iPhone vs. Blackberry ... the real truth ...

I have been a loyal Blackberry user for the last 5 years and like a lot of other people have been eyeing up the iPhone, especially when I am around my friends and family that have them - they always look so mod and cool and super high-tech, like it reads your mind or something lol.

So buying into the theory that the iPhone makes your life better and due to the face that I was due for a phone upgrade with AT&T, I finally gave in and got an iPhone last weekend.

Well - do I love it? Sort of...it is not exactly what I expected. There are some basic functions that it doesn't have or doesn't do especially when compared to a Blackberry.

The best way I can sum it up is that the iPhone is a "Media Person's Phone" while the Blackberry is a "Business Person's Phone" - what I mean by that is the iPhone 3G is fast on the Internet, you can download really cool, entertaining, functional, fun and/or interesting programs. You can watch You Tube videos, store a boatload of pictures with amazing viewing (graphics), listen to music, check your email, have cute bubble style text conversations and decide which voicemail messages you want to hear individually by looking at them (i.e. visual voicemail).

However, the iPhone doesn't do the following (in my opinion) basic things that a Blackberry does ... allow you to 'cut and paste' information, specifically contact information. EX. if you email me right now and ask me to send you Laura Basic's office phone #, there is NO WAY to copy and paste it on the iPhone, you can't even send the Outlook contact file - how annoying is that? You can not sync your iPhone with Outlook tasks and notes (you can only sync with contacts and calendar) so those features become obsolete for you while using your iPhone. The typing interface is slow and makes constant spelling mistakes - if you get an iPhone don't plan on sending emails longer than a sentence or 2 or you may go insane. The email system sucks...sucks...sucks - let me say it again - it SUCKS!

On a Blackberry, you can view up to 10 email accounts in one mailbox, you can search within those messages to find a message, mark 'all' messages as read with by clicking 2 or 3 buttons and the biggest thing is that the Blackberry forwards or "pushes" email to your Blackberry device as the email comes in so you are in real time when receiving your email - you do not have to do anything. The Blackberry is an email machine! (and you do NOT have to be on a Microsoft Exchange Server to do any of this!)

On an iPhone, all of your email gets separated into individual in boxes on the phone so you have to check each email account separately (time consuming and annoying), there is no way to mark messages as read except manually scrolling through the messages to view or delete them, no search function - need to find a specific email - keep scrolling - have fun! This is the best part -your iPhone (unless you are on a Microsoft Exchange server or using Mobile Me - read - cost more $$$ every month) does not download mail in real time - it 'pushes' mail when you manually tell it to check or every 15 minutes.

Lastly, the battery life is not that great on the iPhone - mostly because it really is a mini-computer and the more you do, the more programs you run, video's you watch, music you listen to - well the battery dies. Which would be OK if you could pop in a freshly charged battery but you can't because the battery is internal and you can not get to it so you better carry around a charger!

Overall, I was hoping / expecting that the iPhone would be more of a 'smartphone', I assumed (my fault) that it would be as good as the other phones out on the market but enhanced and even better but it is not there yet.

If you are an email-head, stick with a Blackberry for now - if all you care about is music, pictures, you tube, face book, GPS and browsing the Internet - rush out right now and buy the iPhone.

As for me, I am slowly making friends with my iPhone and anxiously anticipating the next generation Blackberry that is coming out soon - a combination of the the best from the iPhone and Blackberry ... stay tuned!