5 month review of the Tour.. waiting on OS 5.0..

Posted on January 19, 2010 by pete

Its been a solid 5 months or so with what until very recently was being called the “best Blackberry yet”. Now the new Curve, Bold and Storm2 have come out, with a new Pearl on the way. Oh.. and.. the Tour2. Yeah, that’s right.. good old RIM is pulling an Apple on us early adopters! Why, one might ask? Likely because the Tour(1) is NOT the best BB ever. In fact.. Its kinda crappy and I’m pretty fed up with it.

Sure, it looks great, takes very good pictures, and has an amazing display.. but my Tour is becoming increasingly unstable and laggy. Both of these situations have a simple fix – reboot – which sadly takes 7+ minutes on the device. Yeah – SEVEN minutes – sometimes creeping up to TEN. Its absolutely unbelievable, considering how “powerful” it is supposed to be – lots of memory and a fast processor – yet it can’t load its own OS nearly as fast as Blackberries with much lesser stats? Huh? My old Pearl (see the earliest posts) could out-boot the Tour by 5 minutes, easily.

Stability wise, its great, as long as I don’t use any 3rd party apps. The latest version of Facebook has a nice bug that literally reboots the device when I exit the app. What? I guess we’ll call that “memory cleaning” or something. Ridic. Running Google Maps works quite well.. as long as you have alot of time. My lovely Tour has a little hourglass problem.. where nearly everytime I try to USE Gmaps, it loads quickly, then hangs for a solid 30 seconds. The phone is completely unusable during this period. And it likely will repeat this behavior several times during the Gmaps session.

Signal quality is abysmal. I am still dropping out of 1XEV constantly, down to 1X, and sometimes losing signal altogether. Its not Verizon’s issue, as I’ve mentioned before – its this goddamn phone. Kim’s old Curve is still a champ at holding a signal. Fortunately this signal crap does not drop too many calls.. but it still does now and then – though not as many as the good old iPhone.

It’s been said, since this phone came out, that the new “OS5.0″ would be coming out “soon”. 5 months later, its still not out, thanks to Verizon.. however there are some leaks out there. I hope I hope I hope the new OS will fix the issues I list above.. namely the booting and signal quality issues. I suspect any “fresh install” of an OS will fix some of the instabilities .. much like any device. I am not banking on the new OS to come out anytime soon, however – nor do I really expect it to actually fix the issues. I am almost certain, in fact – especially since the Tour2 is coming out (with features like Wifi, trackpad and a truthfully faster processor). If the Tour(1) were so great – would there be any need to build a better version of it immediately after release? Nope.

So.. as I sort of suspected some time ago.. the Tour is simply my “right now” phone. Thinking about day-to-day frustration, it is still less (but not much less!) infuriating than my iPhone experience- probably because the camera is relatively awesome, and it still does a great job at email.

Now that Motorola released the Droid, and  Google has its Nexus One out (soon to be on Verizon).. I’m starting to get more interested in Android – but I am going to wait it out a bit longer.

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Oh yeah – two months later.. Tour is great.

Posted on October 21, 2009 by pete

I returned the first Tour, second one is a winner. All issues I had with the first are fixed – heck even the battery door is tight. GPS is reliable, though signal is still a bit flaky now and then. Kim’s old Curve still gets a better signal at times. But the speed and capability is just what I wanted out of the device. Forgot to finish this saga, since the device has been great so far.

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Tour – Awesome – kinda, sorta.

Posted on August 14, 2009 by pete

We’ve got some issues here. I love the Tour – alot. The speed, camera, the multitasking, GPS, 3G, keys, rubbery grip, and incredible screen.. however all is not well.

My GPS craps out. Alot. So much that nearly every time I want to use it (for awesome apps like GPSlogger), I have to reboot the phone to get the GPS chip to wake up. Not cool. It takes ages to reboot, too – like 7 minutes or more. My old Pearl did it in half the time..

Further GPS crap – even when it is working.. it occasionally reports INSANE data. You can see it in action in these images.. two are from a round of golf I logged, where I apparently broke the sound barrier, and another is from a run – where I broke 80mph on foot. Right.

To ice this cake, the signal reception has issues as well. I can be sitting on the couch here and watch the signal drop from full 1XEV to no bars, to just 1X (which I think is like ATT Edge vs 3G).. then lose data connectivity altogether.. then it bounces right back. Meanwhile, Kim’s Curve, also on VZW, right next to my phone, maintains a strong signal consistently.  WTF, RIM?

So this Tour is over – going to swap for a new one at the VZW store. And apparently, the newer “batches” of Tours are much better built, so say other folks on the internets. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. We’ll see. So far I am not happy – at all – about these shortcomings.

Update.. timed a reboot: 6.5 minutes before it was “awake” and then almost another minute before it was useable. and… it is on 1X vs 1XEV – unreal. I’ve had enough of this. And today’s lesson for CDMA networks:
1X: Connected to the cellular network on 1xRTT as well as connected to RIM’s servers
1XEV: Connected to the cellular network on EVDO as well as connected to RIM’s servers

So compared to GSM, 1X is like EDGE, 1XEV is like 3G.

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Back in Black(berry). Left ATT, got a Tour 9630 on Verizon.

Posted on July 27, 2009 by pete

The Tour is the latest and greatest Blackberry – with 3G, a great new (Bold-esque) keyboard, awesome high res screen, nice camera with auto focus, GPS, and some much needed CPU/memory upgrades.

So far, the Tour is fantastic.. except the GPS is very flakey on mine. The GPS chip seems to stop responding very often, which appears to only happen to me.. can’t find anyone else with these issues. More to come on that – may have to get the unit replaced.

Its very fast, both hardware-wise and network-wise.. though I do find some funky slowdowns at home (seems I live right between two towers or something). I’ve downloaded a bunch of apps and it runs everything without a hitch – except when the GPS craps out of course. Even Google Maps runs just as well as it did on the iPhone – without the giant screen of course. Latitude is nice to have again, and of course my chat clients – Goog Talk and BBM.

The web browser is good – better than any other BB I have used. Still doesn’t handle Javascript well, but overall displays most content quite well. I suspect once Skyfire is released, that will solve any issue.

Camera – auto focus is REALLY good. Flash is insanely bright, however the device is smart enough to lower the flash output as it needs to, based on the auto focus. Video camera is pretty good, too.

The switch from ATT to Verizon went well. Got the phone activated immediately, and am now signed onto a cheaper plan.

More to come.. but so far, I’m a happy camper.

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btw, back to DFF

Posted on July 17, 2009 by pete

Duck Fat Fries are indeed a real thing – I’ve sadly never had them. But.. I will. I have heard great things about Hot Dougs in Chicago – not just their incredible sounding dogs – but they also have (mythical?) Duck Fat Fries (on Fridays and Saturdays only). Someday..

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Gone, but not forgotten.. ATT strikes back with ineptitude.

Posted on July 15, 2009 by pete

I can’t get rid of this stupid iPhone. As my sister said “getting rid of that thing is like getting rid of AOL!”

I gave ATT a few days to get my contract and stuff back to normal – ie, back to before I got the iPhone. After 4 days, my account is still claiming I have the iPhone contract.. yet is aware that I am using my old BB. MMhmmm.. about that iPhone contract – shouldn’t it like.. NOT WORK with my BB? That’s how ATT seems to sell it – as if it is some separate beast..

Figuring it would be a quick fix, I called ATT last night before heading to the Verizon store. Funnily, the ATT stores close at 7pm, yet Verizon stores are open till 9pm. I talk to Regina for a bit and explain the situation. She has to talk to her manager.  This goes on for a while – she can’t do anything without her manager. Sure, fine, she seems new, no problem. After a good 10 minutes of awkward questions (“did you eat dinner yet?”) she finally announces that ATT cannot help me over the phone, that the store has complete control over this issue – as it is an error on their behalf. Fine, just another nail in the coffin, ATT.

I hang up and go check out the Verizon store. Busy place even after 8pm on a Tuesday. The Tour is a popular item. I played with it a bit – and yup, its a 100% mashup of the Bold keyboard in a Curve sized body. Its a really nice looking device. Typing is different, but good. I checked out the Storm, and ugh what a mess that thing is. Not a fan, could never deal with it. Touchscreen just is not for me. Also played with the Pearl Flip – nice device.. much faster than my 8100 but not as nice as the Tour, etc. The size is kinda funny – oddly large when its opened – but its lightweight and has Suretype (which I do enjoy). Went back to the Tour – tested out some web action, camera, and other toys. Its a powerful phone. I figure I could get used to the keys and be happy. Not wanting to “take a number” to talk to a rep, esp since my ATT account is in limbo, I left, content.

Swung by ATT today. Talk to the doood who sold me the phone initially. Apparently my contract was already in their sites – was sitting on a desk – and he pulled it right up and acknowledged the error. “Didn’t you get a new Blackberry or something?” he asks. “No.. you could not give me my upgrade price due to the iPhone contract.. and I still can’t get that”, I calmly added. Further explaining that “I need to know what my pricing will be before I buy a phone.”

He seems to understand, however.. he could not FIX my contract error without his manager, who was.. “out”, possibly back in 20 minutes. Ugh. He says they will take care of it and will let me know. Ok.. so I go and play with the phones a bit more. Bold – still the best keyboard of all. Really awesome. Unfortunately the phone is a really gigantic. Sure feels nice, but way too big. Curve 8900 – typed a bit and came to decide that I’d be happier with the Tour keyboard. I made less errors in less time, so figured that’s sign enough. I did test out Youtube on the 8900 and it worked just fine.. though I am not sure if that was via edge or wifi. As I am playing, the sales guy goes up to my cancellation guy and tells him he screwed up. Yeah, rub it in, smart guy, but no one’s fixing my issue..

I left after about 10 minutes and have decided to give them a whole day to fix this. No call yet, and the store is now closed as its after 7. Tomorrow afternoon I will give them one final chance to give me my old contract back.. and then it will get ugly. Little does ATT know.. that as soon as they fix this, I am cancelling them and moving over to VZW. This stupid debacle has sealed it.

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I quit. Back to mobile device limbo..

Posted on July 14, 2009 by pete

My month ran up, and I had to make the decision – deal with the phone for 2 years, or just return and hope to find something that suits my needs better.. and the choice was pretty simple. I went to ATT and returned it, no questions asked – and reactivated my Pearl for the time being.

Now that I am back on my BB, there are some things I must give the iPhone credit for. The GPS/Gmaps integration is terrific. Being able to delete/read my junk mail via IMAP in Gmail – awesome. Very good call quality, as well. I don’t have any regrets, however.

Sure, my Pearl barely can run Gmaps anymore and uses cell tower triangulation. Sure, it doesn’t want to use IMAP w/Gmail.. and yeah, calls aren’t great. But most of these are going to be fixed with probably any new device, so I will make do in the short term. Oh, and yeah I was back to a crappy camera. Oh wait, I there was no change in crappiness, except now I had a flash again, and could upload photos directly to FB again after taking a shot – or send right to Google Talk, or BBM, or even Twitter, if I gave a crap about Twitter.

What’s next?

I went into ATT with the intention to change from the iPhone to the Curve 8900, and if that didn’t work for me, I could return it in a month. Well ATT wanted $300 for the device in store – which I laughed at – and left without. Last I checked my 2 years of servitude would provide me the 8900 for $99 according to their website. However, it seems I don’t have any upgrade eligibility after signing the iPhone contract that is now nullified. Hmm. ATT might be getting a phone call very soon. It shouldn’t take 4 days to revert me to my old “free agent” status.

So for the moment, the 8900 cannot be had at a price I am willing to pay. That leaves me no choice but to strongly consider the BB Tour, over on Verizon – which was released the day after I reverted to my Pearl. As it turns out, as well, I could get my service for $70 on VZW too – instead of the $85ish I pay at ATT.  That’s a good chunk of savings.

That decision is still pending. For now, I have my “connection” back and can stop using SMS again.

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3 weeks in – losing.. patience..

Posted on July 6, 2009 by pete

More weeks, more apps, more observations.

3 whole weeks have gone by – the honeymoon is over folks! Latest obsevations..

  • Touch screen has some trouble in humidity.  Getting into the car on a rainy nasty day, the screen barely responds to my fingers.
  • 3G SUCKS in some areas, even with “full signal”. Its a funny thing – you expect broadband speed because the phone says 3G.. yet at times (especially north of Boston) it feels much slower than EDGE.
  • When this thing’s memory is chewed up, it does not tell you, does not show you, and has VERY irritating behavior. For instance.. you cannot compose, or reply to an email. You click on stuff and it simply does nothing. At least TELL me there’s a problem, Apple. I don’t mind rebooting (I used a Blackberry for years, remember) – so don’t pretend everything’s fine and simply ignore my requests.  And when apps crash – how about an error message?? I have seen most of my apps crash – some repeatedly – but with no explanation. WTF, Apple? You think my not having a clunky error message, your phone is more user friendly? Tell me what the hell is wrong, so I know how to fix it. Is there “an app for that”?
  • Camera – still garbage unless perfectly still, in bright sunlight. Now there’s all this talk of adding cameras to ipods and whatnot – oy. From a photo nerd, this is a sad, sad thing. I am still shocked at the camera’s deficiencies (have to use the touch screen, slow to load, slow to shoot, tendency to warp photos, horrid low-light performance)
  • AT&T’s own iPhone app, “myWireless” – you know, the one to access your account and everything you need from your fancy phone? It has not worked for over a week. Simply sits there saying “loading”. Thanks ATT. Nice work. Really.
  • App Updates – two things here. When you have several updates from the App Store, you can only run one at a time. So.. you go to App Store, hit Updates, and pick an app to update. Then you exit the App Store so it can load the new app. Then you have to load up the App Store all over again, and repeat. This is assinine. Why isn’t there an “update all”??? Found out there is, but only via iTunes – and if you are trying to use this as a laptop replacement, uh, yeah, fail.
  • A word on Safari. Its a great browser, when it stays open. Have experienced several crashes, because all of its “tabs” apparently can consume a pile of memory. Why not have a “close all windows” option for me? Hmm? Cause if I exit to do something else, you keep my last web page in memory – I don’t need that.
  • The IM issue. In my last post, I mentioned that I could buy an IM client that used Push notification to kind of be “online”. It occurred to me later that Apple gets a chunk of that money. So I am essentially paying Apple to keep their phones crippled? Oh, HELL no.  So shortly after that, a free chat client has come out, that could potentially give me “live” IM access to Google Talk, via Push notifications. YAY, right? I installed it and came very close to “signing in” when it occurred to me – my precious email login credentials are suddenly about to be stored on some server that I know nothing about. I don’t even know who’s running it, or how secure it is! I am not OK with sharing my personal information with random 3rd parties. Sorry, Apple.
  • About that hardware.. It crushes my old Blackberry – I don’t contest that. However.. it is not so “magical”, I am finding. Using anything that tries to ‘autofill’ is mind bogglingly annoying. The thing chews up all of its cycles trying to guess what you are typing, to the degree that it stops accepting input from your typing. Using Google Search is a joke.. takes forever to type your terms, and have the time it falsely submits your query without asking. It is painful. Sending a photo over email – same thing, things get amazingly sluggish as you try to select your recipients.

So.. I have one more week with this thing, before I head back to the ATT store to see about a return. I have some concerns from the “drop” as the shitty plastic backing got a bit chewed up. Could someone tell me why that isnt rubberized still? Oh yeah, it wouldnt be as sexy.

Using this phone very often leaves me as irritated and frustrated as my old run-down Blackberry did. That is not acceptable.

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a whole week gone by – one drop, a woot off, and more apps

Posted on June 23, 2009 by pete

Friday night while grilling, I bent down for something and the phone fell out of my pocket onto the driveway. Being all sleek and shiney, 2 corners got scuffed. It was not a big fall but very scarey nonetheless, as this device has so much heft I suspect it can break easily. My Blackberry was very light – and had a much smaller screen – so drops were not nearly as nerveracking. Amusingly, a story came out on TechCrunch this morning about how often iPhones get broken. Its not surprising.

Other news.. the batter is suddenly better. It lasted a full day at work and only lost about 20% of its life – unlike the whole of last week where it drained about 60% during the workday – without any use. I don’t know how/why this change is happening, as I havent changed my use of it since last week. Maybe its not switching networks as often this week? AT&T is a bit fishy here at my desk. As I mentioned before, it even dropped one of the first calls I’ve received on it, while sitting at my desk.

OS 3.0 has the big promise of “push” – which basically means the phone can notify me of alerts from 3rd party applications – instead of just email/SMS. The big thing here is that IM clients like AIM or Gtalk might be able to “stay alive” now – instead of this whole “sign off when the phone goes to sleep” thing which is so vexing. Since I don’t use AIM outside of work – I don’t plan to install that app, despite it being free. The only way to really get Google Talk is via an app called BeeJive, which is raved about. unaminously. The new version is finally out, and supports “push” – meaning I might be able to have a full conversation on Google Talk again. The app is $10 – which pisses me off. IM is free and I already have this pricey data plan – its really irritating to have to pay more to get access. This phone could really be a money pit for unwise people.

The camera still sucks. I tried to take a picture this morning as my car hit 55,555 miles.. I was 0 for 6. No flash makes it impossible for the camera to take a “fast” picture – so it tries to keep its shutter open longer for more light. Well, that causes blurry photos – especially in the car. Annoying. This camera has annoyed me on many occasions, though its nice that it finally has something of a “quick launch”.

Another test of the iPhone’s “superiority” came up this morning – an internet sensation – the legendary Woot Off. Woot.com holds these now and then, essentially a massive barrage of one-deal-after-another – and you never know what’s next. The goal is to get the fabled “Bag of Crap” – which, for a couple bucks, could land you a big screen TV, or quite literally a bag of useless crap. Its always a fun gamble though. Anyway, the iPhone has some “deal trackers” – that could alert me of a new item. Its something I always wanted to see on the Blackberry.. but does not exist. So – does it work?

In a word – no. Again, no background apps allowed, so the “tracker” shuts down when the phone does. No alerts while the phone is sleeping – and like so many other things, you have to re-load it once you wake up the phone. The more promising of the couple apps actually crashes everytime I wake up the phone and reload it. Lovely. If I did happen to see something I wanted, the “purchase” experience would likely be pretty decent via the Safari browser.. but the chances of seeing something are pretty slim, due to this stupid “disconnect” situation that the phone surrounds itself in.

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OS 3.0 install, and more observations – RIM has to hurry up..

Posted on June 19, 2009 by pete

I intentionally got this 3G before 3.0 came out, so I could see how well Apple was addressing a year’s worth of needed improvements to the phone. I installed it on Weds and have noticed some changes on the device, though it won’t live up to the many, many months of hype.

Install was a breeze – Apple has that aspect very well covered. I plugged the phone into my PC, Itunes loaded and did its thing. Blackberry OS installs are nowhere near this easy.

Improvements for me, a Blackberry user.. you can now set the “home button” to perform one of a limited number of canned actions on double click – luckily, Camera is one of these actions. Thats really nice. Still tough, though. I find the camera VERY shakey – maybe due to the weight of the phone? No real noticeable improvements to the camera with 3.0, which is a shame.

Push has some potential to resolve some of my biggest gripes – that being the “disconnect”. Ages old Blackberries have the ability to let you know if you have IM messages and other notifications. Iphone, “to save battery”, is severely crippled in this aspect. When it goes to sleep, the only way to get notified of a message is via Push or a native app. Since there is no native IM app..  things like Gtalk cannot stay connected while the phone is sleeping. To send an IM, you have to wake up the device, log back into IM, and then go. Beejive is supposed to be releasing a new client soon, with Push notifications for your IMs. That’s a good thing – but you have to PAY for it. Grr.

Typing – its a bit easier on the landscape keyboard, but that’s still only available in certain applications. And when it is – you have very little screen left to view the application itself. It is still futile to try typing without looking though.

Getting really tired of typing my Itunes password for every download or app upgrade.

Search – best part is that searches MP3s.. making songs easy to find. Not that I use it as my Ipod very much. I do like the Ipod interface though – the scrolling beats the crap out of the scroll wheel.

I’ll say this again.. the technology in the device is fantastic. Its really a shame to see just how backwards RIM’s devices are – RIM is really relying on their basic functionality to get users, but I can see why so many people are buying iPhones too. The iPhone can, and does, SO much more than the Blackberry.. however, as a toy, as an internet device.. but not so much as a mobile communication device. This is the corner that RIM seems to think is their bread and butter.. but really – if Apple were to release something that made messaging more convenient – it would litteraly destroy RIM as things stand right now.

New BB’s and new BB software CANNOT COME SOON ENOUGH. Fortunately for RIM, Apple is very content with what they have going – but for the regular consumer – I don’t see a BB competing with the $99 iPhone. For the power users / crackberry / must.. have.. email.. person, I still don’t see the iPhone as  a replacement. Since I am still in that category.. I really like alot about the iPhone, but still have my issues. Right now I can see it as an awesome device to take on the road, or keep on the coffee table. Like I said before.. I’ll take it over a netbook anyday.

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