The Blackberry Smartphone and "Others"

Someone on nairaland recently posted something that made my eyebrows climb as far as my annoyingly receding hairline. Ok the hairline isn’t that bad and – hey!! Stop staring!! Anyway, this interesting post was titled: Weak Points Of Blackberry Phones. Here is the link just in case you want to check it out: http://www.nairaland.com/998154/weak-points-blackberry-phones

The whole idea behind this post was an-allow me to call it sad-attempt to once again ignorantly bad-mouth the blackberry smartphone. Niiggas (people) fear what they don’t understand-Nas (rapper).

One glaringly appalling statement he made was and I quote: “THERE IS NO OTHER THING THAT BLACKBERRY IS PARTICULARLY GOOD FOR, APART FROM BLACKBERRY MESSENGER.”

I cannot begin to emphasize how WRONG this statement is and for the simple fact that it was made leaves me wondering about every degree of knowledge this person holds.

First of all let me just say that I’m not picking sides but let me also say if I did have to choose, I would go for….amebo!!

Now the blackberry smartphone is JUST like every other smartphone. What makes a phone smart? Apart from the fact that it’s more interesting than a lot of people I know ba? Well a smartphone is a device that lets you make telephone calls, but also adds in features that, in the past, you would have found only on a personal digital assistant or a computer--such as the ability to send and receive e-mail and edit Office documents, for example. Did you notice I said nothing about PINGING?

So let’s see…can the blackberry do these? HYFR!! (If you don’t know what this means then you probably shouldn’t ask). So the question arises: apart from PINGING (yep, I’ll keep typing in uppercase…na my keypad), is there really any advantage to having a BB? (Apart from the obvious effisi points it gives ba?). Well the answer is simply YES….and no. confused? (untohhhh *sticks tongue out*)

Ok ok, I’m being serious here (which, for those who know me, is the only way I am) the advantage of the blackberry-and believe me, in Nigeria its only one-is…..wait for it……….UNLIMITED DATA!!!

Think about it, if we put a data cap on BB plans what do we get? In other news, I’ll leave you to answer that. Now that advantage aside, why a BB?

In that post I mentioned above, one of the poster’s argument (there is a strong urge to write poser instead) was the fact that you couldn’t do anything without an active BIS subscription. As we say on twitter, #FAIL!!! Mobipocket is an application that allows you view portable documents on your BB and it doesn’t need BIS. Documents to Go is another. I don’t remember needing to have an active subscription to play media files or even games. When you think about it, what is it you can do with an android that doesn’t have an internet plan that you can’t do with a BISless BB?

Next argument is the battery life. One question: have you used either an iPhone or an android or even a symbian for a whole day with it constantly connected to the internet running more than three applications simultaneously? Remember all liars shall repent and go to heaven. The battery life of a BB is GREAT(unless na UK used). Power consumption is a very relative benchmark especially when you want to measure cross-platform so we won’t go there. Let me however mention that if your android or iPhone was doing the same work under the hood with an uninterrupted data connection, your battery life would last as long as a kardashian marriage. I won’t even talk about the boot time…if you have to ask, then you don’t need to know.

However, BB isn’t all glitz and glamour. It has its perks. Frankly, there are a lot of them. The first being the fact that compared to other smartphones, it is over-priced. The LG Optimus-One goes for about 30k(in naira) and has almost the same hardware specs as the BB Curve 5 (9380) which goes for double the amount.

The second perk is flexibility. The blackberry platform doesn’t have as many applications as its counterparts. In fact, compared to the likes of androids and iPhones, the BB doesn’t even bring a challenge. You stand to have more options in terms of applications if you’re on any band wagon save #teamBB.

The third perk is a bit technical. Most BB’s (not all) don’t have built in flash support. Flash is basically a feature that makes browsing the web a lot easier. Why it isn’t there? Me ma I no know.

Let me just slide this in: am I the only person that is wondering when they'll make a camera better than 5MP? even the Porsche na 5MP...haba!!

And finally, and I bite my tongue saying this, the most irritating perk is the BIS subscription. While you can do some stuff without it, every application that requires data from the internet is pretty much useless without it. That is a serious deal breaker as I would love to be able to use my last N17 to post on facebook that my BIS has expired.

The point I’m trying to make is this: I STILL HAVEN’T SAID ANYTHING ABOUT PINGING!!!

There is a whole lot more to BB than its messenger (wey I no fit even send go market)

Thank you for your time. Now lemme PING small

PING!!


P.S please encourage a broda na...leave the comments so i'd know what you think. thanks.