Byrnesys Blabberings

After having the Blackberry 8700g for about a year at work and really getting to grips with some of the basic functionality, which in fact I think is much under used. Most of my colleagues simply use their blackberrys as email readers, they dont even try to read the attachments. It seems a rule with technology for the 40+ generations is "do what you know, and leave the rest alone" whereas the rule for the younger generations seems to be "If I dont know what it does, then lets try it, if it breaks, lets try and fix it". 

I realise that is an unbelievable generalisation, and I realise everyone will want to pull out their exceptions to my rules, so maybe instead of being generational it is more personalities. What ever the root of peoples relationship to technology is, one thing is true in my office, the younger members have "pimped" their blackberrys whilst the older members use them as glorified SMS receivers. Hopefully I will get around to writing a post on some software that might help you if you fall into the latter catergory.

In the last few weeks we got the upgrade to the Blackberry 8310…dont ask me why the upgrade has a lesser number than its predecessor, but believe me when I opened up the boxes (I had to set up about 10 for everyone in my office) it was clear that these were indeed a pretty good upgrade to the 8700g

 
From the outset the 8310 is smaller and slimmer, which in technology terms is code for super slick. Though interestingly enough my girlfriend and lay blackberry person Rachel pointed out that it looked less business-like and important. But that wasn’t such an issue for me, being a true geek I knew that anyone who knew what this was knew it was sweet. Anyway enough of the technology vanity and down to the functionality.

The 8700g had a much nicer interface than its predecessors (of which I never had to use for any extended period) and again beat them on size, but essentially it was still a phone that was based entirely around RIM technology being its best selling point, along with its impressive little mini browser for those handy go-anywhere google searches.

The 8310, in this respect deserves a different first number (which is traditionally the way moblie phone model numbers tell you, we pulled out the big guns in terms of design and/or software) because rightly speaking the 8310 is a new generation of Blackberry. To use a crude analogy 8700 to the 8310 have done for the user experience what Windows XP did for Windows 98 (please remove all negative scarring experiences from your understanding of that analogy).

The interface change which is most notable between the two handsets is the move from the side scroll wheel to the central trackball, this does take a bit of getting use to but is more effective 4 way scrolling, if not a little hyper sensitive.

All regular functions of the blackberry remain such as email, sms, phone, calendar, browser, calculator, tasks etc etc. but the additions to the functions of the new handset reveal that RIM (the company behind blackberry) are certainly not sitting on their laurels content with the RIM email technology and have been taking a close eye on the mobile technology market. From the perspective of the industry I think this has paid off. Blackberry, for now at least, is always going to be synonymous with business phones and email, but blackberry have looked beyond this safety zone to include non-business customers and maybe to convince the current users to leave their more media based phones.

The 8310 includes:

Camera - With zoom and flash: Only 2MP but this has been a contentious move for RIM as many have been thankful for blackberrys staying away from camera technology due to commercial sensitivity. It seems at any rate that battle has been lost and probably to the cheers of the majority. 

Media: A small program which is a player for videos, MP3’s, Pictures and ringtones. I haven’t really ventured into this too much, but there was a slight buzz about the videos having to be stringently compatible to certain codecs and resolutions to work, which will put many off using it as they would like.

In built GPS: Only available on the 83 Series model 10 but arguably the best function on the currently available blackberry handhelds. You can use the preloaded blackberry maps, but personally I think the BB download for Google Maps is far better if if it relys on loading the maps OTA (Over the air) instead of having it stored on the handheld like BB Maps.

GPS also opens up possibilty for navigational software such as the ever popular tom tom units. The only two (free) contenders in this range are amAze and Nav4all I wont go any further though as I will write another post on, possibly the best part of the new blackberrys, the 3rd party software available.