Migrating from Nokia E91 to BlackBerry Bold

Its hard enough for someone like me to upgrade phones, let alone move to a different manufacturer.

I've always used a Nokia ever since I had my first mobile phone (at 18) and working for Symbian for 2 years made me more loyal to, well, Symbian phones than ever. And since Symbian's biggest buyer (at the time) was Nokia, that meant that I stuck to Nokia even though I got to play around with the excellent Sony Ericsson P9xx series. Of course, since then Nokia has bought over Symbian, thus confirming the control structure that we all knew anyway.

My last Nokia phone was the clunky E90 - big enough to double as a weapon, but certainly feature rich and impressive in some ways. For example, it could vibrate - unlike its predecessor the 9300. In the end, it was a decision to switch to BlackBerry rather than to move away from Nokia - everyone around me seemed to be addicted and I just had to try it out.

Addictive is the perfect word for the BlackBerry. I am a few years late, but I'm pretty certain everyone devoted inches of news space for studies on how it affects relationships, makes people rude, etc. And frankly, anyone who's ever complained about it should buy one.

I ended up buying the Bold, at a hefty Rs. 35,000 (approx GBP 500) and despite some frustrations, it has been a happy switch. Firstly, it is easy to use - the roller ball looks pretty enough as it guides you through menus, most of which are pretty simple and useful. The only thing that took me a while was to deal with numbers and upper-case on the keyboard. Installation was easy enough but customising it took me a while. I suspect BlackBerrys are just meant to be corporate clones of each other and hence it does take a while to change ring tones, wallpapers, profile settings, etc.

Migration of data, though, was a nightmare. Still is, given that I have yet not been able to transfer saved messages from my old phone. The BB software is a joke for migration, since it doesn't recognise anything other than BB or Windows Mobile for transferring data. I had to do it the rough way of transferring all my data from my E91 to MS Outlook and then from Outlook to the BB. I had to manually transfer all my old mobile multimedia files to the computer and then to the BB. I would have just thought it was a waste of time, but it was also a huge annoyance when I discovered that the BB doesn't understand the concept of more than one mobile number for a contact. This meant that for every contact that had more than one mobile number, only the first was copied. Yes, that's right, I had to go through every contact and manually type in the extra mobile number as 'other' or 'home'.

Which really does annoy me. The worst possible application on the BB is clearly the Contacts. It is the worst contact application I have ever seen on any phone. Here is why -
1) It does not transfer more than one mobile number when transferring data (see above)
2) It does not allow the call log to add any given number to an existing contact. If one wants to save a number on the call log, for some reason this is always a new contact
3) If one does decide to add a number from the call log to a new contact, the default field for that number is 'work'. No choice given, just work.
4) One cannot scroll in a loop - if you must see a contact starting with Z, you better know the name or scroll all the way to the bottom
Ok, so the 4th one was a frivolous complaint, but still.

The calendar doesn't help either, I always miss anniversaries and birthdays now because it doesn't show up on the home screen (unlike the E91).

However, once you get past the initial changes, the addiction sets in. BlackBerry Messenger, for starters, is what I would imagine as a secret society. Only BB users have access to it, and although it requires knowing the other users PIN (BB issued serial), once everyone is added it is addictive. Think of instant messaging on your phone. Oh, and funny enough, GTalk and Msn are available for BB too. Between SMS, emails, BBM and GTalk, it really does at times get difficult to get my attention. I've learnt to try and keep it on the side when I'm alone with someone else, but that took a while.

The obvious result, though, was that my battery would only last 12-14 hours. Yes, that's it. I had to charge it while I slept and it would be dead before I was home, especially on a night out. Not very handy. Oh, and a feature of the BB is that when the battery dies, it has to charge up to one bar before one can use it for anything that requires network. How nice.

Buying a spare battery was a nightmare. There are no legal spares in India and I suspect in most other countries. BB retails primarily through network operators and the Indian ones don't stock any accessories. If you lose your case, you just have to go online to the online store and have accessories delivered all the way from the US. Which of course meant that accessories delivered to India are about 50% more expensive than the UK. The UK store accepts only UK credit cards, which was another annoyance, but I finally managed to buy a spare battery and charger through a friend in the UK. The spare charger is brilliant, since it allows me to charge the spare battery without the phone and therefore every time my battery dies I have a charged up battery waiting for me at home.

The email program is clearly the best, since it is fast, feature rich and easy to use. The search function works like a charm, as do the attachment viewers. SMS also has the very useful 'mark unopened' feature which allows me to reply to some at my own convenience. The full querty keyboard was clearly not made with big stubby fingers in mind, but it works eventually. The other thing to get used to is that typing with one hand (while driving) is now virtually impossible. For those who thought this would be a good thing, it isn't - I often drive slowly in traffic with both hands off the wheel. Yes, sue me.

Overall, the BB is split by applications which are either pure genius or written by idiots. I'm pretty happy with my move to BB and frankly love the phone overall, but that's because it makes it much easier to stay in touch with people all over the world.

Its the ones that are in town that lose out.