I want to preface this by saying that I have never had a blackberry before. Sunday July 12th, when the Blackberry Tour came out on Verizon Wireless, I headed down to my local verizon store to pick one up. Now, my initial 4 hours with the phone were horrible. The email didn’t work. I spent over an hour on the phone changing the programming, fixing the network and a million other things that didn’t really help. I had to race back to the store before it closed to get a new one. Finally, I could take a look at the phone.
The phone itself is pretty small for a blackberry. It’s nicely sized and will fit into any pocket. It comes with the standard holster. Somehow, the phone knows when its in the holster. You can set certain rings/vibrate styles to “In Holster Only”. I thought that was pretty cool except the holster is huge and bulky and therefore inconvenient.
First, the cons. The battery life is terrible. I used the internet service moderately today (maybe an hour or a little more tops) and the battery died after 13 hours. I also used about 30-40 minutes of talk time. That’s really inadequate for a phone, especially if you are at a job for a long period of time without the ability to charge the phone. I’m not sure if its supposed to be that low but I already bought a replacement battery.
The service is terrible at times but thats a problem with Verizon.
There aren’t really any other bad things about it. If you don’t know how to use a blackberry, the manual is basically useless. It doesn’t really provide a lot of useful information about how to do a lot of things. I have had another problem with sending text/SMS messages and after a few steps on the phone with Verizon, we were able to resolve it.
The phone’s Blackberry OS is a bit outdated behind the Iphone. First of all, there is NO WIFI. This is a huge disappointment as we are in a world where wireless internet cards are a necessity and would relieve a huge drain on the battery life by connecting to a local network for internet instead of having to go through the slow Verizon network. Also, you can only save as many programs as will fit on the onboard memory. They can’t be saved on the 2GB micro SD card (included). This is another flaw in the OS programming that should be resolved before a new Blackberry OS is released.
The trackball functions much more precisely than in the Blackberry Curve and it is much easier to use. Its more fluid as well. The keyboard is a bit smaller and more cramped than the Curve and takes getting used to. I often hit the wrong keys because the keys are too small. After a while, I am not anticipating a problem.
Call quality is great. Everyone comes in clear. However, outgoing quality is not so good. A few people have complained to me that especially while on speakerphone mode, it cuts out every so often and they cannot hear me. Also, I’ve heard that I sound distant from the phone despite being quite close to the microphone. I can’t relate because I haven’t spoken to anyone who has the phone yet but I can imagine its annoying if you have a hard time hearing the other person. Both people did say they were able to understand what I was saying and when I was off speakerphone neither of them had a problem. This could rectify that.
Besides the terrible nonexistent battery life, the lack of WiFi, the poor outgoing sound quality, the shitty outdated OS, and other minor things, the Blackberry Tour is a great phone. Is it the best Blackberry Ever?? No. That one is hopefully soon to come. What do you think?
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Perhaps you have a dud because my battery the first day lasted 14 hours and i used it a TON on the internet with no issues with speed, connection, etc. I wanted to find something wrong with it but I absolutely LOVE my first smartphone. I no longer have to lug my laptop and tether cord with my cell.
I wish I did. It hasn't gotten any better. But some days that I don't use the internet the battery does last 14 or more hours. Which phone do you have?
you know… the funny thing is this idiot thought the "iPhone" in the mix… Honestly… I would figure someone would bash the Tour because they are a iPhone fanboy! I had a 3G and AT&T's service is complete garbage! I want to assume you live in a cave with no service because Verizon works everywhere in the bay area… on the street, in the subway… you name it it works. As far as the battery life is concerned… if you would actually mess with the Tour and turn of the dual GSM/CDMA feature on you'd save the phone a lot in terms of battery life! Your not travalling abroad you dont need to have this feature on! So SIR I would hope you can learn a lesson from this and not bash something you know nothing about… this again coming from an idiot that has never had a BB before! STUPID IDIOT!
well it turns out there was a problem with the phone. verizon replaced it and my service is much much better. but i still found the AT&T service to be better than what i was getting with verizon.
[...] Blackberry Tour… best Blackberry Ever? [...]
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