From iPhone to Blackberry

With blackberry ads flooding the Egyptian TV and press, I cannot stop my self to buy one and try it. As a mandatory background, I changed three mobiles this year alone (geek??! may be). I started the year with E71 phone, switched to iPhone 3G and finally Blackberry curve 8900. I bought the blackberry curve from Etisalat Egypt.

First impression
The package of the curve is no way like the iPhone package. Those guys at apple are doing very good job in packaging and making their products looks more valuable. Despite the poor package, the phone itself looks very professional and details are taken into considerations. It looks very nice.
The box contains power adapter with different plugs for US, UK and Europe power, headphones, cover, 1 GB MiniSD card and manuals. In my opinion, the only drawback is the 1 GB SD card - I think it should be  4GB minimum.

Interface
My feelings towards  the curve interface is mixed. Mainly the interface looks very nice with all those very good icons. With every step deeper into the applications or the menus, the interface looks very primary and reminds me of 90s operating systems and mobiles. Comparing the curve to the iPhone
makes the curve looks as a very old toy. 

Menu Screen

An example to a setup screen

On the other side, the simple interface makes the menus and the applications load faster which make it a great phone for anyone who wants the functionality more than the interface.
A great simple feature that made my happy is the red LED that blinks for any missing notification - email, SMS, MMS ...

Mail
The mail client in the blackberry is very powerful and it is also nice to use. It integrates greatly with Gmail. It allows you to star a mail and show conversations the same way you did in Gmail. From the mail application, you can choose multiple mails, forward, reply and do all other mail tasks. You can also customize the mail to check for spelling mistakes every time you send an email.

One of the best features that is unique in Blackberry is the single inbox that collect all your mails, SMS, MMS, applications notification to a single place.

Calendar
The calendar also in the blackberry is very strong with a lot more options than the iPhone but - as usual - with a very simple and less attractive interface. If you had installed the blackberry facebook app,  you can integrate your Facebook events calendar to your main calendar.
You can even sync your Google Calnedars with the curve using Google sync applications.

Web Browsing
Comparing BB web browsing to the iPhone, is like comparing a 1920s car to a Ferrari. The BB browser - even it supports scripting - is very hard to use except if you are going to browse the mobile version. In my opinion, it is the same as E71 browser.
Pages are rendered correctly but very slow. Also there is no flash support.

Maps
Simply the least attractive feature in the Curve. Yes you can install Google Maps application but comparing blackberry maps to Nokia maps made the blackberry maps looks like a joke. Also using Google maps over edge is very slow.

Applications
Number of Blackberry applications are very small compared to iPhone applications but in general there are a number of useful applications out there specially from Google.

Best of all, you can install applications on Blackberry without installing the App world. This means that you can install any application as you like and these applications can integrate very well with the phone - like Google voice for example.

Installed Applications

Final thoughts

The Curve 8900 is not for everyone. It is for anyone who mainly handle mail, chat and any text based communication via mobile. If you want more advanced web browsing or thousands of non-sense application to spend your spare time with, then iPhone is your destination. 

Another thing you should take into consideration: the only unlimited mobile internet in Egypt is only offered for Blackberry phones.