I'm thinking it was a mistake to go with that one. The resistive touch-screen is a bit dodgy at times, and I'm probably going to get a different model when my contract is up next year, if not go with an iPhone since it's supposedly coming to Verizon.

[Stark]

Yeah, the Storm was a move into the iPhone 'trendy' space instead of the business space whre Blackberrys thrive. I don't think they were very successful.

Most people I know who have been long-time BB users have moved to iPhones. They're almost feature comparable these days (although their calander support is still inferior). That said in AU. iPhones are actually slightly cheaper than iPhones.

[Lonestar]

That said in AU. iPhones are actually slightly cheaper than iPhones.

I assume you are referring to the 8 Gig model vs. the 16 Gig model?

[Stark]

Exactly!

The market here works such that corps use contracts and iPhone offers are slightly better (although 'consumer'rather than 'business'). Nobody touched them until they approached BB with regard to mail and push etc.

[Stargate Nerd]

There's also Push email, which is a big selling feature for a lot of people. Which basically meant your email went through instantly instead of idling on the server for a few hours. For anyone that depends on snappy email communication this was a killer app that made Blackberries a hit. I've got a Storm myself, but I'm thinking it was a mistake to go with that one. The resistive touch-screen is a bit dodgy at times, and I'm probably going to get a different model when my contract is up next year, if not go with an iPhone since it's supposedly coming to Verizon.

The Storm actually has a capacitive touch screen.

Verizon is gonna have a nice choice of phones next year with the new Blackberries, Palm Pre+, the Android sets etc.

[General Zod]

There's also Push email, which is a big selling feature for a lot of people. Which basically meant your email went through instantly instead of idling on the server for a few hours. For anyone that depends on snappy email communication this was a killer app that made Blackberries a hit. I've got a Storm myself, but I'm thinking it was a mistake to go with that one. The resistive touch-screen is a bit dodgy at times, and I'm probably going to get a different model when my contract is up next year, if not go with an iPhone since it's supposedly coming to Verizon.

The Storm actually has a capacitive touch screen.

It's technically a hybrid capacitive/resistive, but the resistive bits make it unpleasant.

[CmdrWilkens]

I was, before the company took it back, an 8330 Curve user and before that an 8320 Curve user. The difference is between GPS versus WiFi availability but the overall experience was similar. Anyway the big points have already been covered, the real draw for the Blackberry is for application integration. For enterprise users (read midsize or larger corporations) Blackberry takes care of all the data integration needed to allow the phone to essentially function as an extension of your work desktop. I can attest that it does that wonderfully. I would often receive e-mails on my BB before I got them on my laptop through the network (though this was related to the query timing for Outlook).

As a private user a lot of the applications and functionality of the BB are geared towards that business mindset. So while you will find smart phones with lots of quirky gadgets and applications the BB tends to function best with those that are more utilitarian in nature; E-mail, Mobile web browsing, GPS mapping, etc. Basically if you want a smart phone that can serve as a non-gaming extension of your home computer the BB line tends to be well built for this. If you want some of the quirkier stuff out there you are probably better off going with something like DROID or one of the HTC phones.

[Marcus Aurelius]

As Mr Bean mentioned the Blackberry models are fantastic devices. However if for some reason blackberry can not be choosen yet same features are require I present an alternative. The Nokia E71 is meant for professional people rather than personal use. It is easy to use for anyone who ever used a nokia in their life. But it is loaded with a qwerty keypad, wireless lan, gps, internet browser, email, video calls, vpn client etc. It can also open,edit and create most microsoft office files. There is a pdf reader, zip file utility, 3rd party utlities like answering machines and call recorders etc. Basically all the power of a pocket pc without a steep learning curve. The phone has a titanium casing that makes it very sturdy I might add.

There are other Nokia smartphones with a Qwerty keyboard, such as E63, E72 and of course the Communicator models with a flip open or sliding keyboard including E75, E90, N97 and N97 Mini. From those at least the E63, E71, and E75 are cheaper than the iPhone 3G, but I don't know how they relate to the Blackberries, which practically nobody uses around here (until 2008 you could not even buy one in Finland).

[xammer99]

I use a Blackberry 8300 and love the thing. Just make sure you get him the unlimited dataplan on it or he'll wrack up some big bills quick if he has friends who like to send emails. But it's easy to sync up with any mail account and I have it synced with both my personal gmail calendar and work outlook/exchange calendar. But for play it's great too. I use mine for a music player with the Pandora application (download it at pandora.com after setting up various profiles on a normal browser).

I've thought about getting a iPhone, but I loathe the touchscreen keyboard from having used a friends, and the full qwerty keyboard is just too damn handy to have.

[Stark]

The E7x series is good specwise, but most people I know in the market that try them prefer the interface or polish of the BB and iPhone.