Business blog

The Blackberry Storm was the first Smart Phone released by RIM, reputedly as a response to the release of the i-phone by Apple.

Although it has some great features it doesn’t quite fit the bill and isn’t quite as impressive as the later Blackberry Curve 8520 and probably not quite as useful for business mobile phone users it is never the less a pretty nice phone.

There is no argument that the Blackberry Storm is a sexy, good looking phone. It’s a similar size to the i-phone – just a little bit shorter, but slightly wider and thicker. The face of the phone has a nice 3.2-inch touch screen and beneath this are four buttons including: a send key, an end key, a BlackBerry menu key, and a back key – the buttons are made of hardened rubber and sit nicely with the screen and feel good in the hand, it is also a comfortable size and not too much to have in the pocket.

The screen has a good quality, perfectly snsitive touch screen that glows up in blue when you touch one of the buttons. When the screen is clicked it makes a light click sound which makes it feel like real typing on a computer keyboard.

The Blackberry Storm, like most Smartphones also has an accelerometer, which, when you rotate the phone round it changes the orientation of the phone. However we did find that some of the keys are a lttle close together so not great for heavy business mobile phone users.

Another issue that I had with the Blackberry Storm was that it has two menu systems – both icons and folders. It is a bit like websites that cannot decide where to have their navigation menus, on the left or at the top so just go for both.

Although this can sometimes be handy as it covers the needs of users who have a preference for each type of navigation it can get a little confusing, especially as some of the duplicated folders have slightly different names.

In terms of making calls, the Blackberry Storm was absolutely fine and with a clear sound. One problem was that the volume didn’t seem to be quite loud enough. As well as this the touchscreen was quite sensitive so when the phone is held close to the head when speaking it is all too easy to accidentally press buttons unintentionally; which is obviously a faux pas for business mobile users who have a lot of important client calls on the go.

Browsing was easy and good as you are able to zoom in and out of web pages using the buttons at the bottom but the phone does lack support for WiFi networks, so are heavily reliant on the £G network for good web access.

All Blackberry mobile phones have an excellent set up for both messaging with email and text. The Storm can use up to 10 seperate email accounts for individuals who need to use their mobile phone for both business and leisure.

One thing that this phone does have over the Apple i-phone is that it allows you to write email messages when holding the phone horizontally which allows you to view longer sentences; this was great when mailing people back in the office detailed instructions.

When you are typing on the phone held vertically the phone uses the Suretype format where 2 letters share a button which takes some getting used to and can cause problems with the use of the touch screen. Also, I am not sure if I just missed something really simple here but when putting in a phone number the field looked for alphabetical values and had to be manually switched to numbers for each digit typed.

The alternative is to add a contact for all of the numbers that you want to call and to then pull them up into the to field – not great if you just want to call a pizza to your hotel room when on a business trip.

At time of writing the applications into Microsoft Office documents only allow you to view and not create documents which often means that if you want to edit a document whilst you are at a meeting you have to make a note and then edit it later on.

You do get access to the Blackberry App world, which will is a downloadable shop that allows you to browse through and download software to your phone – some for free.

The 3.2-megapixel camera is fairly good quality, the pictures came out crisp and clear although they were not incredile at evening shots when we were in a dimly lit room. It comes with a flash and autofocus. It also captures video. This again, is one up on the i-phones camera. It is not bad as a music player and can store a good amount of music, the headphones are OK but volume is not loud enough if you are commuting through busy stations.

Overall the Blackberry Storm Smartphone is a relatively good phone and a fair achievement by Blackberry in their first stab at a real competitor to the i-phone. That said, having used the Blackberry Curve 8520 it just seemed inferior and there is no way that i would choose this over the 8520, especially not for use at work – it may be more appropriate for non business mobile phone users.

Last week Blackberry released their latest Smartphone in the UK. The Blackberry Pearl 9105 at first sight seems more of a consumer rather than a business mobile phone. So, what do we think of this newcomer to the stable and how does it perform as a business mobile phone?

Blackberry Pearl 9105 3G

My first reaction on seeing the phone was that it is a fairly outdated design – the shape is reminiscent of the Blackberry Bold 9700 but is about 30% smaller and slimmer measuring 107 x 49.7 x 13.2mm – it is more curved and smoother looking than the previous Blackberry pearl 8100. So far the 9105 only comes in black.

The Blackberry Pearl 9105 brings 3G connectivity and more computing power than it’s predeccesors. The display has a resolution of 360 x 400 pixels that is incredibly crisp and clear – good for photos and video!

Below the screen is what looks like a common mobile phone numberpad – we looked underneath and there is definitely no QWERTY keyboard, hmm, this is the main reason for the phone not seeming too functional as a business mobile phone, For those used to Blackberry QWERTY keyboards it will be quite a transition to be able to type as quickly using predictive text. But for many mobile phone users this may attract them to the Blackberry range as it is not such a change.

However, the predictive text is done very well and is simple to use, learning as it goes using the Blackberry Suretype technology. Like T9 text input you only have to press the key once to get it to start spelling your word. Blackberry Suretype combines a traditional mobile telephone keypad with a standard QWERTY keyboard to create a more efficient and intuitive way of typing.

Suretype includes:
* Default word list of over 35,000 words speeds up messaging composition
* Expandable list as SureType technology tracks word patterns and occurrences
* Automatic spell check as you type
* Remembers names and addresses in your address book

You can also add industry-specific words to your SureType word list to save you time as you write messages. You can also pull new words from incoming email messages and automatically add them to your custom word list.

Like the Blackberry Bold RIM have used an optical trackpad just below the screen as there is no touchscreen functionality. As with the other Blackberry models the trackpad does a sterling job of helping you navigate the menus and functions.

Blackberry have also brought media functions to the fore on the Pearl 9105 with rewind, play/pause and fastforward as well as mute on the top of the phone.

The sides of the phone also have buttons hidden beneath a rubberised cover. There’s volume up and down, a dedicated camera button and a key that can be customised and which is initially set up for voice commands, as with the other BlackBerry handsets.

There is a 3.2-megapixel camera with zoom, autofocus, flash and video recording – it is pretty standard and gives fairly good photos and video images.

Instant messaging on the Blackberry pearl 3G is very good with the Blackberry Messenger (BBM). All Blackberry smartphones come with BBM installed so you just need to activate and get messaging with other Blackberry business mobile phone users.

You can also switch between the messaging service, the web and calls all at once giving great social functionality and multi-tasking.

Images can be saved to a microSD/SDHD memory card. The Pearl can support memory cards up to 32GB, which will be needed for the 16 hours of playback that Blackberry are promising on their site.

The phone runs the BlackBerry 5.0 operating system meaning you’ll get exactly the same functionality from a software point of view as the Bold.

The phone also has GPS, as well as all three wireless standards (802.11 b/g/n) built-in and the ability to connect Bluetooth headsets, speakers and anything else you can find via its Bluetooth 2.1 connection.

The Pearl is powered with a 624 MHz processor and has 256MB Flash memory. Considering this is still classed, certainly by RIM, as an entry-level phone, that’s pretty fast. On the quick test drive that we had it obvious that the phone was fast for email, getting through all of the menus, loading apps and instant messaging.

There is a a rechargeable 1150mAhr battery that promises approximately 5.5 hours of talk time on 3G networks.

Overall, we think that this phone will probably bring Blackberry a number of new fans and will also probably be a good option for small business mobile phone  users.

Once properly released we will update with a fuller review. We nicked this video from Youtube – not great but good enough to give you a quick look.

Blackberry bold 2 9700

With the reports of flagging Android sales this week and with RIM updating their flagship model with a sleeker and more powerful model – the Blackberry Bold 2 9700 – will we see Blackberry regain the market share of the business mobile phone market that they enjoyed for so long prior to the i-phones and other smartphone releases?
Featuring an improved processor and latest UI, can this phone really take the i-phone for a run for it’s money? And also from my personal view point – the HTC Desire?

With the bold, Blackberry tried to produce a model that was a viable cross over between the business and consumer user and it has worked well, but in this market there is a constant need for progression and that’s where the new BlackBerry Bold 2 9700 comes in.

The first thing that RIM have improved is the size – this phone is not only faster than its predecessor but it is lighter and smaller – 5mm shorter and nearly 1cm thinner – obviously an incredibly noticable difference.

The Blackberry Bold 2 9700 then has a smaller keyboard as it is a still endowed with a QWERTY. so can you still type effectively? hmm, i’ll come to that.

There is no doubt that the Blackberry 9700 is a more classy Bold – it looks like the Storm but with the keyboard. On the top of the phone there are two buttons; one to mute the phone and one to lock it. This is great for business users who privately need to check on something with others – just quickly press mute during your call to converse in private with your colleagues.

Blackberry bold 2 9700

The screen has an incredibly high resolution and is ridiculously clear – I just started wearing glasses this week so it may have been amplified but compared to our other Blackberry phones this is a high res screen!

There is a volume key on the right hand side. On the left there is the function key, which can be used to perform various functions; the default is voice control.

On the edge there is also the 3.5mm headphone input which means that you can use your own headphones as well as the standard supplied ones; a small gripe is that the headphone plug sticks out a little from the phone. This sat flush on the older Bold version but there didn’t seem to be any performance issues so it is just a visual problem.

As previously suggested the keyboard is pretty small but with the new more pyramidal keys typing is actually not too bad – not as easy as with the HTC Desire but definitely an effective keyboard that you could easily get used to.

This phone has an optical trackpad instead of the trackball which has previously been used on the BlackBerry Curve 8520. This gives a different, and more stylish look to the front of the mobile phone.

The back of the phone has that nicely nicely I am a classy phone kinda touchy feely leather back as well as a relatively good 3.2 mega pixel camera.

The Bold 9700 has a nice chrome outline like some of the earlier Blackberry models, but this does look classier – perhaps due to the reduced width of the phone.

The BlackBerry Bold 2 9700 is a more powerful and intuitive device than its predecessors.

There are the supplied shortcuts but most navigation can be done through the optical trackpad with ease, it is also easy to switch the phone to vibrate only for meetings and important client meetings.

The optical trackpad has a variable setting that you can adjust at any time and is the main way to navigate the main menu.

The processor is very proficient but if you are having issues then holding down the trackpad opens up the running tasks menu so that you can see what is using up the phone’s memory – very similar to the windows task manager on a PC.

Actually, the performance in both the BlackBerry 2 9700 and the Storm 2 has been speeded up considerably, with both of them reacting to inputs and opening applications much faster than before.

You can unlock/lock the phone using the star key in combination with the call button – Nokia stylee.

As always with Blackberry the UI interface is very simple, this is why we like the Blackberry. It’s good that they have stuck to this style rather than try to go for something different.

When you go into the profile of your contacts you can see the photo, details and more of each of them so quite good for managing business contacts and personal friends alike.

It’s pretty handy that you can scroll down with the trackpad and select an option such as a text message without having to go through a long message menu.

The BlackBerry series is primarily designed for the business user and this comes through load and clear with the Bold 9700 as the options during a call include the ability to add a caller to the conversation (with the phone opening up the contacts list to do so) and you can transfer it on to another person using the same function.

The call coverage seemed to be good although in all honestly we didn’t make it to the top of Snowdon.

As always with the Blackberry email is brilliant and with a simple plug in you can connect to your online accounts quickly and easily and also text messaging is a breeze – Blackberry are known for this functionality and they do it well.

OK, typing as we mentioned earlier is not quite as easy due to the compressed keyboard but the new ridged keys do help.

BlackBerry Messenger is included as well, so you can type the PIN of your colleagues or clients into the device and away you go.

The BlackBerry Browser on the BlackBerry Bold 2 9700 is not the best to put it mildly – a little slow and wieldy and not particularly intuitive. You can connect on both Wi-fi and 3G, sometimes which were perfect but at other times less consistent.

Browsing simply does not measure up to the i-phone – too many of us have got used to the pinch and scroll way of browsing so find it frustrating when you have to move the cursor left and right to see the site properly on a mobile phone.

In normal daylight, the phone really does capture images well, picking out a good level of detail (although colours aren’t as well formed as they could be).

The Bold 9700 is not great at night time photography but Blackberry phones are predominantly designed for business users so the camera is not normally key so overall it is fine.

And that’s all you really need in a phone like this – there are some new basic functions but generally it is a phone for taking pictures that will just sit on the phone or on your PC and will probably not be used for anything serious. RIM has added simple cropping (for contact profile use) and renaming functions to the photograph review pane, before you can send it off to Facebook or email or even through MMS.

The Blackberry Bold 9700 is simple and fast – we got through images quickly and simply – the thumbnails show up quickly and they are easy and quick to expand.

Video too is mediocre but does the basic job. With the converged media sector on the new 2 9700 there seems to be a definitive move towards a handset that is suitable for both work and play.

The screen is a little small for video but the resolution is good so it is possible to watch a film on this phone but the 2.5 inch screen may kill your eye sight before the film is over.

Listening to music on the blackberry Bold 9700 is a pleasure – the sound is at a good volume and obviously the memory is sufficient. and the 3.5mm headphone jack allowing for better quality headphones makes the phone more accessible as a music player.

Other nice features in the media section include a voice recorder with apparently no limit on how much sound can be recorded in one sitting, and voice notes so you don’t have to write down the notes from that incredibly interesting monologue that your boss just reeled off.
The battery was good and survived a 2 day business trip without a recharge which included browsing, email and quite a few calls and texts.

There is a good range of commuter games to keep the businessperson who likes a fun mobile phone occupied on long train journeys.

The Word, Excel and Powerpoint viewers are fine but a shame that you cannot edit and create.

There is the Blackberry maps but we recommend the Google maps app from Blackberry Apps World as the Blackberry one is still not quite up to the job.

The Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G are all present and correct and working well apart from on big websites.

We very much like the fast switching between Wi-Fi and 3G – if you’ve got the battery life available (and you should have) then you can leave Wi-Fi on and let it connect to your trusted networks whenever you come in range of them.

With BlackBerry Desktop manager you can back up all your files to your computer to make sure they’re safe if you lose the phone.

Overall I liked the smaller size but this also gave the phone issues with the typing. The design is fine and works well for business users, I cannot fault Blackberry for sticking with this format although some may accuse them of being boring and not taking the necessary risks to move forward in this market – this remains to be seen.

The best thing about this phone is it’s speed! Again, it is great for business mobile phone users but possibly not achieving their goal of bridging the business-consumer market. I am not sure if this can be done with a QWERTY keyboard based phone.

The HTC Touch Pro2 is one of the latest touchscreen phones from HTC, it was released in 2009 in the UK and has quickly become one of the most popular mobile phones for business users. 

HTC may not be one of the best known smartphone manufacturers but this business mobile phone can certainly compete with the likes of RIM’s Blackberry phones as well as the i-Phone from Apple.

The last few Windows Mobile phones from HTC have basically been updates of its main models – the style-conscious Diamond2 and now the business mobile phone behemoth – HTC Touch Pro2 with its slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

HTC, a Chinese brand have a strong past record and have proven themselves as leaders in innovation with mobile phones for business and individual users – check out their credentials here.

The HTC Touch Pro2 is a fair bit bigger than the Diamond2 and a little heavier to boot – 116x59x17mm and 179g, but it does have a bigger and better tilting touch screen as well as an improved interface as a good justification, it also has a new conference call facility named ‘Straight Talk’.

It is not a cheap phone by any means – you will be paying top end prices for this mobile but it does deliver on almost every level – the main downfall being the quality of the 3.2 megapixel camera.

But don’t be put off by the size – unless you are a skinny jeans kind o’ guy/girl, it’s a stylish and flashy mobile phone.

The front of the phone is exceptionally sleek with just four hard keys that raise above the screen level that sit along the bottom of the screen: call start and stop/home, back and Windows.

The sides are not overloaded with buttons – just a volume switch, reset slot and stylus on the right, power button on top and USB 2.0 power/headphone socket on the bottom. The 3.2 megapixel camera lens is situated on the back of the phone, and alongside this sit the microphone and the large Straight Talk speaker for conference calls, as well as a mute button.

The HTC Touch Pro2′s has a slide out QWERTY keyboard on the left of the phone. There are 5 rows of keys which are not disimilar to a standard computer keyboard. The keys on the keyboard are little rounded hardened bits of rubber that are backlit and are well spaced enough for fast accurate typing – the extra size suddenly seems worth it – if you are a heavy business user of your phone then this will be a big plus.

The Touch Pro2′s screen tilts so you can put the phone on a desk and type on the keyboard – which is a nice touch as it tilts to about 45 degrees. There is also an onscreen keyboard so if you prefer this then it is there but we found that the QWERTY was a lot easier and faster so little need for the touch screen.

The interface is well laid out too, with large numbers, and can predict phone numbers that you have previously used after you have typed the first few digits which can be a handy time saver. It has been specifically designed with conference calls in mind and it’s easy to set up multi-party calls.

You just need to register for this service with your network before you can use it. You just set the call up, and then put the phone face down on a desk so that the big, loud, noise-cancelling Straight Talk speaker is visible.

On the back there is also a useful mute button with a glowing colour indicator to show whether or not it is in use. The HTC Touch Pro2′s has a 3.6-inch with a resolution of 480×800 pixels. It’s got a bright, sharp and clear picture, and it also has all of the Windows Mobile options for dimming and limiting backlight to save on battery life.

You can also rotate the screen round to show in landscape.

The level of sensitivity of the keys is just about right – we didn’t have any problems with mistaken presses or missed swipes on scrolls. The sensitivity cannot be adjusted but it is set well so you should find this not a problem. HTC are constantly improving the TouchFLO 3D interface, on top on the Windows 6.1 Professional operating system.

You can stroke across the entire home screen to access each of the different functions. If you press the start button then you can bring up all of your shortcuts as well as 30 different apps.

It also has a scrolling menu which works similarly to that of the i-phone with large icons which can be easily accessed with the thumb – so not much need for the little stylus. The phone was pretty good on the web with a good sized screen for viewing sites.

It comes preloaded with Opera, but you can also use IE, and access is fast via Wi-Fi or HSDPA 3G link (with up to 7.2Mbps download).

The accelerometer switches the screen to landscape mode when you turn the phone on its side. This also happens when you open up the QWERTY keyboard. You can tap the screen twice for a zoom on web pages and can easily scroll around with your finger and switch sites easily. Web pages are rendered extremely well – the majority of sites appeared perfectly.

There is an RSS hub to keep you up to date as well as a YouTube app. The camera is not a great one; if used in good light then the quality is OK but if used indoors with artificial light then it is not the best. It has autofocus, a 2x digital zoom, some colour effects, a panorama setting, ten-second timer and touch screen focus.

If you need a quality camera for business mobile use then this will probably be a killer for the Touch Pro2 but for light users it will just about do. The HTC Touch Pro2 is perfect for Watching video.

The screen is only 0.2in smaller than the Touch HD, but has the same pixel resolution and it is difficult to spot any difference in quality. You can watch a wide range of video and media formats; WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI You can use Windows Media Player for music, and there’s a ten-band graphic equaliser with 21 presets to help you get the sound you want. It supports a good range of formats: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A.

There is no FM radio but the sound on the music player is pretty good – supplied headphones are not bad but probably not as good as the ones with the i-phone. We found that for business mobile phone users to get your email set up is very easy – you simply need your email address and password. The HTC Touch Pro2 has quad-band GSM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (with stereo A2DP) and USB 2.0, as well as a TV out facility.

For business mobile phone users who are regularly out of the office for meetings – the Touch Pro2 comes with GPS and Google Maps, both of which work very well. There’s no sat nav included but you can pay for inclusion but will be lucky to find this for less than the £60 cost through the i-phone app. Windows Office and Adobe Reader are pre-installed, this means that you can create and view Word, Excel and OneNote docs, as well as view PowerPoint docs and PDFs. But… there’s also JETCET Presentation, which allows you to edit PowerPoint docs.

For business users there is also instant messaging with Windows Live Messenger, some Java games, including Teeter, stock quotes, weather updates and a calendar. The HTC Touch Pro2 has 512MB of memory with 288MB of RAM, and you can add up to 16GB with a microSD card.

The battery should give you 510 minutes of talk time (GSM) and up to 750 hours of standby according to HTC but we found that we gor just over 2 days with typical business use of all functions.

All round this is a great mobile phone for the business user – it has really taken a step up from the diamond2 which is saying something. This is a company to watch!

If you are keen to buy this mobile phone then there are some great deals available through our site – at time of writing the prices started at £25/month based on 1 handset so depending on your size you may be able to barter down from this price.

I think that even Blackberry owners would have to admit that the apps available for Blackberry mobile phones are far outstripped in choice, quality and price by those available for the i-phone. Nonetheless, there are some great apps out there for Blackberry business mobile phone owners and here are our pick of the best.

Evernote is a multimedia capable electronic notebook. You can take text notes, ideas, and the results from your company brainstorms, you can also store audio files, photos, such as snapshots of your whiteboard following business meetings or in many of the modern style gastro pubs you can take a shot of the big blackboard menu and take it back to your table for everyone to have a look at. As well as this you can record audio from interviews and talks or presentations. You can take these files from either your desktop or your phone, you can then search through them later.

ExpenseLog Pro is a relatively cost-effective system for businesses who need to manage their expenses on the go. It is easy to set up and you can use for your team within minutes.Great for businesses where your team all have Blackberry smartphones.

Voice on the Go helps to increase the amount of time that you can spend communicating on your Blackberry mobile phone, this can increase productivity. You can email, search contacts, listen to appointments and reply by voice while driving safely.

The Copy2Contact application by Anagram Technologies can take information from calls, emails and text messages and copy that information to your contacts. This means that you can work faster and harder by doing more on the move and having more information easily at your disposal. This application takes all of the information and transforms it into a new or updates an existing contact. If an appointment time and place are discussed at a meeting then this Blackberry business app can transfer that information to your BlackBerry calendar.

Telenav is the Blackberry’s best (we feel) GPS Navigator™. You get very clear and simple voice and onscreen driving and walking directions with automatic rerouting and full-color 3D moving maps that display your current location.

WiFi File Transfer App WiFi File Transfer App helps workers to instantly send files from BlackBerry to computer, computer to BlackBerry, or BlackBerry to printer. So, print the emailed directions while leaving the room, bring an unfinished document or list of phone numbers, you can fill out and print a contract over a WiFi network at your client’s office. Impatica Impatica allows you to deliver graphically rich, animated Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations to your colleagues and external clients through BlackBerry smartphones.

Call time tracker is designed to improve the efficiency of client relationships. it allows you to log the amount of time that you spend on each of your clientsthe app pops up between calls and emails and asks the user to allocate which client and project their calls relate to. It will even assist with emails sent from the mobile phone; tracking time spent writing to clients. With the monthly report generated and sent via email, this is great for at least understanding which clients you spend your time on so you can then quickly interpret where you need to re-focus your time.

Google Maps A great free app that is perfect for finding your way to meetings and to social engagements of for helping explain to others how to get to you familar destinations through quickly saving and sending a map from your Blackberry mobile.

One thing that has been interesting about Blackberry Apps for business is the number of vertical specific ones – take a browse through to see what is available for the industry that you work in.

Of course there are thousands more apps for Blackberry mobile phones that will save you and your business time and money. To browse all go to Blackberry App World. Problem is, if you are just wanting to browse and do not own a Blackberry mobile phone then you are going to find it difficult getting in. This link will get you in the backdoor to the business mobile phone apps for Blackberry app world.