dealnews.com has a quick comparison of the 3 major smartphones out there right now. The Apple iPhone, the G1, and the Blackberry Bold. The Bold is one I was particularly waiting for. I *was* holding out until it came out to replace my aging (year old :) ) Treo 700p. But I “heard” that AT&T had exclusivity for 3 or more months, and after the launch date for AT&T got pushed back from June to July to … ? I decided to get the Curve instead. I figured I could always upgrade in a year to the Bold if it looks good. However, now the Storm is right around the corner so…
The Treo was (is) a very good smartphone. It was stable, had lots of programs by 3rd parties available for it (many free), had a touch screen, synced with outlook very nicely. The only drawback, for me, is bluetooth support. It was horrible. The bluetooth support itself was an older version (1.1 I think instead of current 1.3) and it would frequently drop connection to the headset. Furthermore, it had the nasty habit of crashing whenever the battery was low AND the bluetooth was connected. If it crashed just the wrong way, it would get stuck in a rebooting loop until I reformatted and reinstalled. It was otherwise very stable, except for when it was in both of those conditions.
I think the review was pretty accurate. It gave points to each of the phones in different categories and named the G1 the overall winner. Although I don’t know that I would say that any of these phones is a clear winner. Even though they are very similar in size and features (GPS, multimedia, internet, camera). I think which one you choose depends on the user more than anything else.
The Bold is clearly aimed at the business-types (altho not necessarily a business user), and adds some media functionality and customizability. It is an organizer and communicator first, and everything else second.
The iPhone is clearly aimed at the fashion conscious multimedia crowd. The video and audio is top notch, the design is top notch, and most importantly the UI is top notch. By a country mile, it shows that Apple always places the user experience first. Even though Blackberry is also very good at making things intuitive, Apple just adds that extra bit of polish in their interactions. Mandatory use of iTunes makes this a non-starter for me, and sketchy synchronization with Outlook and a laughably missing “copy&paste” function.
The G1 has probably the most potential. It’s not there yet, which isn’t surprising considering it is the first phone using Google’s new Android OS. However, it has the most potential of the three. Anyone can code for it since the OS is open-source. The downside? Anyone can code for it since the OS is open-source.