Blackberry ……. The False Messiah ?

Blackberry is a solid business tool with industry standard leading email capabilities.

There, thats the good stuff out of the way. Well, I’ve been using blackberry’s for about 18 months now, which for some isn’t long, but for me I usually change devices at least 3 times during this period, which I think I did but I went from BB Pearl to Curve to Bold to Storm to Bold !! Before that I was using Symbian devices (E90 / E71 / N95 etc), Had a play with Android, various (A HELL OF A LOT) of  Windows Mobile devices, PDA devices using IR dial up to proxy through servers etc.

So, basically what Im saying is that I know my shit, sometimes calling a spade a spade is a good thing (please keep that in mind for future blogs). Back to the plot, I’ve been a solid BlackBerry user for a while now and I’ve done practically whatever the forums at CB can suggest that you can do to them. I’m using the Blackberry Bold and even though I confess this is a SOLID business handset, I find myself disillusioned with Research In Motion (RIM) and I will try to list my reasons below:-

1. Operating System 5.0 – Now this was supposed to be a new OS and I was very excited about it. But what do I find ? Well this NEW OS looks exactly like the old OS and doesn’t differ too much with the User Interface (UI). I cant figure out whats the point of a new OS that looks and acts like your old OS, especially when other companies are putting the time in to develop their UI’s to be better, more user friendly and dare I say it, sexy.

2. Living off Leaks – To make my device work better / faster Ive had to resort to downloading and applying leaked OS’s off the net because RIM and the network providers take an eternity to release any sort of update. Many would say this is normal, but if you ever bought the first Blackberry bold or Blackberry storm you would know that this sort of thinking would be considered abnormal, and forcing people to use dodgy back street software unfair. The OS on these two phones was so bad it needed damn crutches to get out of the box. Now thats bad !

3. The Leaker Mentality – Once upon a time the leakers would just give us the software and now times have changed. There’s a need for recognition and the glamor of the big stage, so now we have preview pictures, reviews and then a load of “people” teasing that they have got the software, but will not give it. I really appreciated and liked these guys a year ago. Now hanging would be a bit too good.

4. More of The Same Handsets – So now RIM is bringing out more handsets like the Onyx, which I’m not going to waste my breath over because it’s not very good, no real innovation and whatever is under the hood they could have put it into similar devices a year ago.

5. An Example, The Storm – This was released a year ago with crippling software problems. A year later, the cripple is still …… a cripple with more software problems. They have been developing it for a year and still have not introduced flick scrolling (or kinetic scrolling). If it takes you this amount of time to resolve a problem RIM, then what can we expect future wise.

6. Not Moving With The Times – Blackberry still does not have Skype / Blackberry still does not have SkyFire / Blackberry still does not have Flash Support / Blackberry still does not have Proper Browsing /Blackberry still does not have hardware acceleration, there’s more, but I’m sure you get the drift

Now there is a lot of Blackberry fanboys that will defend RIM because …… I don’t know, a shitty upbringing , low self respect, please guess for yourself. Yes, I understand as a business tool there probably isn’t anything better this very second (but soon), but can’t we have business and a bit of fun. Isn’t web browsing a good feature in business terms (gotcha). Sure RIM will most likely bring better hardware out and a better OS, but look around, it’s not here and by all accounts it wont be here for another year or two, but then does RIM think that the rest of the universe will stop and wait for them, NO, I think the rest of the world will continue turning and continue with innovation (I know Palm PRE loved that word, but we’ll have a go at them another time).

So for these reasons, I’m looking for somewhere else to live, and I think there a new place opening up soon. It’s called “Nokia N900” and the view is brilliant. I will inform you of more when I have this little baby in my hands.