[Business phone] Blackberry or iPhone?

r3nu4l

I'm just wondering what people here suggest is best for business use, a blackberry or an iPhone.

Obviously the iPhone is sexier but which is best for me?

I want to read emails, use GPS/maps to find my way to meetings in strange cities etc.

I think for the above, both are pretty much the same but are there any advantages to the iPhone? I know that there are thousands of applications out there and I just feel that the iPhone may have the edge as perhaps I could use it for videocalling clients etc.

Any advice appreciated.

CivilEx

r3nu4l wrote: »

I'm just wondering what people here suggest is best for business use, a blackberry or an iPhone.

Obviously the iPhone is sexier but which is best for me?

I want to read emails, use GPS/maps to find my way to meetings in strange cities etc.

I think for the above, both are pretty much the same but are there any advantages to the iPhone? I know that there are thousands of applications out there and I just feel that the iPhone may have the edge as perhaps I could use it for videocalling clients etc.

Any advice appreciated.

The user interface is better on the iPhone, but I think that the business user will get more out of the Blackberry, particularly on the email side, which is definitely better on the Blackberry.

Google maps are available on both devices and having used both, I don't see much of a difference between either although I have to say that the TomTom app for the iPhone is great as you don't need a data connection for it while abroad and therefore no big data roaming bills when you get home again!

If you are going to use the iPhone for business and you use corporate email, you should check with IT if they will support it. There are plenty of horror stories out there of people with iPhones that simply cannot connect it to their corporate email and cannot get support from their company to get it going.

One final thing...the battery life in the iPhone is dreadful and there is no interchangeable battery. If you are going to be a heavy user then a working day is the absoloute max. that you could expect it to last. My Blackberry easily does a day and a half without a charge.

I have never used either for video calling, but I suspect that the iPhone would be the best here although I'm not sure how it would work without a front facing camera?

For me, I have both devices and I use a Blackberry as my daily driver as I cannot afford to get stuck with a dead battery somewhere. The weekend is a different story though

r3nu4l

CivilEx wrote: »

The user interface is better on the iPhone, but I think that the business user will get more out of the Blackberry, particularly on the email side, which is definitely better on the Blackberry.

I can access work email via webmail, this should be okay, right?

Google maps are available on both devices and having used both, I don't see much of a difference between either although I have to say that the TomTom app for the iPhone is great as you don't need a data connection for it while abroad and therefore no big data roaming bills when you get home again!

Good point on the roaming charges. Is the Tom-Tom app expensive, do you already have to own a Tom-tom to get it?

If you are going to use the iPhone for business and you use corporate email, you should check with IT if they will support it. There are plenty of horror stories out there of people with iPhones that simply cannot connect it to their corporate email and cannot get support from their company to get it going.

Hmmm, I'll be using M$ Outlook but can also use our company webmail so that shouldn't be a problem...right?

One final thing...the battery life in the iPhone is dreadful and there is no interchangeable battery. If you are going to be a heavy user then a working day is the absoloute max. that you could expect it to last. My Blackberry easily does a day and a half without a charge.

Interesting...is this because people are also using the iPhone to watch movies or listen to music all day?

I have never used either for video calling, but I suspect that the iPhone would be the best here although I'm not sure how it would work without a front facing camera?

Shows how much I know about the iPhone...a front-facing camera seems like an obvious thing to me for videocalls

For me, I have both devices and I use a Blackberry as my daily driver as I cannot afford to get stuck with a dead battery somewhere. The weekend is a different story though

Thanks for the insight!

Bluefoam

r3nu4l wrote: »

I can access work email via webmail, this should be okay, right?

Whats the point in getting a smartphone if you can't use the functions. If you want to use webmail just get any cheap phone...

BTW, the HTC phones come with email & work with corporate/exchange servers...

r3nu4l

Bluefoam wrote: »

Whats the point in getting a smartphone if you can't use the functions. If you want to use webmail just get any cheap phone...

Well I will be using it for other functions too...all I'm asking is that if the regular mail setup becomes too complicated, will the iPhone handle my webmail okay (until I get the regular setup working)...simple really.

jamesd

Do you or anyone in your company access email via a smart phone already?
Outlook web access and mobile access are different things - 1 can work and the other may be turned off by the IT dept.

r3nu4l

jamesd wrote: »

Do you or anyone in your company access email via a smart phone already?

No we haven't really needed that 'mobility' up until now.

Outlook web access and mobile access are different things - 1 can work and the other may be turned off by the IT dept.

To be honest, our IT infrastructure is small and our IT guy is very flexible in terms of what we want. He has said that even if we get Blackberries and iPhones, he'll do the setup if we need him to. I'm just wondering what possible complications there might be. It's nice to be aware of these things...

More importantly, I'm wondering about both phones in general for business use. Are there better business apps available for the iPhone or Blackberry? Which is best for GPS? We quite often have to find our way to various meeting points and addresses. IS the iPhone or Blackberry better? That sort of thing is what I'm looking to find out.

The iPhone voice recorder will come in extremely useful for me but I'm aware that you can download some voice recording app for Blackberries too.

elleelle19

the Tom Tom app is around €60 - €70 expensive enough. I have an Iphone 3GS and don't find the battery to bad but i'm not a very heavy user, obviously watching vids and using Ipod would drain battery

boarder777

I have both phones. I have blackberry 9700 and iphone. Iphone is brilliant for a gps if you use it. I presume you have gps in the car anyway? As for business device blackberry is the way to go.with my new blackberry I have 2 full days of charge heavily using it. Iphone is a good fun. I do use iphone for gps as I don't have gps in the car. I recommend to get navigon maps if you go for an iphone. Any questions ,just shoot.

CivilEx

r3nu4l wrote: »

More importantly, I'm wondering about both phones in general for business use. Are there better business apps available for the iPhone or Blackberry?

If you are really going to use a phone that can truly handle a business environment then you are going to need to be able to handle Word, Excel, pdf files and Powerpoint to a lesser extent. Now the iPhone can open all of these, but I'm not so sure that you can create new files, save them to the memory and email them on their merry way? There may be some recent apps that can handle this but I hadn't personally come across any decent ones.

Blackberries come with "Documents to Go" as standard (for free) and this lets you open, edit and save these files. Now I know that the screen size of a smartphone is not the best for creating these types of files, but I'm amazed at how often I get sent a Word document, I have to tweak a line and forward it to someone while on the go...

One other item to consider with the iPhone in a Business environment is that if you get an email with an attachment and you want to forward it (unopened) to someone else, you have to download it first and then upload it when forwarding the email. This is different to the Blackberry or indeed Windows Mobile in that you don't have to actually download the file to the phone when forwarding it as the server will do it automatically. This is important if your network coverage isn't great at times and it's important to get that email sent! If you are trying to send kilobytes rather than megabytes, then the emails have a much higher rate of getting through first time.

This along with the battery life were probably the primary reasons that I had to move to a Blackberry.

Anyway, food for thought!