vB Easy Archive - 8525 vs BB 8800

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8525 vs BB 8800 - Quality
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Posted by: Kadin

Ok, I know these two phones are built around two different platforms but I'd like to get some info from people that have used both.

I have the BB8800 now with Cingular and I love the device. The keyboard is a tad small for my fingers and that's really the only hang up. I bought my g/f the Pearl and we use the BB Messenger quite a bit since we both have unlimited data. But we could go back to text messages since we have 1000 with the data.

My concern is that I really want something with Wifi and a larger k/b. I've heard from some friends where I used to work (Cingular) that the 8525 quality is a little on the bad side. Can anyone back this up? I'm not at ALL trying to bash on it, just need some honest impressions on the quality of the device compared to what I have.

I really like the Push capabilities but I've heard you can do that similarly on the 8525. I'm just torn and I don't know which way to go...

Posted by: MI_canuck

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kadin

My concern is that I really want something with Wifi and a larger k/b.

You've pretty much answered your own question with that statement. Based on that, there is only one choice and one choice only from Cingular, and that's the 8525. ;-) Wonderful device - I really love mine!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kadin

I've heard from some friends where I used to work (Cingular) that the 8525 quality is a little on the bad side. Can anyone back this up? I'm not at ALL trying to bash on it, just need some honest impressions on the quality of the device compared to what I have.

Actually, I'd rate the quality pretty high. It's a solidly built unit. The fact that it's a slide out, may make it seem like it's not as solid, because of the moving parts. But I think that is just perception, not lack of quality. The batter door is maybe a bit flimsy, but it stays in place, and super easy to access, unlike some other devices where the battery covers are VERY difficult to open, such as the Blackjack and Treo 750.

Go to your local store and try one out. You have 30 days to play with one, and test it out, before you'd be nailed with any penalties or termination fees.

peace

Posted by: Kadin

Thanks so much for responding. I like the positive response and I'm really thinking I'll do the trial exchange.

Anyone else care to offer their experience with the 8525 both good and (hopefully not much) bad.

Thanks!

Posted by: JR369

i love my 8525. windows mobile is so versitile and you can find lots of apps (for free) and plugins for a different features. the touch screen feature is awesome. you can set up more than one e-mail account and the slide out keyboard is wonderful; ithink of it as the adult sidekick 3 being that all teenagers have that phone. give yourself 2 weeks and you will type emails and texts superfast

Posted by: rbg0110

I sent the OP a pm, I have an 8525 and I really like it. I've added several of the treo today screen plug-ins to help make things a little quicker. However I miss having a static QWERTY keyboard. I'd gladly sacrifice screen real estate to have the keyboard back.
The posters have been correct so far, wm is a lot more versatile in the programs and the things you can run on it. The build quality is great, and everyone says the actual phone quality is excellent. The battery life is good, it just depends how much you use the device.

Posted by: ieee1394

I've owned the 8525 for about 1.5 months now and here's my opinion.

I researched the device for quite some time both here and at other forums like the one at xda-developers. The attraction for me is that I really need something that has the flexibility to run terminal apps and other network/sysadmin type utilities. I also liked the wider screen on the 8525. I did look at the BlackJack and have played with various BB's. Finally, I needed something that could handle push email.

Well, unfortunately, although the 8525 should be able to handle push email (once it's configured properly on Cingular/ATT's network, etc.) they experience so far has been....let me put it this way: I'm about this ---> <--- close to ebay'ing this POS. It cannot maintain a constant data connection.

That's right. This isn't even an 8525 problem per se, but apparently it affects Treos and probably just about every other WM5/WM6 device out there on Cingular, Orange and even T-Mobile.

I've had connections stay up for as long as 4 hours and as little as 1 hour. But the point is this: for push you need to have a data connection up 24/7/365. To make matters worse, when the connection drops the 8525 can't tell. It doesn't tear down the connection properly. It just sits there and times out on every outbound connection. If at the very least the connection dropped properly you could set the push client to check in every 15 or 30 minutes (or whatever) to re-initiate connection. But like I said, this doesn't happen...the unit THINKS it's still connected (with a cute little G icon in the signal strength icon).

As an experiment, I have also tried installing GPRS Keep Alive which basically sends an outbound ping every 30 seconds. Doesn't help. Connection still disappears.

This is a bit of a rant right now (I suppose) but I'm just being totally honest with my experience. You'd think a $500 smart phone with a $100+ monthly plan would buy you some sort of reliability circa 1998...but you'd be mistaken. Stick with a BlackBerry. There's a reason why they're so popular: they work ALWAYS.

Posted by: cmascatello

Not sure what the cause of your Push email issuesare but I have had the 8525 for a month or so and it works perfectly (as didmy previous 8125 before it). In fact, I had an Exchange sync going for 3 days straight with no drops in South Korea. Any chance that this a problem with your Exchange server or its connection (vs. the GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA)?

Posted by: birdie1

Not sure why you are having the push problems. Mine works great and I am not even in a 3G area. I will say that the 8525 is not the email machine that a blackberry is, but my needs are for other features that don't do well on the BB. My push works as fast as my wife's BB pearl.
Hope that helps. The HTC TyTN (8525) is a super device.
Darrell

Posted by: mch

They're very different devices. The Blackberry does one thing exceptionally well: messaging. It is designed to do that one thing exceptionally well. RIM has thought of pretty much every detail to optimize the user interface for messaging.

The 8525 is more of a general purpose device. It does many things reasonably well.

I did finally give up on the 8525 due to issues with occasional lockups (dark screen of death). They weren't that frequent, every few days or perhaps once a week, but I use my phone as a "pager" for urgent issues at work. If the phone is sitting in my pocket unresponsive to text messages and incoming calls for a few hours, that's a big deal for me. Hard reset didn't fix it, and the problem was way to intermittant to track down.

By way of comparison, my Blackberry simply works. I've never had to reset it because it wasn't working. Never had to remove the battery to get it to function properly.

Posted by: Ago Vino Verita

Funny, since having a HTC TyTN, which uses a different ROM does not seem to have any problems. The only problems I have had is when I may have try to install some crazy software here and there.

As far as BB Connect, I have installed in on my TyTN and I can guarantee that it does work, however, I have using to test something on a friends account. So I cannot give too much advise on the long term.

As I have mentioned before, I have upgraded my device to WM6 and have been using it for about a week or so and I am quite pleased with it.

I have heard that the Cingular's ROM not to be the best, however changing to something else can be done in minutes.

Quality and all is good and the keyboard quite functional. I myself have had issues with buying phones with too many moving parts just because for me the less moving parts the better. But as I said the phone has performed rather well, including quality.

Posted by: mch

I used to be happy to tinker with devices endlessly to get them to work. Now, I'm happier if I have something that works out of the box.

I'm not saying anyone else should go with a Blackberry over the Tytn/8525. If you like to tinker, want WiFi, and want the multimedia functionality of the Tytn/8525 then it could be a very good choice.

Posted by: JR369

i love this phone this is the best one i had i can do so much with it. i had a treo 650 hated it and found myself surprised to want anothe PDA phone.between the keyboard and media functions had me sold. BTW this phone has the BEST reception of any phone i ever owned i live in a basement and i can actually hold on to a phone call for 20 mins rather than 20 seconds like with my razr, slvr, CU 500, and my Nextels but thats a different story. its feels nice not to have to forward my cell calls to my house

Posted by: ieee1394

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmascatello

Not sure what the cause of your Push email issuesare but I have had the 8525 for a month or so and it works perfectly (as didmy previous 8125 before it). In fact, I had an Exchange sync going for 3 days straight with no drops in South Korea. Any chance that this a problem with your Exchange server or its connection (vs. the GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA)?

It's more likely a cause of the client on my 8525. I'm not using Exchange. But the concept for push is basically the same for whatever the backend is: the server needs to send a notification to the client that the mailbox on the server has changed and its time for a resync.

I'm in a non-UMTS/HSDPA area. When driving around you will often lose signal strength. Obviously, the data connection will get interrupted at that point. But the device should at least disconnect properly when this happens. The thing is that the data connection will hang even if the 8525 is just sitting on my desk (meaning, the signal strength should remain constant).

This will happen in the middle of the night so I'm ruling out network capacity problems.

So here's the question: for those of you that run Exchange or Good or Blackberry successfully on the 8525, are you not experiencing problems when you lose signal (in a parking garage, elevator, etc)? Also, how was your account provisioned? Maybe mine wasn't setup properly, even though the biz support agent didn't seem confused when I asked to have the GPMOBILETERM feature added to my account.

FWIW, my connection has been up for the past 9-10 hours. I've resorted to pinging the 8525 from the server every 30 seconds...but let me tell you, the battery drains pretty darn quickly (I think within 6 hours). Again, BB wins here.

Question: will BB connect still receive mail when the 8525 is in sleep mode?

Posted by: JR369

i just check my mail every so often like every hour or more and i get good battey life but i dunno if that has anything to do with the "increase battery" tweak with HTC tweaks

Posted by: ieee1394

I think mch summed it up best: if you like to tinker, and want something packed with features, then the 8525 is an awesome device. If you want something that just plain works and always works then a BB is what you should be looking at.

Unfortunately, the problem is that for those of us that NEED something with the email capabilities of a BB and the flexibility of a WM5 device, then we're pretty much up the creek right now.

I got my first Pocket PC (I think they were called Palm PC's then) in like 1998. You'd think in all that time Microsoft could improve these things to at least be reliable. I'm disappointed to say that they still suck.

It's like the Zune: if you could reinvent the iPod by just listening to what people want....how is it that a company like Microsoft could come out with a product that falls so woefully short of what the iPod is in the first place??? How is it that WM5 (and WM6) still can't compete with a BlackBerry?

The 8525 (and similar devices) have all the potential to be awesome products but poor integration and a lackluster OS pretty much guarantee that they fall far short of fantastic right now.