I am now officially a belt-case wearing BlackBerry drone (the shame!). My manager approved my request for a wirelessly-connected corporate device, but our IT thugs will only allow Research In Motion's BlackBerry handhelds to have access to the corporate mail server. The IT guy received my new BlackBerry 8830 on a Friday, and had it all set up for me the following Monday.
How do you reset this thing?
It worked great for most of the first day, but suddenly stopped updating late in the afternoon. No matter what I did, it would not re-connect and update my mail. I immediately thought of the universal Windows Mobile cure-all—the soft reset. Unfortunately, the 8830 doesn't have a reset button.
I called tech-support. They walked me through several troubleshooting steps—things I had already tried. Then the tech-support person informed me that I would need to—you guessed it—reset the unit.
"How?" I asked.
"You need to remove the battery on the back," was her reply. The back of the thing has a square-shaped, high-tech button that looks like it opens a door to an alternate universe. I pushed it and nothing happened. I pushed it and dragged downward—nothing. I informed her it would not budge. She told me to keep trying, even though I warned her I was squeezing, pressing, and prying so hard I was sure I would break it. She told me not to worry; it was a "tough little guy." Finally a crack appeared that I could get my nail under and work the bottom panel off; all this effort just for a reset. The main reason I have this device is because of the e-mail push capability, which worked fine for a few hours, and then not so great until the reset.
Simple user interface, less capable applications
Windows Mobile could take a lesson from both Palm and RIM, and pack smart features into a simple interface. I have been able to figure out most BlackBerry features without cracking the manual. It has a snappy media player, a Web browser, a built-in mapping/navigation tool, and of course productivity apps like Memopad (similar to Notes) and a few decent extras. Unfortunately, the capabilities of these apps pale in comparison to their Windows Mobile equivalents. The browser is not as good as IE Mobile, and the unit has no real GPS capability, so the mapping capabilities are about the same as Google's. RIM's standard thumbpad-keyboard is a necessity (IMHO) for a mobile message platform, but it's smaller and harder to use than the one on my iPAQ (one of the things HP got right in their Mobile Messenger series). The PIM items like tasks, contacts, and calendar were all nicely synced to my Exchange data, and have so far stayed in stride. So then, why exactly will I keep and continue to use my Windows Mobile device?
I'll keep my Windows Mobile device, thanks
I'm forced to use the BlackBerry because of work, but will continue to use my Windows Mobile device for a variety of reasons. First of all, I'm dependent on the familiar Windows Mobile interface, particularly the Start menu navigation and the capabilities of the built-in applications. With the BlackBerry, if you aren't familiar with the icons, you have to hunt through them constantly. The document viewer on the BlackBerry opens e-mail attachments for many documents, but it does so in a tiny little display that would have an owl squinting. In addition, there is no document integration or editing capability native to the device. There's no Word or Excel Mobile, and no dedicated File Explorer to peruse files and documents saved on the device's paltry 16 MB of storage space (48 MB total, but 32 MB is occupied by the installed programs).
On the plus side, the BlackBerry's attachment viewer will open a PDF document without third-party software. And the battery-life, power-save, and startup features of the 8830 are frankly amazing (although annoying at times). The device starts up in a flash and goes days and days without recharging, but the screen turns itself off constantly. Finally, I haven't had to reset it again (in over a week using it all day, every day) and I'm keeping my fingers crossed about this.
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