Garrett Kelley

Since 2005 I have been a devoted and loyal BlackBerry user. No phone could part me from my beloved BlackBerry devices. That is, until now. Over the last year I have witnessed people use their mobile device to surf the web quickly and easily, playback smooth video, and enjoy large high resolution displays. My BlackBerry started to make me feel left behind. Where BlackBerry excels at messaging, it falls flat on its face when it comes to a rich media experience. Strong messaging capabilities are exactly what many people are after, especially the business types. To that I say great! Continue to use your BlackBerry! I, however, want more. This lead me to researching new phones and platforms. Where I landed is Android. Yesterday (6/4/2010) I picked up the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint! So far this new device is everything I want. It integrates tightly with all of the Google services and includes push Gmail support! My Google contacts sync effortlessly over-the-air with my Evo. The UI is fast and responsive and video playback is smooth. The Android Market has thousands of applications which I have only thus far scratched the surface of. My initial impression of this device is that it is simply amazing.

The one feature that only BlackBerry offers which I will truly miss is BlackBerry Messenger. It really is the best at what it does. There is no replacement. BBM alone though is not enough to keep me with BlackBerry. I believe that if RIM does not step their game up, BlackBerry will be left behind. I understand that they are a secure, corporate devices but consumers want a rich media experience. That is a fact RIM cannot ignore.

I’ll post additional thoughts after I have more time to become acquainted with my new device.

I wanted to share a few quick settings changes which can greatly improve the battery life of your BlackBerry.

Go to Options then Screen/Keyboard.

1. I changed my Backlight Brightness from the default of 100 to 50. This will set the maximum brightness to 50%. It is noticeably dimmer at first, but after using it for a few minutes you will not notice the difference anymore.

2. Make sure Automatically Dim Backlight is set to On. This will automatically adjust the Backlight according to the light level of the room you are in. The backlight however will never be brighter than what you set the Backlight Brightness to.

3. Change the Backlight Timeout to 10 seconds. Sometimes this can be a little bit annoying, but more often than not I do not need the backlight to say on for the default 30 seconds.

These three settings working together can greatly improve the battery life of your BlackBerry. My BlackBerry Tour went from barley making it a day on a single charge, to running well into the night.

Sprint has officially released OS 5.0.0484 for the BlackBerry Tour 9630! Currently this update is only available via BlackBerry Desktop Manager. Verizon is now one of the only carriers not to officially release OS 5.0 for the Tour. Point for Sprint! Sprint users are the ones usually left waiting for OS updates. If you are new to OS 5.0, you can check out what is new here.

Update: This OS is now available for download here.

RIM has updated BlackBerry Wallet to verion 1.0.1.23 which is now compatible with the BlackBerry Tour. For all of you Tour users out there…if you were disappointed like I was that BlackBerry Wallet was not working, upgrade now! You can install BlackBerry Wallet via App World.

Seinfeld makes a few good points. I know I could relate to a few of the things he said.