“Rogers today became the first carrier in North America to ship the BlackBerry Bold, RIM’s first smartphone to ship with 3G for GSM-based phone networks,” Electronista reports.
The device features “480×320 LCD as well as GPS, Wi-Fi, 1GB of permanent, lockable onboard storage and a two-megapixel camera,” Electronista reports.
“Rogers prices the phone at $400 when paired with a combined voice and BlackBerry data plan worth at least $45 per month. The price is roughly twice that of the $199 8GB iPhone,” Electronista reports.
“AT&T is rumored to have similar pricing for its own launch, which is expected weeks later,” Electronista reports.
Full article here.
Smackdown: RIM’s BlackBerry Bold vs. Apple’s iPhone Web Browser
[Attribution: Mobile Computing Mag via Gizmodo. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
Apple iPhone carriers Rogers and AT&T will have quite the sales pitch: “It’s here. The new BlackBerry Bold. Twice the price. Half the device.“
The irony with all hand held devices is that, people used to avoid Macs for one ultimate reason – true or not – They’re too expensive. The iPhone and iPod Touch have turned the tables completely in this genre of computer – It’s clearly too expensive to buy anything except an Apple product.
Those buttons are 1/4 the size of the iPhone icons.
That’ll make it easy to use for people with big fingers, i.e. anyone over the age of 12!
And, I’m sorry. Drawing attention to the size of the screen when it’s half the size and can’t rotate. Well that’s just stupid!
How many Apps in the Blackberry Apps Store? How many of those are free??
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> this phone isn’t even close!
“1. You must have a government issued ID to reproduce.”
Interesting concept.
So, you swipe your card and wait nine months?
Note: the video is comparing Blackberry on 3G/EDGE to iPhone on WiFi.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/21/debunk-blackberry-bolds-browser-on-wifi-actually-not-that-slow/
However, not using 3G would be the typical real world situation for many iPhone “3G” users, so I guess the comparison is quite fair.
Too bad the iPhone 3G has ISSUES.
I still don’t need one, but I’m in denial.
@ Erratum
If you time the load time from the different videos, the iPhone loads the page in 30 seconds, the Bold loads it in 58 seconds. Now it is possible that this could be related to the different wireless networks/internet connections that were used, but since engadget did not bother to time the site loading on the iPhone while connected to their network, this is the only valid comparison we have to date. And that comparison indicates that the iPhone is almost twice as fast to load over WiFi as the Bold.
Apple will get the consumers and some business users.
BlackBerry will get the business users. Businesses will pay $400 per phone to get a device they know and is compatible with their BB enterprise servers. I’m not saying it’s right and definitely not saying it’s better. Just stating that the phone will see quite well in the enterprise. I’ll be more curious to see how the BB Thunder fares.
It appears that the video is showing a BlackBerry Bold running at first on 3G then on EDGE and never on WiFi which is why it is so slow. On the other hand, that just points out how weak the UI is that you can’t easily tell what type of internet connection you are on and that apparently the Bold doesn’t automatically connect to an available WiFi network.
Isn’t $45 per month cheaper then the $60 for the iPhone? So doesn’t that add up to much less over the same 3 years? I think that price isn’t even discounted like the iPhone is. Why would Apple discount something so heavily in favour of a larger customer base anyway? “Exchange for the rest of us” is like saying, end users are capable of operating a computer. Doesn’t happen, even with the power of the Mac.
According to the guy in the video, the Bold IS RUNNING ON WI-FI. In fact, there are two instances which he shows the Wi-Fi symbol on the Bold. However, he does point out that the Bold will not run on Wi-Fi unless you are connected to the EDGE/3G network (Looks like the carrier still wants/needs to monitor you on wi-fi). In other words, if you have a BB Bold and you have NO service, you can’t even hook up wi-fi to send an email out, or an online text. CLEAR ADVANTAGE for the iPhone.
So, for anyone who really needs the keyboard, $200 shouldn’t be too much to pay….</sarcasm>
@Half the price?,
The dataplan for Rogers is $30 for 6gb data. I believe it’s a wider a deal that might be for all smartphones including the Bold for a period of time. If not, it at least applies to the iPhone.
$399 is indeed with a carrier subsidy. The Bold is like $900 full retail.
My bad, $649 full retail.
My Company gave me an HTC Touch this week because I will be traveling Internationally and this is our Companies choice of phone. In my personal life I use an iPhone and after a week on the HTC Touch running Windows Mobile I am ready to throw the Company phone into the sea. I will be talking to my Company about transferring my Company plan to a new iPhone 3G. I’m willing to pay for my own phone if they will let me use an iPhone. The HTC Touch and Windows Mobile is that bad!!!
…but the Blackberry is really good at working with the Blackberry server system. Duh, yeah.
Trouble is, its frickin’ USELESS for anything else……
1 GB of memory? Thats generous for $400.
Give it up Rimm, you are a one trick pony and the Circus has left town.
Has anyone else noticed that the article states it is RIM’s first 3G device? I wonder what all the crackberry users have been comparing to the Iphone 3G till now? Seems curious , what has Verizon and Sprint been pushing all these past 6 months???
That blackberry looks like all the rest of them, tiny screen and big confusing hard to use keyboard. Only 1gig of memory? What the hell good is that for? They call this the iPhone killer? How? It doesn’t even beat the 2G iPhone. Boy is RIM in for a disappointment with this one.
OK, so I decided to repeat the test.
1. First test, opening Mobile Computer URL.
Took over 60 seconds to open the page. The problem? It was my desktop computer, I haven’t tried blackberry yet. Yes, the site is very slow when accessed from the Internet.
Tried from home computer on a weekend – 10 seconds to open page. Much better.
So, this guy hooks iPhone to his LAN where his Web server is and runs download of his page over LAN and then compares is with Bold which is forced to get page through the Internet. This guy must have something like 64K ISDN connection to the Internet, rather pathetic.
No, Bold was not using WiFi. This guy is either too stupid or too smart – you should have seen WiFi browser (or Hotspot browser) logo on blackberry browser screen if it to go through WiFi and LAN like iPhone was configured to.
Instead, Bold was forced to get to the Internet and download web page through the Internet.
So, test 1 was not correct and should be dismissed.
2. Now, trying BBC news page. Typed same URL on my Bold and it opens instantly. Wait – the page is optimized for mobile devices, looks nice but it is not for desktop Internet browsers.
What did that guy do or screw on blackberry to make it load regular internet BBC News page – I don’t know and don’t care. He had to do something and he does not tell what – so test is invalid.
3. Final test, Slashdot.
Bold completes loading the page with all scripts by 1-2 seconds faster than iPhone.
iPhone, from the other hand, shows page much sooner because Bold appears to work hard on loading scripts and keeps blank screen while it does it.
There is also flickering when I try to scroll slashdot page on Bold.
iPhone has much nicer zooming of page.
Verdict: two tests are invalid, in one test iPhone wins in how it downloads, renders and zooms website with complex javascripts.
iPhone wins, there was no need to cheat and lie to prove that.
Yet, the truth is not that spectacular as a lie.
>According to the guy in the video … the Bold will not run on Wi-Fi unless you are connected to the EDGE/3G network (Looks like the carrier still wants/needs to monitor you on wi-fi). In other words, if you have a BB Bold and you have NO service, you can’t even hook up wi-fi to send an email out, or an online text. CLEAR ADVANTAGE for the iPhone.
I have disabled mobile network (a.k.a. 3G/EDGE/GPRS/GSM) on my Bold and I can still send and receive emails over WiFi, browse the Internet, use IM and third party applications that download data from the Web.
Yet another proof the guy is either too uneducated in how Bold works or too smart and plays stupid.
Note that older blackberries with WiFi work just like Bold, or Bold works just like them, when WiFi is available but there is no service.
This guy can’t pretend it is something new with Bold handling WiFi that he did not know before while trying older RIM’s devices.
Superiority of iPhone does not need lies and liars to prove it.