vB Easy Archive - Treo, Blackberry, or iphone?

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Treo, Blackberry, or iphone?
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Posted by: wylofr

I mainly use phone for business operations, and I do use an older treo from time to time but I'm looking to upgrade. Really the only features I'm heavily concerned with are the ability to access contact info quickly, send and receive email easily, the occasional conference call, and voicemail control (I know some allow you to read voicemail as a text message? I'm definitely curious about that feature). I'm leaning towards another treo, since I'm somewhat familiar with the interface and the iphone never struck me as a business man's phone. But, you're welcome to convince me otherwise.

Posted by: Evan

Who's Treo? OOOOO... Treo. Man, i have not heard that name in years.

I'd go with blackberry. Treo runs WM, which is a pretty... boo boo OS. You are looking for a business phone, so Blackberry is the answer for you. I have all sorts of PDA phones (Kaiser, Blackberries, and I did have the iPhone for a brief moment). I spent enough time with all of them to say... my fav. is bb, second would be the Kaiser, and third is the iphone. They're all very good phones (hardware wise), but OS wise... eh, I like BB OS the most. Second is the iPhone's OS.

But the iPhone isn't heavily geared towards business use, though.

And voicemail to text is a provider feature. You have to pay extra I think.

Posted by: MDAUSER99

Blackberry is the best business-class phone with PDA features you listed. It works best with an Exchange-based email service, which might require you to involve your IT department to get that working properly. I use an outsourced Exchange service provider and you can go that route also if you are a small business. Specifically, I'd recommend the Blackberry Curve or one of it's variants....usually model 83xx, with the xx varying by carrier.

The voice mail to text feature is available via several third parties out there...just google "Voicemail to Text Service" and you'll get plenty of listings, most of which work with any carriers voice mail service and any email address, some better than others obviously. You may, however, be referencing the iPhone's "Visual Voicemail" feature offered via AT&T. That isn't really voice-mail to text...it's simply a way to pull up a list of all your current voice mails and listen to them in whatever order you want on your phone. It lets you "see" the voice mails visually, but doesn't do any voice-to-text conversion.

The iPhone is "cool" and a great convergence device if iPod features are top of your priorities, but it's way behind almost every other smartphone out there when it comes to wireless synchronization of mail, appointments, contacts and such. Good phone, novel...but not the workhorse you might require.

For perspective, I've been a heavy Windows Mobile, Blackberry (Pearl, 8800, Curve) and now iPhone user for past 3 years. I've not touched a Treo in a long time.

Posted by: DubDub

I concur with the BB. The iPhone is more of a consumer device.

Posted by: EChid

Both the BB Curve and Treo 750 are good candidates for you. The Blackberry OS is stable and good, but I find it has a lot of annoying menu's that you have to dive through. The WinMo OS has a better design, but its not quite as stable. Palm did a really good job with the WM and added some nice features like threaded messaging to align it pretty closely with the BB OS. I would recommend that you go to the store and find working models of each and try them out. See which is more natural for you.

Posted by: jaustin

what about a nokia N95?

I would personally go with treo as I dislike the BB setup.

Posted by: EChid

The N95 is not really a business phone, its more multimedia. Emailing and such isn't as easy without a QWERTY keyboard. However, if you wanted to suggest a Nokia, the E61i would be a good option.

Posted by: jontymisra

Look into E90/E61i. They support BB connect, offer a non-boring OS (S60) and are quite powerful in terms of multimedia and business related categories.

Posted by: Doctor Whom

If accessing contact info quickly is important to you, then I suggest you go with the BB. People may think of me as an Apple fanboy, but I have to admit that the iPhone's contacts feature is less powerful than that of the BB or the Treo. Treos are nice when they work, but all of mine have had battery problems that I haven't experienced with any other brand.

Posted by: wylofr

Thanks to all who wrote in with this help...I've noted all the model numbers you list here and I think the next step will be to just try out as many of the phones as possible before making a selection. I am, however, after reading this, leaning heavily towards the blackberry and I've almost entirely ruled out the iPhone as a business tool, although my wife may still be getting one as a birthday gift, haha.

I did as you suggested and googled the vmail to text feature, there's actually a comparable feature with gotvmail's service called Play it on Mobile -- I can basically get and play all my vmail without calling in, which is the essential thing. Has anyone used their advanced 1800 before, while we're on the subject?

Posted by: JonnyBruha

Quote:

Originally Posted by EChid

The N95 is not really a business phone, its more multimedia. Emailing and such isn't as easy without a QWERTY keyboard. However, if you wanted to suggest a Nokia, the E61i would be a good option.

Lies! T9 is the fastest and it is its own spell checker! I wouldn't want to send an important email on a QWERTY keyboard that would take me forever and probably be filled with errors.

Posted by: EChid

Well, its all a matter of perspective. I personally find QWERTY faster and less frustrating.

Posted by: JonnyBruha

Race? Yeah?

Posted by: EChid

Except everyone goes a different speed, everyone prefers a different setup and everyone works differently. I'm just sharing my experience. Get over it.

Posted by: JonnyBruha

http://www.iphonetypingtest.com/

Let me know if that site works on your 755 or the Touch...and post your results if it does.

Edit: Scratch 755.

Posted by: EChid

My Touch doesn't even have real QWERTY

EDIT: Oops, how 'bout that...doesn't work. Oh well, I guess will just have to recall that this is a matter of PERSONAL OPINION.

Posted by: Milenkod

Quote:

Originally Posted by wylofr

I mainly use phone for business operations, and I do use an older treo from time to time but I'm looking to upgrade. Really the only features I'm heavily concerned with are the ability to access contact info quickly, send and receive email easily, the occasional conference call, and voicemail control (I know some allow you to read voicemail as a text message? I'm definitely curious about that feature). I'm leaning towards another treo, since I'm somewhat familiar with the interface and the iphone never struck me as a business man's phone. But, you're welcome to convince me otherwise.

I assume you're on AT&T...then I would say the BB Curve. You'll assimilate to the OS fairly easily from an older Garnet Palm-OS based Treo. The BB will be a lower up-front equipment cost but you'll have to subscribe to some sort of Blackberry plan eventually costing you more in the long-run.

The Treo 750 is a good candidate as it's 3g (if you have HSDPA/UMTS in your area) but it's a Windows-Mobile OS. You'd just need a regular data plan provided your corporate email is POP3 or Exchange Server.

Posted by: JonnyBruha

Quote:

Originally Posted by EChid

My Touch doesn't even have real QWERTY

EDIT: Oops, how 'bout that...doesn't work. Oh well, I guess will just have to recall that this is a matter of PERSONAL OPINION.

Sure, use what you like. I prefer to text with the faster method.

Posted by: iamthedudeman

You will probably want to go with the Blackberry since it has a Querty. Forget the iphone, no good for business, more of a after business toy for now, that may change in the future.

If you don't need a querty, go with the Nokia E65 if you want to get to contacts quickly. Small, thin, easy to handle. The dedicated keys come in real handy in more situations than I can count. Voip for overseas calls when on the road couldn't be easier on the E65. Mute, contacts, conference calls all have dedicated keys for quick and easy access. If you definately need a querty, the Blackberry if you don't , E65 is the way to go.

I have a business account with Dell and got it discounted since I ordered so many of them. I don't know what you do if you have a business account with them or not to get the discount but they are shipping for 359.99 unlocked. Best business phone on the market, by a large margin in my opinion. Here's the link, check it out.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...19&sku=A1182796

Almost forgot. if you need a Querty, the Nokia E61i is hard to beat, I didn't like the size, T9 doesn't bother me and the E65 is way smaller, but if that doesn't matter to you it can also be had unlocked from dell.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...19&sku=A1152187

Posted by: Milenkod

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonnyBruha

http://www.iphonetypingtest.com/

Let me know if that site works on your 755 or the Touch...and post your results if it does.

Edit: Scratch 755.

I typed 15 words that extrapolated out to 38 words/miunute. I used the 'free-form' test with my Treo 700p.

Posted by: JonnyBruha

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milenkod

I typed 15 words that extrapolated out to 38 words/miunute. I used the 'free-form' test with my Treo 700p.

Aw, that's cute.

Posted by: Milenkod

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonnyBruha

Aw, that's cute.

I wonder how fast one can type on an iPhone or T9 input????

Posted by: EChid

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonnyBruha

Aw, that's cute.

Aw, that's obnoxious.

Posted by: JonnyBruha

Does anybody else want to try it out and post before I do?

Posted by: EChid

Go wild, we're all waiting with bated breath.

Posted by: JonnyBruha

Well just for that, I'm gonna wait another day.

Posted by: JonnyBruha

I normally average around 50 WPM or so, but I have a screenshot of my all-time fastest. Note the text is still perfect. There seems to be an error on that site for anything not using an iPhone.

Posted by: EChid

Great score (not being sarcastic), but this proves:
a) that you prefer T9 and it works for you
b) ....?

Posted by: JonnyBruha

I imagine B) would be that it's faster than other methods, as proven by others inability to reach such speeds. So, the complete list of advantages of T9 over QWERTY is..
A) Faster
B) Ease of use (one handed and/or without looking)
C) Built-in dictionary to prevent errors

It loses in terms of the learning curve people people need to get over to use it and not being "right at your fingertips" like a familiar QWERTY would be, but for actually spitting the text out, it wins.

Posted by: jontymisra

^^ QWERTY works only for english for me. Sure there are other Euro languages on it. Not mine, so QWERTY has the edge for me.

Posted by: SRDV

blackberry, of course. i used the 8310 but returned it because i don't need to access data (which makes the $30/mo expensive). otherwise, it's a well rounded phone. and no, not windows mobile, please!