Blackberry bold...any good? Alternatives?

[Spud1]

Hey ho,

This weekend my beloved 2G iPhone finally bit the dust..well, has its screen crushed to little pieces *somewhere* between the club and my house. Bad news for me..the phone just about works but it needs replacing..and preferably without the £139 replacement charge from apple.

The phone was unlocked and I was running it on orange..and luckily I have just become eligible for a Band 4 upgrade with Orange.

So, i'm looking at what I can get (the upgrade team have basically told me to pick any phone), on Orange (need to stay with them for various reasons).

Key features for me will be:

MS Exchange support (mail/cal/contacts)
Full email client
3g, Wifi, Bluetooth
Some form of querty keyboard is ideal

Phone will mainly be used for business - email, text messages and light browsing, with some multimedia usage.

Really the only phones that I can see on the orange site which fit the bill here are the BlackBerry Bold, or the HTC Touch HD..possibly the Nokia E71 but I have not looked into that phone as yet.

So I am after any opinions on the above two phones...I like the look of the blackberry and feature wise it has everything I need (apart from large touch screen!), BUT I am concerned by the keyboard - not sure if I will get on with it. I love the look and featureset of the Touch HD too...but I know it has GPS issues, and the fact that it is a resistive screen would definitely become frustrating over the next 18 months.

So..any other options? Or is the Bold a good choice do you think?

[nichomach]

The E71 is a cracking phone, and later versions of Mail for Exchange are significantly better especially WRT support for corporate address books. That said, subfolders are not handled well, or at least weren't last time I looked. I use an HTC device myself, although only a Touch Dual. That's been great, and if I had the option of a free Touch HD, I'd bite their hands off.

[Funkstar]

Agreed on the Touch HD if it's available.

A Blackberry can't sync with Exchange without running a seperate Blackberry server in there as well.

[Spud1]

Will have a proper look at the E71..thanks nicho

Funkstar - Will be running BPS express for it so should not be a problem if I go for the bold

Looking more seriously at the Touch HD at the moment...its just that screen thats really getting to me..all resistive ones seems rubbish after using an iphone for a year

[Spud1]

Just to update this thread....I decided to throw a bit of a curveball in the end!

Actually going to move from orange after speaking to their rude customer service people again today...cancelling on monday and paying the disconnection charge (just the last 3 months line rental ), and moving to o2.

O2 have offered me a HTC Touch Pro (XDA Serro) on the same deal as orange were giving me (35/mo with loads of texts/mins)..so although this means I have to pay for the phone, I am getting a much nicer phone which has a full qwerty keyboard and exchange integration

Good news all round really, just wish I didn't have to fork out for the new phone..c'est la vie though

[charger]

I would have gone for the xperia x1 if you were gonna switch to o2, a little more compact than the touch pro and better build quality and looks imho. basically is the same as a touch pro but with those added benefits. make sure u gotta a data package if u intend on using email, otherwise ur bills gonna be huge!

[SammEl]

I would have gone for the xperia x1 if you were gonna switch to o2, a little more compact than the touch pro and better build quality and looks imho. basically is the same as a touch pro but with those added benefits. make sure u gotta a data package if u intend on using email, otherwise ur bills gonna be huge!

Brother had a Xperia, he said it is the "crappest" phone he has had in a long time, and he has had near 100 phones, currently has a Blackberry and an iPhone.

[Spud1]

Yeah I had a look at the Xperia - Didn't like it..wasn't really for me. The Touch Pro however really looks like it should suit me

I will see anyway..have 7 day cooling off period to try it out, and worst case I could go for the Touch HD on orange and upgrade through them. I will find out on friday!

[nichomach]

Touch Pro's very good - it may be thicker than the X1, but it's a solid little device. I sorted one for one of our directors, and he really likes it; the QWERTY keyboard's very good, the screen's beautiful, and performance is pretty snappy. Battery life's the achilles heel; though I understand that's been helped a lot by firmware updates.

[Barrichello]

Hey ho,

This weekend my beloved 2G iPhone finally bit the dust..well, has its screen crushed to little pieces *somewhere* between the club and my house. Bad news for me..the phone just about works but it needs replacing..and preferably without the £139 replacement charge from apple.

The phone was unlocked and I was running it on orange..and luckily I have just become eligible for a Band 4 upgrade with Orange.

So, i'm looking at what I can get (the upgrade team have basically told me to pick any phone), on Orange (need to stay with them for various reasons).

Key features for me will be:

MS Exchange support (mail/cal/contacts)
Full email client
3g, Wifi, Bluetooth
Some form of querty keyboard is ideal

Phone will mainly be used for business - email, text messages and light browsing, with some multimedia usage.

Really the only phones that I can see on the orange site which fit the bill here are the BlackBerry Bold, or the HTC Touch HD..possibly the Nokia E71 but I have not looked into that phone as yet.

So I am after any opinions on the above two phones...I like the look of the blackberry and feature wise it has everything I need (apart from large touch screen!), BUT I am concerned by the keyboard - not sure if I will get on with it. I love the look and featureset of the Touch HD too...but I know it has GPS issues, and the fact that it is a resistive screen would definitely become frustrating over the next 18 months.

So..any other options? Or is the Bold a good choice do you think?

I think the bold covers best the key features you are after.

Have had my bold for just over a month and loving it. You basically have a screen the same quality as the iphone, but half the size due to the querty keyboard. The keyboard works fine for me (and i dont have the smallest hands) much easier to use than a touch screen, just feels better. If you will be doing alot of email/work etc then its a clear winner imo.

You asked about GPS issues with the Touch hd, i dont know about that but the bold works perfect with both the standard gps as well as the substantially better google maps. Can honestly say its the best phone/email handheld device i have ever used (and i did have a iphone for a few months a while back as well)