Fuck all that carrying keyboards s**te. My old K750i does everything I want a phone to do, and it's possible to send a text far faster on it than on any of these trandy phones. I had a Blackberry for a very short while and I never want to even see one again, iphones are steaming piles of AppleShite? and I just don't understand the appeal beyond the ability to get the internet on 'em - which is something even the k750i is capable of (in a slightly more limited fashion).
Agree 100% with all that. I have a blackberry because those above me at work say I should have one. In reality, it lives in the glovebox and rarely comes out. I have a K850i that I use as my own phone, which is essentially a K800i/K750i with a couple of extra toys. Does exactly what I want.
I hated the Blackberry when I got it, but it's a very good business tool, *if* you need push email and instant desktop calendar sync. If you don't, then you don't need a Blackberry.
As for the iPhone, it gets slated by people who have a bias against anything made by Apple because some bloke down the pub or writing for a Windows magazine told them Apple kit is crap.
With the only downside to that being that, because it's an iPhone, you have to run iTunes, which is a big steaming pile of uber-resource-hogging s**te. Something that, even when I've got around to plugging my new (to me) PC in and transferred everything over, I'll still want to be aware of, 'cos it's all too easy to upgrade to a better computer with a faster processor/more RAM etc etc, and think "this is great, this'll handle anything you chuck at it", and before long you've chucked enough stupidly-resource-hungry apps at it that it ends up being every bit as slow as the previous one. I'd much rather get something that didn't do that.
Thing is, most "average" PC users have something relatively modern, don't stretch it too much in terms of multiple browser tabs/too many applications running at any one time, and won't notice how much something like iTunes hogs memory and the like. It's been particularly highlighted for me 'cos, admittedly, my machine is a bit antiquated (P3/450, 384MB RAM, XP Pro), but it still manages to run most stuff, including other media players, just fine. Granted, those media players might be more stripped down, back-to-basics, more specific use type programs (Winamp and Ace Media Player) as opposed to the "does most things"-ness of iTunes, but the simple fact is - these things manage fine, and iTunes can easily feel like it's struggling. Massively so with videos - even if I try playing the odd video podcast on the standalone QuickTime player, it struggles like f*ck, but if it's something I've found a codec for, and have got Ace Media Player playing it as smooth as anything.
In short, if I had a P4 machine with a bit more RAM then I wouldn't notice, but having had iTunes running on a more s**te machine, it just highlights how greedy it is.
Someone had the strange thought that because I'm the BES admin, I'm supposed to need it and be contactable at all time. The flaw in that being that if the BES is down, they can't email me anyway. Anyway, I've not had a single urgent mail or call on it in 7 months though, so it usually gets left in my bag or car and I check it occasionally. If there's "do it now" emergencies at work, I always get called - everyone had my personal number before I got the BB, so I prefer it that way
It's a great buisness tool, I like the UI and it's substantially built. I've dropped it more times than I care to remember and it's still all working perfectly, as is the K850i. I can even bend down to stroke my cats safely with it in a shirt pocket ;-)
Nowt against Apple here. I'd like a Macbook but I can't bring myself to spend the money on one yet.
That's like saying 'Word is a huge, resource-hungry application, but Text Edit (or whatever it's called) works fine'.
I give up. You either 'get' iTunes, or you don't - but most people who don't 'get' it tend to be those jumping on the anti-Apple bandwagon - despite it being the most advanced and featured media player / file manager application out there.
"Most advanced and featured" = "Most overbloated and resource-hogging"
I 'get' iTunes, I just don't see the need to have everything rolled into one application when 90% of the time you just want to use it as a media player. And you're ignoring the fact that I tried to play a video podcast on QuickTime (which isn't anywhere near as advanced and featured as iTunes) and it was every bit as slow on there (a standalone media player) as on iTunes, despite the fact that when I found the right codec, I managed to view it absolutely fine on Ace Media Player (which, admittedly, is a bare bones media player, but it did the job none of the Apple software could do remotely competently).
If that makes me someone who's jumping on the anti-Apple bandwagon, then fine.....
No, 'cos that's a bollocks argument. I wanted to view a simple video file. iTunes struggled like f*ck to play it, yet is a feature it should be able to do with ease. Ace Media Player managed it without issues.
I couldn't knock up a simple document with a variety of fonts, certain bits done in Bold/Italic/Underline, some bits right/centre/left justified, and the odd table, in Notepad like I can do in Word.
I think iTunes would work a *lot* better if it had one simple media player that could play music and videos, and access stuff that's stored there, and the other separate app being one for burning stuff to CD, importing stuff from CD, exporting stuff to an iPod, downloading newly acquired content (be it paid-for audiobooks/music, or free pod/vodcasts) etc etc.
'cos most of the time if someone's using iTunes whilst at their PC, it's to listen to stuff (or maybe watch the odd video), so all the other features are redundant, and just wasting resources. If it's set to download a few different podcasts as they become available, then just load the file manager type application before you go to bed so it's not running unneccessarily for the rest of the time.
That's the problem - I don't buy my own kit. If work are going to throw a £1500 laptop at me, I'm not likely to spend any of my money on one. If it was my money and I didn't need to use some of the admin tools at work that I'm pretty sure wouldn't run on Mac (though I've never checked) I'd buy one.
MacBooks seem like astonishing VFM compared to the other systems out there. I've just (for interest) specced a laptop from Novatech against a MacBook Pro. The Novatech ended up £500 *more* than the MBP despite having a smaller disk drive (160GB vs 250GB) and a slower processor (2.4 vs 2.5 Ghz).
The headline price on a PC system is always lower. Novatech quote their laptops at around £200 cheaper than the MBPs for example. But then to get the same spec you have to pay £££s, even the OS is extra at Novatech.
I tried using iTunes when I got an iPod but found it was all easier to do and much, much quicker in Winamp - and my PC isn't a heap of s**te, by quicker I mean, it was quicker to do what I wanted cos Winamp just had it all there and took out the fancyness of it, so I could just drag and drop my tunes.
Then when I got my iPhone I had to use iTunes because Winamp, like many 3rd party or after market iPod things, doesn't support iPod Touch or iPhone because apparently instead of just a file structure they have a full OS on or something, I dunno, I just accepted that I had to use iTunes - but then I had to use iTunes anyway to jailbreak it :-) Once I'd turned all the auto update/auto sync/manage my library options off so I knew it couldn't duff up my jailbroken iPhone with a nice fresh dose of firmware 2.0 it was ok.
I got the impression that if I'd *always* used it, from way back, it would be a lot better cos for a start I wouldn't have to wait for it to media files to it's library heh, and also, I wouldn't have any little niggles in the names and stuff - for example an accidental double space or something gives me another artist. But anyway, it was only an 8gb iPhone so it didn't take me too long at all to put songs on it - which I've just realised I left on for Mr H hehe - were you happy to find a nice selection of Blink182, Offspring, Sum41, Greenday etc etc :-D?
I gave it a whirl, I prefer Winamp for use with my 80gb Classic just probably 'cos I've always used Winamp so I'm used to it, but using iTunes wasn't so bad - it was perfectly fast enough, sure CPU and memory use was quite high but it's not like I needed it all for anything else. I was still able to use IE, Windows Mail, Live Messenger etc all at the same time whilst it searched out all my media files - including the backup of them all hehe! Luckily I noticed that part way through, so I just cancelled, emptied the library, and added my music folder alone to be searched.
Aye, there was a thing on the gadget show a month or so back where they compared the Blackberry and it's competitors. They had James Kahn, one of the Dragons Den 'Dragons' - as he's owned a Blackberry for many years and he reckoned life and business was impossible without it. They reviewed it then he agreed he wouldn't change cos there was no point, and the Blackberry sells the most because it's the best.
Not to the same scale as a notebook or larger sized keyboard, it isn't.
Nope. With my wireless keyboard, my typing is the same speed and accuracy as with my notebook or desktop machine. Better, it's just as accurate and rapid after over an hour at it.
That's only part of the BlackBerry's abilities. Shoot; my Treo does push email quicker than our BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and as everybody knows the BES is quick.
Where the BlackBerry has traditionally scored is in how robust the device is (both hardware and software) how long the device goes without running out of power. Because most BlackBerry users are basically too important to learn how to do techie things like plugging it in every night to recharge.
The Pearl eroded some of the above, as the pearl bit hasn't been very reliable, plus battery life has taken a real knock. Whilst they're not very elegant from a looks perspective, the "BlueBerry" was probably the finest BlackBerry device from a corporate users' perspective.
I like the way the BlackBerry "just works" pretty much right out of the box. I decided to run a PalmOS device because I'm techie enough to get enter in all those complicated numbers and passwords* and plug it in every so often.
*From the end users perspective.
Maybe. It's a beautifully built piece of kit, especially the second generation, but it doesn't bring much to the party other than a vulnerable touch-sensitive screen and a novel way of working the device.
I'm not just writing this because you have one, but the iPhone's biggest problem is similar to the Audi TT - it's the people who buy 'em and proclaim that they're the best thing in the world, ever.
I recharge my 8110 pearl once a week maybe. It's always on, and probably receives 100+ emails per day. I do occasionally reply using it I might use it to send a few texts if my other phone is elsewhere and i probably use it for 4 or 5 10 min calls a week. When I go up on long journeys I prefer to take it over anything else because the battery lasts *ages* compared to anything else I've used recently, even if using the music player part of it. I took it to the US recently, used it for 10 hours on the way there, charged it up again though it was only 1/2 flat, then used it for a week and most of the way back on the plane. Camera is s**te though, and people seem to think "wanker" as soon as they clock you've got a blackberry. It's like BMWs used to be..
For our end users, it's just fantastic that it does that.
If I'd got one, I'd have smashed the screen by now, probably more than once. It looks nice and the UI is very nice, but I don't like touch screen things at all. My missus wants one, but I've got to flog this 8GB Nokia N95 first.
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