Blackberry Storm vs Apple iPhone

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Well, over this holiday season I watched all the Blackberry Storm and Apple iPhone ads on the television and glanced at my 3 year old Blackberry 7130e and I just couldn’t take it anymore! I bought my wife an iPhone for Christmas with the assumption I would try it out and see if I wanted to buy one for myself. I have so many friends who rave about their iPhone, and it just looks so cool I was about to jump right it and switch from my Blackberry to the marketing buzz of becoming an iphone owner. So what did I decide after trying out the iPhone for a couple of weeks?

Since I primarily use my Blackberry as an e-mail device, this was very important to me. Two HUGE things the iPhone lacks is “push” email technology (with a Blackberry, when you receive an e-mail, it goes right to your Blackberry, with the iPhone, you actually have to open the e-mail application in order for it to download e-mails). And Secondly, the iPhone does not have a Copy and Paste function! Yes, I was absolutely blown away by the fact the you cannot copy and paste part of an e-mail into another application or even the notes section for a contact. As a business user, I often get e-mails where I want to copy part of an e-mail and put it in another e-mail and send it to a different person. Or save part of an e-mail in the notepad or notes section of a contact. If you have an iPhone you cannot do it. For Apple to promote the iPhone as a business tool without having “push” email technology or the ability to copy and paste is absolutely ridiculous!

That is what I based my decision on when I purchased my Storm.

Now that I’ve used both iPhone and the Storm, what are my thoughts??

They both have their pluses and minuses. As a business user, I think the pluses of the Storm far outweigh the negatives. First, what do I like about the iPhone… I love the interface, it looks crisp, colorful, and smooth. I like how you can just flip your finger and quickly scroll through many pages of contacts. The WiFi is great, I can connect to my home wireless router and use it automatically when I’m at home (or a hotel with free WiFi). The media player options are great, using iTunes, you can buy songs, download them and see the CD covers while they are playing. This is a really nice feature. It’s also an iPod, so you can watch videos and listen to music. I found the internet to be a faster on the iPhone than the Storm.

What do I like about the Blackberry Storm? I like the e-mail functionality, it is similar to my previous Blackberry. I like being able to manage when e-mails are being sent to my blackberry through their online manager (i.e. if I’m in the office for a week, I can just not forward any e-mails to my Blackberry). I actually really like the screen, when you gently press on a keyboard letter, it hightlights (but doesn’t choose the letter like the iPhone does). This greatly reduces the number of typing errors over the iPhone. I love that you can go horizontal and get a full QWERTY keyboard (which further reduces typing errors). I’m sorry but I use this for business, I don’t want to be stumbling around the keyboard. The camera is great, plus it comes with a light. You also have the option to take video. I like the ability to replace and upgrade the RAM. As a business user, I’m not going to waste my battery on playing songs while travelling, I’ll use my iPod (or mp3 player), so the media playing ability is probably something I won’t really use. As for the internet, it is nice size screen and very crisp. It did take me some time to get use to using the browser. Once think I also like is the “esc” key, this is very handy!

Final Notes:

For a business user where receiving e-mails when they are sent, the Storm is a clear winner. If you want to play music or videos get an iPod so you don’t waste your battery life (which is not good on either of them). If you want a cell phone on steroids, like to text, e-mail, watch internet content, etc.. the iPhone is a much more trendy choice. I think you’ll learn to love what you have, the fact is my wife loves her iPhone and I love my Storm.

Resources I used:

I found this YouTube comparison very useful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuEerMCAlx0

Jeff Russell