My Life Post-Treo - First BlackBerry Impressions
I made the switch from a Treo 650 to a BlackBerry Pearl this week. So far, my suspicions have proven to be true: the BlackBerry is a much more functional communications device than the Treo, but the Treo is more flexible in how it does things, and has a lot more software available to it.
What I Like About the BlackBerry
- Email and web access is solid, stable and intuitive. My Treo was always crashing when I was trying to use it as an email device or surf the web.
- The device itself is super small and light. It's so light and small, I'd even consider taking it on runs with me. The Treo is a brick compared to this thing. Now if only I could find a good running log for the BlackBerry...
- Battery life is great compared to the Treo.
- I use BlackBerry Enterprise Server with a hosted Microsoft Exchange service, so basically my setup is the same as the set up most big corporations that deploy BlackBerries use. This means that all my calendars, todos, contacts and notes are synchronized wirelessly and regularly, without me having to initiate the sync process.
- A nice selection of third-party programs, like a good journaling application with a desktop component, a good eBook reader with a much better selection of books, a handheld version of Quicken that synced seamlessly, a good running log... the list is endless
- My implementation of Getting Things Done seemed to flow much better on the Treo, but maybe that's just a function of how new the user interface of the BlackBerry is to me. The basic PIM apps on the BlackBerry (calendar, todo list, notes, contacts) have always seemed to be somewhat of an afterthought, and are much less polished than the Palm offering, not to mention all the third party PIMs available for Palm devices. On the BlackBerry, there's almost nothing available except what comes on the BlackBerry.
- In general, I find that I have to work around the limitations of the BlackBerry operating system and software, whereas Treo software generally was much more customizable and flexible.
- One email minor hiccup: I have this borderline-OCD thing about having a complete record of all my emails received and sent. On the Treo, I could set my email client of choice, Chattermail, to automatically blind carbon copy (bcc:) an email address I have set up as a receptacle for all the emails I send. On the BlackBerry, there is an inexplicable lack of an option to automatically bcc a particular email address on every email I send, so I have to remember to manually enter my sent-mail address in the bcc field when I send an email from the BlackBerry.
3 comments:
i'm actually in the midst of a trial run with chattermail and am not all that happy right now. setting up gmail was fine, but my pop account has proven to be a pain and while the multiple alert and other options are nice, i'm not convinced i need all that. i might actually happily return to the built-in app (gasp!) then again, since i'm in front of a computer most of the day, i don't use the treo for email as much. since that will change soon, i'm trying to find something workable. suggestions welcome!
also, i'm curious to hear your thoughts about twitter. i recently stuck it in my sidebar, but am not sure how i feel about it...
The main reason I went with Chattermail is because if you have an email server that uses a version of IMAP that has the IDLE command, you can actually have push-like functionality that works almost like BlackBerry - meaning that when someone sends an email to your account, Chattermail will pick it up right away and notify you. I don't know much about the technical aspects of it, but it worked fine, when the Treo wasn't choking on the bandwidth and locking up. Based on a recommendation from Eric, I signed up with fastmail.fm. Their service was great, there a ton of options you can set to redirect mail, set up filters, etc. The free email account you can get from AOL can also serve as an IMAP server that pushes email to chattermail. Then it's just a matter of setting up a reply-to address in chattermail, and you've got an almost BlackBerry that actually functions more like desktop email client than the BlackBerry does. It's quite possible that this whole setup is much more stable on newer Treos (I had the 650).
I found when I left Chattermail running it would drain the battery fairly quickly, so that I'd definitely have to recharge every night (which I pretty much do anyway). Also, I found that I was missing calls when Chattermail was using the network (it isn't constantly using it, but fairly frequently). But, when I was just using it every once in a while (firing up Chattermail, checking my mail, and then shutting it down again) it worked like a charm.
Anyway, if you are ever in a situation where you need to be able to get emails and respond to them fairly rapidly and you're not at a computer, for the Treo I think that's probably the best solution. In fact, several Treo users who tried to switch to BlackBerry have switched back to using a Treo and Chattermail because it actually mirrors a desktop computer in it's functionality, whereas the BlackBerry is more of a satellite communications device (especially if you try to save all your incoming and outgoing emails in an archive somewhere).
As far as Twitter... I'm thinking of it more as a way to keep up with what my friends and family are up to on a day to day basis. I only have 2 people on my list right now, and when they tweet, it gets sent to my phone. Putting it on the blog; well, that's just sort of a novelty for people who actually visit the site, I guess. Who knows, it may get old, but for now, it's nice to just toss in a one-liner every once in a while, and get messages like "I hate poodles." from friends to make me chuckle.
i am FRIGHTENED that I actually understand all the geek talk in your response. i don't really need push functionality, but then again, is it ever about what we really need? i was going to look into the AIM to chattermail to SMS option, but then saw that hotmail has a similar option? all that aside, my first order of procratination business is figuring out how to have gmail stop downloading all of my sent mail. i cannot believe i am spending my time this way...
as for twitter, yea, i'm kind of enjoying it, but feeling a tad sheepish for some reason. i'll have to think about that one.
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