I just bought a Blackberry.

[Twilight Wolf]

My Galaxy S2 has been in desperate need of replacement for ages now (especially after a recent incident where it ended up in a puddle of water) and I'm too broke to get anything new, but I need something dependable for work. I do lots of text-based correspondence and dispatch sends texts with information to field crews... my S2 doesn't let me know when I have texts. So picked up a secondhand, but like new, Blackberry Bold 9900. mmmf dat physical keyboard

I know being a Blackberry owner most likely makes me the odd man out since most of us are Android/iOS users (and I think there's like one Windows Phone user), but do any of you guys have any suggestions for what I can do with mine? Any app recommendations? Stuff I *must* do?

 

[Zero]

I've never had a blackberry so I won't be much help, but I know Kickback used to have one, so I'm sure he would know.

 

[Kickback]

I only ever really downloaded Facebook and Twitter.

I loved my Blackberry tbh.

 

[Basement_Modder]

I think that the biggest problem with blackberry is the name. Their current line up isn't really all that bad.

 

[Antome]

It's not even the name that's the problem.

Samsung just bankrolled the world and now they are top dog. Unless you are a Sony or a Microsoft or an Apple, everyone's a struggling.

 

[brendanepic]

all i can say is my dad hated his blackberry

 

[XCVG]

That's a pre-BB10 device, so it's basically a dead platform. With that being said, there are still a lot of pre-BB10 devices out there, so there should still be quite a bit out there. Expect app support to drop off sharply as everyone moves to the new ecosystem.

The problem with Blackberry is that they were too late to the party. Until the advent of BB10, they were behind. Really behind. They had the physical keyboard and BBM but that was it. Crap devices with slow processors, flax cameras, and small, awkwardly shaped screens. An OS that was ugly, glitchy, outdated, and lacking in app support. With BB10 they caught up, putting out much better devices with a much better OS, but in a lot of ways it's too little too late. They do not have the app ecosystem that either Android or iOS have and will probably never have it (adoption paradox). I've heard good and bad things about BB10, but long story short it's a fairly immature platform and it shows. And then they released BBM for Android and iOS, which killed one of their key advantages, and initially they were pushing a phone with no keyboard, which is the other key advantage.

Really, Blackberry is stuck between a rock and a hard place. In the last several years, Blackberry's former customers flocked to Android, iOS, and even WP7/8. The most common reason to buy a Blackberry in the pre-BB10 period was as a cheap texting phone. They can't keep releasing the same crap, but they can't compete strongly against other platforms. The Playbook was a dismal failure, and I suspect it was something of a trial run for BB10. BB10 I haven't looked up the numbers for, but IIRC it's good enough for them to stay in the game, but not enough to attract new customers.

Windows Phone is the other other smartphone OS, but there are a few key differences. It has the Windows name, WP7 wasn't all that bad, and Microsoft has a ton of money to throw at the problem.