BB user exploring new phone options

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As the title suggests, I'm an avid BB users who's available for upgrade at the moment but am not convinced that BB is the way to go.
What do I like about BB?
1: Push email (it's instant, like really instant - a few seconds after an email is sent, my phone has it - seamlessly - all types of email, gmail and private pop3 accounts
2: BBM - ja, but Whatsapp can replace that.
3: All data included for the price of BIS - let's not go down the route of throttling arguments etc...at the end of the day, BIS will remain uncapped, even if it's throttled.

So, out of things, push email is the most important to me. Data usage on Android does concern me a bit as well. I am sure using wifi at home and work will alleviate most bandwidth use though.

Does the Android OS offer similar push email features?

There seems to be an abundance of Android phones to choose from. Are there are any with a full qwerty keyboard like the BB Bold 9700/9780/9900?

I like the look of the SE Xperia Arc - good phone?

Thanks
 
Stay away from SonyEricsson phones (or any other small companies for that matter). If you want Android (good choice) go with Samsung. If you want a good camera and instant pushmail, look at the N8. It is not android though. It uses symbian which can be customized beyond believe - (that is if you are into stuff like that) My next cell would be the Samsung galaxy note. (will get it in January when I return from Copenhagen)
 
Its a no brainer.

Android on Samsung / Motorola ... There are some with physical keyboards but to be honest,
since i have had touchscreen keyboard (Samsung Galaxy S), I dont know why i was wasting finger energy on some
jammed up crammed up physical keyboard incarnation, and with Swype, i type messages with a few drags of the finger.
 
Get an Iphone

Really just get an iphone. The market is between an iphone and the blackberries, I got an sms from vodacom to say i have to add a data bundle to keep using my blackberry service settings, total rubbish, yet I only used 150mb per month.

So I ditched my fancy BB Bold, and got an iphone instead. The iphone is just soo much better.

Sorry BB but your time has come, and the fact that you're loosing market share soo rapidly, bleh.

I use a wifi hotspot at home and have one at the office, so subscribed to 500mb a month, but that might be too much. Oh also only download your apps from home via the wifi, dont ever download apps when ure on 3g, or well you will regret it when the bill came.
 
Swype type keyboards are amazing. It feels so awkward going back to "pecking" and having to press a key for every letter in a word.
Android's push email from gmail is much much better than on blackberry. I survive fine with a 100mb bundle and wifi at home and at work. My fiance recently got an SGS2 with a 250mb bundle but 3g watchdog is predicting about 150/160mb usage for the month for her (with wifi at home but not at work). I actually worked out on the first day she got her phone we set up whats app and she was chatting with a bunch of people about the new phone and why she moved away from BB etc and she'd used about 100kb on whatsapp. At R2/mb that works out to 22c and on the bundle about 8c for a day of chatting vs R2/day for BIS so basically whatsapp uses nothing. Apps/widgets like news/weather etc refresh periodically but if you root and install droidwall you restrict apps to using data over wifi only.
 
SE Xperia Arc is a great phone. Sure it's not quite as strong as the other flagships but it's still a solid phone and it's camera won it an award in Europe this year. If you're interested and can get it then go for it.

Unfortunately qwerty droids seem to have problems getting in locally. At the moment there's basically only the HTC ChaCha (might be marketed for facebook but it's a solid phone if you ignore that) and perhaps one could still find a HTC Desire Z floating about. Also I'm hoping the new Sony Ericsson mini pro (to replace the the X10 Mini Pro which is super limited by it's QVGA screen) will make a local arrival here not too much further down the line. Then there's also still the great looking Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro but who knows whether that phone will ever arrive locally since SE seem to be really struggling getting it out the door. Hmm other than that there's a rather budget Samsung Galaxy Y Pro which also offers full qwerty and that's basically it. (there are one or two Motorola phones as well but they're so old I won't even mention them). So basically if you want qwerty then your best choice at the moment is the HTC ChaCha.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I'm not sold on getting a keyboard android, just concerned I won't like a full touch screen...I guess because it's just soooo different to what I'm used to.

I've narrowed down my choices to the Galaxy SII or the Xperia Arc. I notice the Arc has only 512MB ram while the SII has 1GB. Will this be noticeable during use? Going purely on looks, the Arc wins by a mile for me personally...the SII looks very boring indeed or is the SII a clear choice for the "people in the know"? I also see that an Arc S model is due to be released before year end (not sure about locally), which kind of puts me off going for the current Arc.

Boring looks but good specs etc of the SII or good looks but settling on spec of the Arc? Turmoil....
 
Don't get hung up on the touch screen thing, you'll get used to it.

Having used Swype, I don't think I can go back to anything else.
 
Well the SGS2 is pretty much accepted as the best phone in the world at the moment so budget permitting it's pretty much always the clear choice. (though the Arc next to the Nokia N8 is the world's best cam phone).
As for the Arc S, it doesn't add much imho, a faster processor and that's it, nothing to shout about and if you play the waiting game there's always going to be something better around the corner like HTC Sensation XE so perhaps once the Arc S arrives locally the rumoured Duo will be more than the current wishful thinking it is and then you'll want to wait for that and so on and so forth. It's not like the current Arc is a slouch even if it's not the fastest kid on the block.
 
SGS II is regarded as the best smartphone at the moment by various websites and reviewers etc. and also sports the best performing hardware. The camera of the Arc is superior however, and the Arc does have very good looks! But the SGS 2 is just overall far superior.

I moved from a BB 9700 to a full touch screen (something I always said I would NEVER do), and in all honesty you get used to it so quickly! Nowadays I actually struggle to type on my dads BB (or any other phone with a keypad). Swype also makes things even easier and faster on an android.

Some touchscreens are however crappy to use, but those are generally the small ones on the low end android devices.

My advice - get the SGS 2! The beautiful screen alone is worth it :)
 
Compared to my desire the camera on the S2 is flippin amazing so I'd love to see how an Arc performs...
 
Push email works instantly well except for a hickup on Cell C's one ip range that they promise us will be fixed by the end of the month.

As for your keyboard concern you can always look at the HTC Cha Cha and I know its on contract at a couple of providers here in SA

htc-chacha.jpg


Personally I would advice against it and rather say go for a 4.3" LCD with a Swipe like keyboard and to be honest I found https://market.android.com/details?id=com.cootek.smartinputv5 to be the best as it has better prediction than Swipe as well as allowing for normal type pecking

On the Data I dont think you need to worry to much if you have data both at home and work, and would probably get by on 100 MB p/m, unless you decide to watch YouTube video's and use podcasts or music streaming.
 
Hmmm, just maybe go to all the cellphone shops and ask around to play with all the phones available. I love my touch screen phone, swype is epic :D. As for email being pushed to the phone, if there is internet on the phone, you will get the emails. Also, I've found the email navigation on android very easy and also powerful to use. I never look at my emails from a pc now because they all set to my phone, which in turn can just move the pictures/whatever to my pc via the network :p.

As for what phone you want, get what ever you'll think you will love. The SE arc will remain beautiful and you won't really feel any performance problems, so unless you'll be grinding a bunch of hardcore apps, the arc is the better option IMO... The Galaxy S2 looks more like a dog :p
 
Crapberry users are cheapskates, so you'll have to look at midrange phones.

Maybe Moto Defy of HTC Desire S.
 
Thanks chaps for the all the advice. I'll try get out today and feel up the Arc and S2. I'm fairly sure I'll adapt to the full touchscreen soon enough.

kingrob said:
Crapberry users are cheapskates, so you'll have to look at midrange phones.
Maybe Moto Defy of HTC Desire S.
Click to expand...

if you're going to join the adults conversation, at least try add something valuable.
 
Spent 5 minutes demonstrating iPhone to a long time Bb user - they went out on Sunday and got iPhone.

Friends' digs - originally 1 iPhone user, 4 Bb users and 1 Nokia user. Now 5 iPhone users and one with Nokia got an iPad.

Enough said...

_Nothing_ beats jailbroken iPhone. Trumps any Android.
 
Thanks PP, I'm familiar with the iPhone, several friends have them, my wife has had one...I never bought into the whole "i" trend...every ipod I've ever had has had the most shocking battery life (I now use a Sony Walkman and the battery lasts 2 weeks between charges) and the iPhone 4 is old now with the 5 around the corner and that will more than likely be way overpriced as usual.
 
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