Android and Apple iOS will not beat BlackBerry

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

Fanboys had better sit down before continuing, as I have some bad news for you, unless your particular tech obsession of choice is CrackBerry or Windows flavoured. Neither Apple iOS nor Android will beat BlackBerry or Microsoft as a mobile business platform any time soon, according to the latest market research.

But more of that later, first let’s start with some confusing jargon. A newly published study conducted by Plantronics reinforces what I already know, namely that more and more people are working outside of the traditional office environment these days.

Well, actually, that’s being a little disingenuous as in reality it confused me greatly by suggesting that people increasingly work in ‘transitional spaces’ and, to be honest, I had no idea what that really meant.  Delving a little deeper, it would appear that it means ‘public spaces used while in transit’ according to Plantronics. Translated into normal-speak I think what the survey was actually trying to say is that people are doing more work while on the bus, train or plane. And in hotel rooms, airport lounges or coffee shops for that matter. Anywhere outside of the office, other than the home environment in other words.

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BlackBerry Bold 9780 review: first look

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

As you’ll know if you’ve read my BlackBerry Torch review, I’m a fan of RIM’s new smartphone OS, BlackBerry OS 6. Although the Torch itself didn’t get my juices flowing, the knowledge the new Bold would arrive soon, with the new UI on board, appeased me somewhat.

Well, I’ve just laid my hands on one. Alas, I’m not bowled over.

The reason? Well, there isn’t anything particularly new about it. The camera has been boosted from 3.2 megapixels to 5, the trim around the front edge has been changed from black to chrome, the RAM has been doubled from 256MB to 512MB, and … um … that’s about it.

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A message to Steve Jobs: Shut The Fanboy Up!

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

October has been a month of ‘Fanboy FAIL’ as far as sensible smartphone market analysis is concerned. First there was Steve Jobs bigging up iOS, iPhones and the iPad while dissing Android and RIM. Then there was the inevitable fanboy fracas from all sides that followed, including Jim Balsillie throwing some RIM soundbytes into the mix. This has truly been the month that common sense was finally shot in the head.

If you need further proof of this, then take a look at the Good Technology Device Activation Report for the 3rd quarter of 2010. At first glance, this report would appear to suggest that both Apple iOS and Google Android platforms are being rapidly adopted within the enterprise sector, while BlackBerry has vanished from the business market altogether.

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First look: RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Earlier today I got my hot hands on the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520, and thanks to our lovely art team we’ve managed to get a few nice photos to highlight its features.

Front on, the most interesting item is slap bang in the middle: a trackpad. This works almost identically to a normal laptop trackpad, except you press it to select on an item. Opinion in the PC Pro office is so far mixed: I found it intuitive, though it’s a little fiddly as you can’t jump about the screen as quickly as I’d like, whereas our esteemed news & features editor, Barry Collins, simply couldn’t get on with it at all. (more…)

BlackBerry Bold bursts into the Labs

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

We’ve just laid our sweaty mitts on the highly-anticipated BlackBerry Bold (aka the 9000 series) for the very first time in an hour long introduction to the product, and we have to say, we’re impressed.

For those of you who may not be completely au fait with the details (where have you been?), it’s RIM’s new flagship phone, but instead of simply relying on a (slow) GPRS connection – which we haven’t been impressed with before – the new device has a 3.5G (tri-band HSDPA) connection, and a new web browser.

The result is a completely revamped BlackBerry, with a new-look interface. The operating system has moved on to version 4.6 now and it comes complete with a slick new look and iPhone-style web browser, which gives an overview of web pages before allowing you to zoom right in.

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