Title says it all. I'm up for discount pricing on a new phone (AT&T) and figure it's time for a "grown-up" model . . .

The prices are just about the same. It would seem to me that the majority of people out there are passionate about their iPhones, <i>so I guess the big question is "should i even be considering anything else? and why?"</I>

I fly a fair amount (compared to most people, NOT to y'all), but I commute to NYC a lot for gigs, etc. Basically, I'd like to be able to go for a day or two without having to haul my laptop. This means easy/clear access to email, Google Maps, and the internet in general.

The potential for easy international use would be nice (I'm not planning to need that till summer 2010, but I'll still have this device then), but due to the unfortunate infrequency of my overseas travel these days, it's not a deal-breaker.

Help me make up my mind, please!

I have the Bold right now and I think it's great. Bad thing is, I have to trade it for something else because we're getting rid of our Blackberry servers at my office later this year. Anyway, the iPhone is one of my options but the international capabilities are making me wonder. It works, but it's really expensive. I need my phone to receive e-mail all of the time for work and it looks like you need to turn the iPhone off from auto update and only connect in wi-fi zones while traveling or risk a 4 digit phone bill.

Does anyone have any advice on this? That's just what I read online.

The Bold is easy to use, the screen is so clear and the keyboard is amazingly easy in comparison to other Blackberries I've used. I really wish I could keep it longer.

There are lots of reasons to get the iPhone instead of the Blackberry.

Who would want an actual keyboard to get actual work done? Trust me - you'd much rather have a touch screen. Just like those airport checkin machines that won't quite get your mileage plus number right no matter how many times you press that 4 key.

Replaceable batteries are for the same sort of people who back up their hard drives and make backup plans when they travel. Why would you want the ability to swap batteries when you wear one out? Why wouldn't you want to take up an iphone sized space in a landfill when the battery quits for good?

The iPhone 3G's dropped calls are really cute, just like when a baby poops its mom says "but they're the cutest poops!"

You won't ever want to send MMS messages. Apple knows so. They took out the ability so you wouldn't even be tempted. Which is fine, until you want to send a picture to someone with a regular phone. Oops!

This is the reason they neutered the camera so you have to hack it to take video. That is an overarching theme with the iPhone. You really wouldn't want a boring old blackberry where everything works out of the box when you could have a super cool beta phone where everything you want to do requires you to hack your phone.

When you have an iPhone you can show off your cool apps like the virtual lighter for when you forgot your real lighter at a concert. Or maybe that virtual leveler. These apps make your iPhone much more useful than a blackberry. I'd take things like motion sensitive drinking games over efficient data compression and low network utilization for better battery life any day.

Steve Jobs told us we want iPhones. He wouldn't lie to us. He just wouldn't. Like when he said I wouldn't ever want copy and paste! He knew it before even I did! He's my hero. I'll buy anything he puts out.

Reason #1 to get an iPhone. Two words, repeat after me. Class Signaling.

Edited to add: In case you can't tell, I took a pass on that adorable little touch biscuit and got a Bold.

I think if you do a lot of typing the Bold is going to be a better option. I have an application that allows me type in landscape format on e-mail but it requires you to exit the mail app to use which is cumbersome. I primarily use my iphone to read e-mails and it works great for that but I hate typing on it. As far as internet browsing there is no contest, the iphone blows away the Bold.

Regarding e-mail if your work uses Outlook the e-mails get pushed to your phone instantly (along with your contacts which is really handy.) I use Outlook and gmail (w/ IMAP) and both work flawlessly on the iphone.

If you love your Blackberry, google on Astrasync before ditching your Blackberry completely.

Stu

I carry both I love both of my phones, the iPhone for fun, the BlackBerry for work

I don't think you need Blackberry servers to get e-mail. I know my employer doesn't have them and we have plenty of Blackberry users. It just polls the exchange server at a set interval instead of pushing the e-mail (at least that's how I understand it.)

Ah, this isn't the thread I thought I was posting to!

(I can't comment much except to say it has been a pleasure to use the BB Bold but everyone I've spoken to, who was in the market for a phone, was happiest when eventually opting for an iPhone. They are not you, so you can only really find out by trying them for yourself. Preferably in >1 sessions)

I have the Curve 8900. It's a great phone. The Bold is just too big.

I just discovered the Exchange web access for the BIS - now I don't have to use my Windows Mobile lousy phone.

The curve 8900 is coming to AT&T soon. It will eat the Bold's lunch.

It doesn't have the Bold' 3G, but I don't miss it.

Any phone that you take overseas that has a data plan can rack up charges. If you took a Blackberry over to Europe with push e-mail enabled, it'll probably rack up the same charges as an iPhone would. I have coworkers with $2000/mo phone bills to prove it.

The iPhone does have WiFi at least, so you do have a low/no-cost option to get your e-mail while abroad.

Actually, the BB uses only a fraction of the data that the iPhone does - both because it uses data much more efficiently, and because it actually downloads messages to the device while the iPhone doesn't. So if you want to read a message again later on the BB, you don't use more data; on the iPhone whenever you read a message or search through headers, it has to use data again.

The iPhone polls for email (or periodically triggers Microsoft's ActiveSync with a new listening port - which isn't quite as bad). Polling for email uses data and processor power, thus battery life. With BB, the BB central servers send a flag to the device through the carrier's network via the BB PIN only when there is an updated email / memo / calendar entry / task to be transferred from the user's BES. The BB receives the flag and then gets the data. The rest of the time, no device polling whatsoever. And when the data is finally transferred, it is compressed. Talking about a direct comparison between the two devices for email usage, a network could support several blackberrys on the same bandwidth used by one iPhone.

Incidentally, the routing of that flag from BB's central servers to the individual device without the device needing to maintain a TCP connection is why there is a different data plan required to support BES / BIS. BIS users do received "polled" email, but the BIS server does the polling and only flags the device to receive when there is a reason to.

Here is a comparison of Blackberry to ActiveSync. The difference between the two is drastic enough, but remember that device based polling (ie POP or IMAP on an iPhone or Windows Mobile device) would create FAR more usage.

* I can type faster on my iPhone than I could on my Blackjack. Not having to fully depress a key means a lighter touch, meaning more speed. I've never timed myself formally, but if I'm typing two-thumbed, I'm probably 25% faster on the iPhone.

* Replaceable batteries? Yes, my Blackjack came with two batteries, which meant I had to cart around the battery, the external battery charger, and a wall wart to charge, because the dumba--es at Samsung didn't let the battery charger work using the USB cable. If you need more juice in a day, you use an external pack. If your battery wears out after a year and a half of heavy use, you crack open the effing case and replace it, just like the iPod. I still have an iPod 3G from 2003 that's in good working order thanks to a couple generations of new batteries, as opposed to taking up landfill space.

* Dropped calls? Funny, my iPhone does a hell of a lot better than the BJ in that regard, and it's light-years ahead of my Treo, which didn't even ring reliably.

* MMS? ...? Just an excuse for the carriers to scam more money off people. Let's charge $0.50 to send a crappy low-res pic. I'm glad Apple doesn't have MMS, because maybe other manufacturers will follow their lead, and we'll be able to kill the damn things off. (That said, if you want MMS, there's a jailbreak app to do it)

* On the topic of jailbreaking - not to be too much of an a-hole, but if you think that jailbreaking the phone even reaches the "effort level" of hacking, you should go back to using Microsoft Bob and drinking apple juice from a sippy cup. Plugging the phone in and running a program while pushing a button or two isn't hacking. Getting root access on a current-generation Tivo (which requires a soldering iron and Linux chops) is hacking. The jailbreak isn't.

Is Apple stupid for making us jailbreak? Sure, it's a dumb move on their part. But it's not hard to work around it. It's about as much a barrier as the French military poses when the German army gets bored and needs to invade someone.

Oh, and let me know when useful apps like Evernote get a native Blackberry version.