BlackBerry Curve; the issues and the concerns.
What makes and issue and what makes a concern? If you are really asking that, congratulations you have no ability to think either outside the box, or figure things out on your own.
Concerns: this that I think RIM should fix, because it may lead to loss of sales, or just irritate a few people.
Issues: things that anger me with the product.
The RIM BlackBerry Curve 83xx (Mine was an 8330 Verizon) is a good smart phone. It has many features that both the Business savvy professional and the average joe who wants a smarter-phone (hence smart phone) will use, but some of those features are too one sided. Other parts of the phone are so horribly done, that even the basic user would be irritated by it. But in the end the device is pretty well rounded.
Verizon's Curve
Issues: The track ball. I Love that track ball. But I don’t like how it works. I found it not only in a very tight location, but it was hard to push down to select quickly without moving the ball and selecting something else. I know this is a problem on many phones, but it really should have been better thought out.
The keyboard. It just is not big enough. I can press the buttons just fine, that is not where the issues lie. I would always press the wrong key what a lot of these companies who make these phones don’t realize is that a curve in a keyboard is done for ergonomics while typing. For example; I HATE THE APPLE KEYBOARD, because it is not only flat, it has no sense of comfort while typing and there is nothing natural about it. But back to the BB. When RIM put the keypad on the Curve, they (haha) curved it. But, they didn’t think about how you are typing with your thumbs, from the SIDE of the phone, not from the base. Many people may not find this an issue, but I very much did.
Concerns: After using BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Danger, BlackBerry is definitely one of the better ones, but absolutely not the best. Windows Mobile is about as user friends and advanced as DOS, which means that not only do you have to be on the design team to know how to use it right, but you also have to put up with crashing, screw ups, random deletions, and overall crap quality. That is my least favorite. Palm just feels old. It is ugly, and not the most stable, but does a lot of nice things. Blackberry is my next favorite, cause it does a lot, and looks and works good, but it feels not completed. Symbian is my next because it is great, just doesn’t do enough. And Danger is a nice balance of features, look, and performance.
Who BlackBerrys are perfect for
They are great devices. You may be saying that I am contradicting what I said earlier, but I’m not. There are issues with it, but it is still an above par device. The BlackBerry OS is a great device for people who want the ease of use of a great smart phone that can do a lot of features. The problem is with those features they don’t always do the most advanced features. For example, the web browser. It IS a web browser, and it does technically surf the web, but it doesn’t do it elegantly or with many “tools”. On the other hand, the Sidekick, which I now own, does it much more elegantly then the BlackBerry, but because of the EDGE, it is SOOO SLOW that it kinda ruins the pretty experience. And they say that it does “Real Internet”, but those web pages are modified to scroll just down. And I don’t know about you, but when I want to go to the Inbox on my myspace page, and it takes me 20 or 30 scrolls on the scroll wheel, I would rather switch to the mobile version, instead of doing that.
The other person that the BlackBerry can be perfect for, believe it or not, is the non-techie. This is someone who needs to have the push email, mobile Internet, the possibility to add applications, and access servers and stuff. But above all, it is still going to be a business phone or a very advance personal use phone.
