Best all-in-one mobile phone device? Blackberry or Iphone?

[MediaMuse]

please excuse my plethora of questions!!!!!

Am considering joining the ranks of serious mobile communicators and ditching my pre-flying solo business mobile ($100 phone and $60 monthly pre-paid credits with Optus which gives me practically no good call or text time) with no features...

Would consider my needs to be the following;
* receive and send emails
* web access
* calendar to check for meeting availability when with a client, and pencil in
*decent talk time and text friendly
*everything compatible and transferrable to Outlook and Word 2007
* reliable and fairly child friendly/hardy (have 4yr old who will invitably try and play with it, risk of being dropped)

What would you all recommend at a $60-$70 plan; could go slightly higher

Iphone (only one with ipod? dont have one right now, this would be handy)
Blackberry or
Nokia E71 i have heard is competitive to these?

And do you all buy it outright or get these 24-month plans?

[mike@engagemarketing]

I think if you don't mind the iPhone keyboard, its hard to go past. Having said that i've never used a Blackberry, but basically the iPhone is the best piece technology i've ever used.

[LeelaCosgrove]

I'm an old school Mac user.

I used to work for Apple. I run my business off a Macbook pro, which is the 10th Mac I've owned. I got the IPod touch when it first came out. If it's mac - I'm there.

And I own a Blackberry Bold.

It's just a better phone for business. The IPhone is a great consumer phone ... but as far as business functionality goes, the Blackberry can't be beat ...

(All phones have MP3 players in them now- it's standard.)

My Blackberry was free on a $90 plan ... but if you're willing to pay $10 / month you can get it on a lesser one.

The Blackberry was built as a business phone ... the IPhone was built as a consumer phone. You notice the difference when you want to do things like access emails, websites, oh - and the QWERTY keyboard is far better than a touch screen if you write a lot of emails / messages on the go.

I find touch screens can be a bit temperamental - especially if your hand has been sweating or if you're on the move.

Talk time on the Blackberry is in excess of 5 hours.

And I would say the blackberry is easily more hardy than the IPhone ... not to mention smaller ...

My opinion is simply that ...

The IPhone is for 'hipsters' who want a phone / MP3 player and how cool that it can access emails!

The BlackBerry is for serious business people who need a portable computer so that they're businesses don't fall apart while they are on the move.

[Adam Randall]

For business, nothing comes close to a Blackeberry with BES (Business enterprise server)

I dont have one because my main business software is only compatible with Windows mobile.

I could write it all down but I have a brochure that explains the benefits of a Blackberry (PDF)

Just remember to get the most out of them you need BES and not BIS.

BES is true exchange sycronisation meaning your secretary can book/move appointments using her outlook on your calendar and the changes are instantly synced to your workstation/webmail/blackberry

Send an email on your desktop, it appears in the sent items of your phone.

Send an email from your phone and it appears instantly in your sent items on your desktop/webmail.

It also uses your actual email address unlike something like BIS whic needs a forwarding address in the background.

Its also instant email communication (no more hitting send and receive) or waiting 5 mins.

Its bullet proof and uncomplicated and just works.

** Re the 4 year old, I dont know of any models that will live through being hidden in a glass of milk, best form of defense is a location they cannot reach.

[gregpritchard.virtualcio]

We use Nokia E71's. They're awesome. A little heavier than the blackberry, but doesn't feel plastically like the blackberry's can.

Why:
1. I personally like having a keyboard to feel while typing.
2. Can hook it up to POP or IMAP email easily
3. I can't comment on Microsoft Exchange compatibility (we don't run Microsoft Outlook; instead we use Thunderbird on Linux); so I can't comment personally from experience. According to this review; the compatibility is no problem though.
4. Many people are now using Google Calendar as a central calendar hub between their mobile calendar and their desktop applications (we use Lightning in Thunderbird), but the Nokia PC Suite will allow you to sync to your Outlook Calendar.
5. Its easy to lock the phone of course.
6. The iPhone is probably going to be the best web-browsing mobile you can get. E71 has a good browser, but not as snazzy as the iPhone.

Just a hint - get a data plan on top of your mobile plan. Adhoc mobile data charges are prohibitively expensive.

(this is not an endorsement per se)...We bought our phones upfront (no plan) from Allphones. We already had plans and numbers etc, so didn't want to make commitments on top of our perfectly satisfactory existing plans.

[Rachel Reeves]

I have an iphone and aaaaaaaabsolutely love it, but then I've always preferred the mobile touch screen. It can take up to a week to get used to it because of the special features / navigation style on an iphone. I have found the qwerty board on there to be really easy to use, it actually works out the word for you even if you have typed two letters in wrong.

I have heard that some people have troubles with the iphone in lower signal areas, I have thankfully not had this problem yet. I've had trouble syncing my calendar with my iphone, but then I haven't spent much time trying as I tend to use the good ol' diary to record appointments and birthdays.

Optus cap plan of about $50 a month gives you about $300 worth of calls, sms etc and 250mb downloads.

I checked out the Blackberry and the Nokia but they just weren't my style of phone, I am sure both of them are good phones though. When I was shopping for phones I noticed the Blackberry was a bit more expensive than the iphone.

[KarenC]

I've also been looking at phones lately but two things people in our area has to consider are:
Next G Network Coverage
Recommended for rural coverage
Only certain phones are recommended for rural coverage outside the metro areas. So it depends where you are actually going to be travelling regularly.

For what it's worth, I really need a keyboard for emails or text, not a touch screen.

[ahortin]

I gotta say, I love my iPhone too! I used to be a huge Nokia fan and would always by a Nokia over another brand... until my last one. I had an E51. I can't tell you how many times that got thrown around in frustration!

I'd highly recommend having a play with an iPhone before buying one. Obviously, they're not for every one, but I do love mine. Web browsing is really nice with the large touchscreen and the zooming ('pinching') and scrolling is fantastic. Email setup is a breeze also and the Calendar syncs effortlessly with Outlook.

Personally, I've always been a PC person (as opposed to Mac's and other Apple hardware), but I gotta say, Apple really know their stuff when it comes to usability.

In the end, I'm sure you'll be happy with whatever you choose. It's always good to get new 'toys'.

Cheers,
Anthony.

[tianakaesha]

I plan on getting an Iphone when my plan runs out on my current phone. but I am into nice shiney things and don't need huge business needs.

But I agree with what Leela said... for business uses, go the Blackberry.

My hubby uses macs, just got me a mac, his business partner sells them... but he still only goes the blackberry.

Leela is right, iphone is consumer, blackberry is more business.

[Devan]

Don't dismiss the Nokia range or other smartphones out there. Clients and colleagues are raving about the new N95, and even the N91's from Nokia. I personally use a Treo 750 and love it.

With windows based mobile phones (and even the iPhone), Microsoft's ActiveSync technology provides pretty much the same functionality as the Blackberry's. For example, my wife (who incidentally has, and loves, an iPhone) can schedule appointments and tasks in my calendar on her copy of Outlook and they will automatically sync up to my Treo in real time - and backwards too, from my phone back to our Exchange server and onto her Outlook.

Of course this assumes that you are using Microsoft Exchange as your primary messaging hub.

If you go down this route though - make sure you have a good data plan on your phone (note: data plan, NOT voice plan), otherwise you will get huge bills for your data usage.

Cheers,
Devan