My 24 Hour Affair with a Blackberry 8800

I have a confession to make.  I’ve been unfaithful.  Those who have read my blog before, may be aware that I’m in a fairly disappointing relationship with  my current smartphone device, the Motorola Q running Windows Mobile 5.  The sad part of this whole affair was that it didn’t work out, not with my Q, but with the hoped replacement – the newly minted Blackberry 8800.

I’ve been salivating over the 8800 since photos of its supposed design began to appear online at the end of last year.  At long last it shipped, providing a Blackberry model that has a full sized keyboard and the footprint (almost exactly) of the Moto Q.  It’s also the first BB with a full sized keyboard that doesn’t have the trademark side-mounted scroll wheel.  Instead, it has a trackball in the center of the device’s face, same as the BB Pearl.

But it wasn’t the new navigating device that had me ready to buy, it was the promise of a slick looking, right-sized BB device that comes with all the BB trademarks – amazing battery life (22 days of standby¹ while doing data sync), UI/OS that has been streamlined for painless and serious email work, a keyboard that you don’t hate using, and best of breed integration into corporate groupware.

Unboxing this baby was truly like meeting up with an old friend.  Turning it on and using the keyboard and all the built in keyboard shortcuts was a joy (and a sharp contrast to my now borderline hatred I have when I use my Q).  And oh my, the holster configurations are still there!  Hooray, a device that knows if it was put away or not.

Deciding to pick the 8800 up was something that I fretted over well before it was released.  As some readers may have guessed, my employer prefers the use of Windows Mobile devices (go figure) and thus we have no BES support in house.  I was worried about this but decided that I would just get around this by installing a desktop redirector² (assuming they still supported one – it has been almost 5 years since I was a BB user). 

The good news was that the desktop redirector was still supported.  Also, RIM had since added an Internet service that is supposed to plug into Exchange and Lotus systems that are configured to provide a web interface (Outlook Web Access for us Exchange users out there). 

First, I tried the Internet option (why run a machine at home to forward stuff if I didn’t have to).  The service quickly figured out how to pull data from my Exchange server after only giving it my credentials and email address.  Soon work email was flowing to the 8800.  However, I quickly found that only email was flowing to the device (no calendar, contacts, notes or tasks), and that mail folder filing wasn’t supported using this method.

So, I tried out the desktop redirector method, this fixed the mail filing issue, but nothing else.  It seemed that RIM had pulled non-mail redirection from the non-BES solutions (when RIM first launched calendar syncing over the air, it was offered in both redirector and BES – or at least that’s how I remember it when we were testing it).

Needless to say this was a big letdown.  I could sync the other data, but it would require the BB to be tethered to my computer via the USB cable.  No real-time sync for that stuff. 

I struggled with the decision, but the next day I had to return the 8800.  I couldn’t justify that big a leap backward in functionality (and at a cost of the the device + a new contract + canceling my old contract – I’ve only been with Verizon for the life my Q).  The fact that it was still a decision at all is testimony to the BB’s email prowess.

My brief tinkering left me confident that the 8800 is another excellent product in a long line from RIM.  Anyone out there that has a BES in their organization should run – do not walk – to the store to pick one up.  However, if you’re dependent upon your entire groupware solution to run your life (like me), then you have to have BES.

Sigh.  Guess I’m stuck waiting for the Motorola Q9 now – come on “Q2 2007″.

1 Much has been made of the 8800′s lack of WiFi and 3G protocol support on the nerd forums.  The former I simply don’t get, why does anyone want or value a WiFi connection for their smartphone - you already have to buy an unlimited WWAN data plan with all these gadgets, what the hell is the point?  On the 3G side, it’s easy to see why it’s not supported - sure 3G is nice, but you know what EDGE (2.5G) works pretty damn well for async message queuing (which is what the entire BB system is built upon) and it gets you the other side – battery life.  My Q has kickass 3G (2.4Mbs), but it can’t even make it a full work day on standard battery.  I’m not sure you could find a business exec or serious mobile emailer out there that wouldn’t trade “fast googling” (or whatever the hell you want to use your 3G for) for 2-3 wks of battery life.

2 For those that are un-indoctrinated, a desktop redirector is just a piece of software that sits on your PC and runs alongside the Outlook (or Lotus notes) client.  As mail/events come in, it forwards this on to the RIM data center which in turn forwards it on to your device.  In the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) scenario, RIM software is installed by your “IT guys” and sits next to the groupware server (ex: MS Exchange) at your company.  This server is aware of all groupware events and forwards them onto the same RIM data center which, in turn, sends them to user devices.  So, the redirector is supposed to be an option for customers that cannot get their IT shops to run a BES.