As an avid Blackberry (8900) user I recently decided I would like to give the iphone a go and seeing as we use o2 as our business tariff, it seemed the perfect opportunity, especially since the new 3GS 16gb and 32gb were released 6 weeks ago and we managed to avoid the temptation of camping outside a store for 48 hours just to get our hands on one. Is anyone actually that desperate for a phone? Its a worrying trend.

There are plenty of smartphones on the market now but it seems there are two main contenders. The Blackberry and the iPhone.

Durability:

Blackberry:
I am quite heavy handed with phones so the blackberry has always held up well for me, although I will say the cheap painted chrome effect casing around the edges is pitiful at staying put and within 2 weeks of owning it, it was chipping and the black paint underneath was showing through, which certainly did nothing to hold its £300 market value.

The Blackberry is a durable and strong phone, is more compact and definitely built to withstand the handbag treatment more I would say, so long as it is in a case to avoid the paint chipping.

Iphone:
I can see the iphone is going to be an absolute nightmare to keep scratch free as after a day of owning it and spinning it around on its back on the table top (which is just too much fun not to do) it is already scratched and scuffed. But no problem, I have already found that Ebay sell replacement snap on covers for £3 a go and they come in a range of lovely colours too.

Early on, the iPhone had a bad reputation for being fragile because of the touchscreen and the amount of plastic on it. But come on, when dropped on the kitchen floor enough any phone would eventually break. The iPhone proved that it actually is quite durable, as long as you don’t drop it on its lovely glass face. Without anything protecting the glass, you are looking at a shattered iPhone. However, there are products on the market to help protect your iPhone, from rubber sleeves to hard plastic cases.

Ease of use:

iphone:
Being a typical woman I didn’t read the ‘easy set up’ manual o2 stick in the box, so upon delivery I unpacked it like an early Xmas present and stared at it for a few minutes before realising there was no place to stick the SIM card. I pushed buttons, pulled bits and I turned the volume up and down 10 times before I realised none of these were the SIM card slot. So I googled it only to find out that there was a tiny little hole in the top that needed an open paper clip stuck in it so the SIM card casing popped up. If I had read the ‘easy set up’ guide I would have also found the enclosed ‘special tool’ provided to actually open the holder rather than reach for the nearest paper clip. Women hey.

The touchscreen and motion sensibility on the iPhone is unmatched by any other touchscreen devices. Bump to exchange contact information, play games by tilting the phone, zoom in with a finger slide motion. It’s simply amazing technology and even the touchscreen Blackberry Storm doesn’t come close.

The email set up is easy and the push/fetch options are easy to work out and set up.

Blackberry:
The menu is harder to navigate although you can choose how many icons to display in a row and group them etc, I still prefer the Iphone’s menu and lists and the drag/drop facility.

Email set up wins on the Blackberry as you can log on to o2 mail and set the accounts up online, whereas the iphone you have to add all the info on the actual phone and trying to enter 20 digit passwords made up of letters, numbers and symbols on a touch screen is definitely an art I didn’t master straight away.

Appearance:
Since ordering the iphone 32gb I must say, it wins hands down for me. Its sleek, expensive looking and well made. All the things a woman loves in a man, sorry, phone.

Likes & Dislikes:
iphone:
I love the idea of everything being held in widgets and I like the slidy touch screens and ease of use. I also love the new Qwerty keyboard on this recent model and reports from other friends who have the 3g say it’s hard to use and certainly takes some getting used to.

I also like the look of a lot of the applications out there that can be downloaded to the phone. Although I haven’t had a chance to download many others yet, I headed straight for the itunes website and made sure Facebook and Twitter were put on there first. Hey, a girl needs to stay in touch!

So far there is not much to dislike apart from the fact that the ringtones and message tones are very limited and although there are cheats out there that enable you to custom make or use a song as ringtone, it took me around 10 minutes to work out how to do this and get my favourite tune set as my ring tone. I am still stuck with one of the few awful message tones programmed in. Unless you want to pay Apple £1 to have the privilege of downloading a song to your phone to set as a ringtone, you are stuck. Surely Apple make enough money from the Iphone itself to have to charge people extra for bits like that.

Blackberry:
I like the fact that as opposed to the iphone you can use any sound or song you want as a ring tone and you don’t have to pay for the privilege or change the file types around manually.

I also like the 6 icon menu on the home screen that flashes or beeps at you when you have a text or mail as it saves you having to take the phone right out of the case or go in to the menu to manually check every hour or so.

Therefore, I would say that the phones are pretty much equal in my opinion. The iphone wins for me on appearance, ease of use and applications but the Blackberry wins on durability and Set up. Just as well I have one of each then I guess!