Blackberry Benefits - Smart Phone, Smart Plans
So every friend I know has been on my case to switch to iPhone. With good reason. The iPhone has revolutionized the handheld business with its AppStore, ease of use interface and synergies with the Mac ecosystem of innovative products.
Sure the advantages of the Apple smart phone are immediately visible, even compelling when comparing it to its main rival to date, the Blackberry. But the Blackberry also has numerous advantages, almost all of which are “behind the scenes.” Blackberry is the intellectual introvert, competing against a flamboyant rival with eloquent rhetoric.
Since the latter speaks loudly for itself, I’ll address the advantages of the former... and the reason why, even in the face of intense pressure, I still consider myself a Blackberry Babe:
1. Most Blackberries have keyboards, so you can type fast with no errors. Helps while tweeting, driving (tsk tsk), walking, carrying something in your other hand – all the time. iPhone: well…
2. Blackberry can be used on my carrier - and on almost every carrier in the world (over 475 of them!). In the US, the iPhone is available on AT&T and Verizon only.
3. Blackberry is available in five form factors – large or small keyboard, no keyboard, flip phone, and candy-bar.
4. My Blackberry is on T-Mobile USA, which offers unlimited WiFi calling from anywhere in the world, with my existing number. iPhone cannot do this. I’ve saved over $100 a day while abroad. More mula in my pocket = happy girl!
5. Phenomenal email interface and Blackberry allows communicating peer-to-peer (very cool!). This could save you literally thousands of dollars in text and data usage. And multiple Blackberries can receive the same email feeds simultaneously. Awesome for collaborating with collegues.
6. Blackberry can sort the address book entries by company name, so you can scroll down a long list of names you don’t remember if you just want to see who works for which company. Aside from sorting, the iPhone can take several seconds to search your address book. Good luck if you have several thousand address book entries. Blackberry isn’t slowed down by having, thousands, even 100 000 address book entries. Try using an iPhone with 10 000 address book entries.
7. And the iPhone is limited to 200 emails. Sure the iPhone has a remote look-up capability, but that doesn’t do you any good when you’re on an airplane or are otherwise out of coverage.
8. Blackberry has expandable memory. iPhone is fixed - sold at 8, 16 or 32 gig only.
9. Blackberry can be synchronized to multiple computers simultaneously.
10. Blackberry also synchronizes with iTunes – and every other media management program.
11. Skype on the Blackberry? Yes, from anywhere to anywhere. Skype on iPhone? Only if you’re on WiFi.
12. Free Google Voice on the Blackberry. Google Voice on iPhone? Verboten.
13. All major instant messengers are available on Blackberry.
14. Blackberry is available with multiple browsers from multiple suppliers. iPhone is available only with its standard Safari browser.
15. Better screen resolution on the new blackberry - 480x360. iPhone is 480x320.
16. Price: Unlimited iPhone voice/data service, including unlimited SMS, is $150/month. Blackberry can be had for much less. For example, unlimited Blackberry service is offered on Sprint for $100/month, T-Mobile USA $125/month, and MetroPCS $50/month
17. Prepaid “no contract” flexibility (love this!). The iPhone is sold with a 2-year contract only. Once upon a time you could get a “contract-free” iPhone if you paid close to $899 up-front for the iPhone itself. In contrast, you can get prepaid no-contract Blackberry service on any T-Mobile Blackberry for $70/month (unlimited minutes/ SMS and Blackberry/Internet), or you can get unlimited-everything prepaid $50/month service from MetroPCS. That’s ONE THIRD the cost of the iPhone, and there is no contract.
18. Blackberry has MUCH better calendar functions over the iPhone. I can create a meeting on my blackberry and invite a person, then synch up with Outlook. The Outlook todos synch too. 3rd party apps can't write to or use the iPhone calendar so we have to wait for Apple to offer an enterprise grade calendar and todo synch.
19. The BlackBerry software development kit gives developers more freedom than the iPhone SDK. Not only can you develop apps that run in the background, but you can gain access to the phone, email and BBM logs. You can't do this on iPhone.
20. Blackberry is an encrypted military-grade security platform, with 100% market share at FBI, CIA, White House, Congress, Department of Defense, major consultancies and major investment banks. In contrast, iPhone has security vulnerabilities. See how it compares against the iPhone and Microsoft Mobile platforms (.pdf).
These are my top 20 reasons. Want more? Contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
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COMMENTS
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestYes I agree with you Wandia. Blackberries are great. We use them exclusively for cost savings, flexibility and worldwide support. And one can drop the phone and it will keep working which is more than you can say for IPhone. Lol! Ever noticed when you are holding a bunch of things and one thing drops, that one thing is always your phone? For a klutz that me, that's a huge bonus:-)
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestIt is clear that for many users, a Blackberry will be better and for many other users an iPhone will be the device of choice. It all depends on personal choice and whether the above points matter to each user. Some want an expandable memory, more robust email platform and others prefer a better media experience, a better, more intuitive browser, and only one place to shop for apps.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestHaving recently switched from a blackberry to an iPhone, have to agree that the BB had MUCH better calendar functions over the iPhone.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestFrankly quite a few of these advantages are debatable, the only one that really counts for me is security. For a business smartphone there's no amount of features that can make up for a broken security model.
The iPhone was hacked within weeks and despite the dozens of security fixes since 1.0, it continues to be easily hacked. In contrast, the Blackberry OS hasn't seen a hack 'in the wild' in its 10 years of existence.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestMany of these points are nit picking. None address the slick iPhone interface, App-store advantage and overall experience of using an iPhone vs. any other device.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestBlackberry also has thousands of free apps. I guess the comparison is that the iPhone has something like 60,000+ applications in total, whereas Blackberry has 2,000+ in AppWorld (and many more available outside AppWorld?). Ultimately, however, it's hard to measure quality vs. quantity. That said, Blackberry has got some work to do here...
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestRemember that AppWorld launched April 1, 2009 -- a relatively long time after Apple's AppStore.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestBB had great market lead and with their first phone apple took away the BB market share in a big way!
Now BB is playing catch up to a computer company
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestDespite all your posturing, the proof of the pudding is in the price of the stock.
Appl is twice the price of RIMM but is only off about 35 or so points from the high, whereas rimm is down about 60 points from the high.
Tough to argue with those numbers. rimm is still trying to contact Dr Ehrlich to find that magic bullet.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestYou mention skype on Blackberry. Has there been an official release from Skype for Blackberry? Not yet.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestMost of the genuine advantages of Blackberry are really about the carrier and that won't last forever. The fact that Blackberry is available on other carriers has been its saving grace. If iPhone had been on other carriers from launch, Blackberry wouldn't have had time to develop its "me too" offerings and would have lost an even bigger chunk of what it has.
Blackberry has failed to significantly innovate in at least 5 years. Apple manages something innovative with every OS release. It will be considerably easier for Apple to add the few features which Blackberry has over the iPhone than it will be for Blackberry to come out with something new the iPhone doesn't have; RIM will be busy for quite a while just trying to duplicate iPhone's features.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestThe APIs and development tools Apple make available for developers is incredibly superior to every other mobile platform (although Palm's WebOS looked promising). This one element may prove impossible for RIM to match and will probably be the most "sustainable" fuel for iPhone market expansion after it has saturated the "I just want an iPhone" market.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestI've dropped my iPhone a zillion times...it's fine.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
Guest@Joshua - Consider yourself the exception, not the rule. I think 90% of my friends with iPhones have shuttered screens.
Posted On
%b %29, %2011Posted By
GuestYou can remotely wipe you iphone if it's stolen and you can find your iphone via your computer if it's lost... I'd say that's a pretty big advantage of the iPhone over blackberry.
Posted On
%b %01, %2011Posted By
GuestNice! I'm a blackberry babe too - felt old school til I read this. Have to start checking out some of those features (but I DEFINITELY agree on pricing and plans)
Posted On
%b %06, %2011Posted By
GuestFor me the full qwerty keyboard is a huge advantage. It allows me to type messages quickly and with minimal errors. I tried iphone and touchscreen sent me right back to blackberry.
Posted On
%b %06, %2011Posted By
GuestThere was actually a study performed to compare accuracy of the touchscreen versus the push-button keyboard, and the error rate of the touchscreen was significantly higher... and they found for most users, the tactile feel of the Blackberry physical keyboard are preferred over a virtual touchscreen keyboard like that of the iPhone.
Posted On
%b %06, %2011Posted By
GuestBlackberry just makes solid phones that simply work... A lot has been made about the issue of dropped calls, especially on the iPhone 4. This has partially to do with the iPhone 4's antenna design and, until recently, its availability only on the AT&T network. With the Blackberry, there are no such issues with its performance as a cell phone.
Posted On
%b %26, %2012Posted By
GuestWhy are you even bringing up the idea of using a smartphone while driving? I can only imagine how many accidents and deaths this has caused.
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