I'll start with the good points. If you aren't very fond of typing on a touchscreen keyboard, a Blackberry stands out straight away as most of their handsets come with a physical keyboard. This is an obvious plus to anyone that types a lot of emails on the go and cannot be bothered to learn to type on a virtual keyboard. But that's actually about it. Every other "feature" on any other blackberry handset I would say has been better executed elsewhere and I will demonstrate this below by comparing RIM's supposed "flagship" handset to what it is competing with in the market. In my opinion, the iPhone 4 is in a different league to anything RIM has to offer in their Blackberry range so I will be comparing the Blackberry Torch to what I still consider to be a superior handset, the iPhone 3gs.
In terms of software, Blackberry 6 leaves much to be desired for users familiar with iOS, Android or even WP7. In this regard, Blackberry is not even on the same page and seems years behind what it's competitors have to offer. Whilst all may be classed as smartphones, comparing Blackberry OS to it's competitors is like comparing Windows 95 to Windows 7.
A quick look at the spec of these two devices suggests that even RIM's best is only on a par with an 18 month old apple phone, with one obvious exception. There are 20 times as many apps available for iOS than there are for any blackberry and this is the problem. Some features of the Torch are actually better than the iPhone, such as the amount of RAM that it has and the camera, but as the iPhone seems to be continually proving, hardware spec is only one thing you should be comparing when looking for a new phone. Personally I would much rather have 400,000 applications to choose from and knowledge that Apple has a good history of support for it's legacy devices than an extra few mb of RAM or a screen with 40 more vertical rows of pixels.
| Feature | iPhone 3gs | Blackberry Torch |
| Applications available | 400,000 | 22,000 |
| Screen size | 3.5” | 3.2” |
| Screen resolution | 480*320 | 480*360 |
| Camera | 3mp AF | 5mp flash/AF |
| Video camera | 480p | 480p |
| Front camera | No | No |
| Processor | 600mhz | 624mhz |
| RAM | 256mb | 512mb |
| Storage | 8gb | 4gb +micro SD |
| Battery | 1219mah | 1300mah |
| Weight | 135g | 161g |
| Keyboard | No | Yes |
The question is, if a blackberry isn't designed to compete with an iPhone, why is it priced at a competing price?
A quick look at popular Vodafone price plans for the iPhone 3gs and the Blackberry torch produces the following:
| Blackberry Torch, 24 month contract | PP1 | PP2 | PP3 |
| | | | |
| Minutes | 100 | 500 | 600 |
| Texts | 500 | unlimited | unlimited |
| Data (mb) | 250 | 500 | 500 |
| | | | |
| Upfront cost | £299.00 | £199.00 | £99.00 |
| Cost per month | £20.00 | £25.00 | £30.00 |
| Total cost | £779.00 | £799.00 | £819.00 |
| iPhone 3gs, 24 month contract | | | |
| Minutes | 75 | 300 | 600 |
| Texts | 250 | unlimited | unlimited |
| Data (mb) | 500 | 500 | 500 |
| Upfront cost | £119.00 | £59.00 | £0.00 |
| Cost per month | £25.00 | £30.00 | £35.00 |
| | | | |
| Total cost | £719.00 | £779.00 | £840.00 |
With price plans including 100 or below minutes an iPhone 3gs would cost a total of £719 over 24 months compared to £779 for a blackberry torch, with the torch including half the data than the iPhone but only 25 more minutes of talktime a month. Admittedly the iPhone has only 250 texts compared to 500 on the Blackberry but with the variety of text-replacement apps available for the iPhone, users normally end up sending less texts than they would do on other phones anyway.
Again. with plans including less than 600 minutes an iPhone 3gs works out cheaper than a Blackberry Torch, at £779 over 24 months compared to the Blackberry's £799. In this case however the Blackberry includes more minutes with 500 compared to the 300 the iPhone offers but the upfront cost of the blackberry is far greater at £199.99 compared to £59 for the iPhone.
For a price plan including 600 minutes, an iPhone 3gs would cost only £21 more over 24 months (working out at less than £1 extra per month) than a Blackberry Torch with exactly the same number of inclusive minutes texts and data. There is also the added bonus of having no upfront cost for the iPhone compared to £99 for the Blackberry Torch.
Whilst a seemingly common complaint about the iPhone seems to be about it's cost, like the iPod that preceded it as competition in the market grows, Apple products are coming closer in price to competing products. While the iPhone 4 may still be an expensive product, the iPhone 3gs should be considered as a great alternative purchase as it offers most of the features of the iPhone 4 at a much lower price point. Whilst updates for competing operating systems such as Blackberry and Android are not always made available for every available handset, whereas Apple has demonstrated for the iPhone 2g and iPhone 3g that software updates can be expected for in excess of 2 and a half years even when the model has been succeeded by a better product.
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