Re: Blackberry or IPhone

**"* P* L* <l*@hort.net>**

> I travel a lot - as you know, and most is international.  I carry a
> netbook
> with me, but am considering another phone for keeping in touch.  I
> need
> honest opinions on which one I should consider...and bear in mind I
> am not a
> techie so it has to be easy to use.  Thanks much and appreciate it!

Hi Donna, 

I'm having a similar struggle, but between an Android and iPhone.
I've had a Blackberry Bold (9000) for three years now and absolutely
hate it. 

However...

Blackberry does some things well.  It's great if you're connecting
to a mail server that runs Exchange and has a Blackberry Enterprise
Server (BES); otherwise you need to connect through the RIM mail 
service which means giving them your username and password -- all 
of your email will be downloaded to the RIM server and then pushed
to your phone.  For me, this violated some non-disclosure agreements
and security policies, so I couldn't use my Blackberry to read 
email.

But, like I said, BES is great if your service provider has it, and
most businesses like it because you can compartmentalize access to
data fairly easily.

The iPhone will talk to Exchange servers or IMAP servers natively,
meaning that it doesn't need to go through anyone else's servers.
This means that your data is downloaded directly to your phone. 
If you're talking to an enterprise server you can probably provision
your phone as well, so it can be wiped remotely if stolen, etc.

Android phones are very similar.  The recent CarrierIQ debaucle has
made me rethink them, although Apple used CarrierIQ on their phones
for a while too.  (For those unfamiliar with CarrierIQ, it was found
that they took copies of all emails, text messages, location data,
button presses, etc. from your phone; in some cases they were shared
with law encforcement).

Probably my biggest problem is which carrier to go with.  AT&T has
been absolutely horrible for us, but US Cellular has been great.  Of
course, the iPhone isn't available through US Cellular, so if I want
one I'm stuck with a horrible provider again.

The Motorola Razr 4G sounds very promising -- Sprint is the only 
network with true 4G speeds (AT&T is just compressing on a 3G network
to get faster speeds, but it's *not* 4G).

I hope I didn't just complicate things further.  :D

Chris

P.S.  I apologize for the disjointed and stilted writing; I keep 
      getting interrupted and this email has taken an hour to complete
      from start to finish.  I decided I'd better just send it as is.  

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