iPhone Versus the Curve
11 July 2007I had a chance to play with the iPhone at a crowded Apple store in Santa Clara, California this past weekend and compare it with my Blackberry Curve 8300. Now, this is really Apple & Berries type comparison – two very different target markets (consumer versus enterprise), so it isn’t a fair review of either.
First impressions - the iPhone looked even better in person than I had anticipated. In terms of pure looks, the sleek iPhone easily beats the Curve. The Curve is perhaps the best-looking Blackberry out there, but the iPhone looks way nicer and cooler. The iPhone is solidly built with glass-metallic finish (versus the plastic feel of the Curve) and boasts the largest (3.5”) and highest resolution screen (480 x 320) available on any smartphone in the market. The iPhone graphics are also very rich / solid and the touch screen buttons really do feel like they are an integral part of the phone. Very impressive.
In the multimedia department (video/music/photos), the iPhone easily beats the Curve again. The iTunes support plus the Youtube integration is a significant plus for the iPhone. I haven’t used the Curve’s multimedia manager by Roxio at all and I highly doubt that I ever will. Despite lacking a zoom / flash feature, the 2 mega pixel iPhone camera pics seemed more vibrant than pics taken from the 2 mega pixel camera on the Curve under default settings (inside the store anyway). The sound quality on audio playback (MP3/video) is fairly good / similar on both the Curve and iPhone.
Navigation on the web browser and Google Maps is also better on the iPhone compared to the Curve (really love the ability to scroll and zoom a map or webpage with a touch on the iPhone). Unfortunately, the iPhone was only connected to a local wifi network setup at the store, and not to AT&T, so I didn’t get a chance to try the iPhone’s voice features or assess how fast the iPhone would be on an EDGE network. Of course, the Rogers version of the Curve doesn’t support wifi which is a big negative (although the Papa Bear version of the Curve and future generations of Blackberry may have built-in Wifi). Neither of the devices support HSDPA (3G) yet.
Now, the downside of iPhone versus the Curve.
The intelligent touchscreen keyboard on the iPhone is simply horrible. I couldn’t type even a single word correctly using the touch-screen keyboard. There is auto-correction available (like Blackberry’s SureType on the Pearl), but not good enough. Perhaps with practice and in landscape mode, the iPhone keyboard may be tolerable, but as a high volume data (email) user, this is a deal-breaker for me. The iPhone keyboard also kills the user experience on other frequently used enterprise applications such calendar, address book, notes, etc. Though not as good as the Blackberry 8700, the Curve keyboard is very functional and easy to use.
On the Curve, I do have many proprietary games and apps installed (JiveTalk, Texas Holdem, etc.) and I do sometimes use my Curve’s SIM card on other GSM / smartphones that I have. Not possible on the iPhone. Not only is the iPhone closed OS, so no third-party application support yet (i.e. no Java/Flash support, and no SDKs yet) but it is also a closed phone. So, unlike the Curve, I cannot change iPhone battery or SIM card, or change/add storage capacity (BTW, I bought a Sandisk 4GB microSD card from a Verizon store and it works with the Curve). The Apple store guy just laughed when I asked if I can get the iPhone unlocked to work with other GSM carriers such as Rogers (there are people working on this).
Lastly, as expected, the iPhone does not have ActiveSync or enterprise type support for the Exchange Server. The iPhone does support email via IMAP which is nice but inadequate for enterprise use. The Microsoft Exchange team went through the “extra” effort of emphasizing this. There continues to be many rumours (wishful thinking?) that Apple will license ActiveSync from Microsoft. Until then, lack of this feature is a deal-breaker for me.
Overall, I was actually very impressed with the iPhone. The iPhone drawbacks were expected and not a surprise to me. As much as I liked the iPhone, I am going to stick to my Curve given significant enterprise use. However, I will probably get the iPhone for the wife once Rogers launches the iPhone in Canada.
One Response to “iPhone Versus the Curve”
July 11th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
great post