Common Paradox Tech Blog

Our friends over at tech blog Engadget have assembled the votes and put together the nominations for the 2009 Engadget Awards, and Palm is recognized in every category (five!) in which it ought compete. There’s some tough competition out there, but you know that we think that the Palm Pre and webOS indeed are the gadgets of the year. Despite the fierceness of the competition, the Pre and (surprisingly) Touchstone are holding their own in the polls. While we have no doubt that Palm is the tops, the only opinion that counts here is the mass opinion: your vote.

What’s Palm up against?

See? Tough competition there. As you can imagine, if the Pre and Touchstone are to stand any chance of remaining in the fight, they’re going to need your vote. Voting is open until February 20, 2010.

May the best gadgets win!

RIM has one of the oldest OS platforms in the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin, but unlike Nokia’s S60 (reviewed here last week), CrackBerry.com’s signature BlackBerry Bold 9700 and BlackBerry Storm2 enjoy huge popularity in North America, a seemingly unbreakable hold on the Enterprise market, and an ever-increasing focus on consumers.

Last year, Dieter likened the previous [...]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

BlackBerry 9700 and BlackBerry Storm2 Review — Smartphone Round Robin

Our podcast feed
Download Directly
Subscribe via iTunes

Join Rene and Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry.com for Round Robin BlackBerry Bold2 and Storm2 vs. iPhone, mega iTablet, iPhone HD, and iPhone 4.0 rumors, and all the week’s news and opinions. Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog [...]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Presents: iPhone Live! #81 — Back in BlackBerry!

Week 2 of the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin sees me take on TiPb’s Public Frenemy #1, the almost-diametrically opposed BlackBerry — or is it? This year in addition to the new flagship BlackBerry Bold 9700, we officially have an actual touch-screen ‘Berry in the ‘Robin — the Storm2. What’s an iPhone blogger to do?

Lucky for [...]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

BlackBerry Bold 9700, Storm2 Hands-on Video, Smartphone Round Robin

This phone, the BlackBerry Bold 9700, you can buy today on T-Mobile or Sunday, Nov. 22, on AT&T. It’s the standard $200 with a two-year blood contract (and on AT&T, mail-in rebate shenanigans required). Update: Yes, AT&T Premier customers can get it today. Everybody else has to wait until the 22nd. [T-Mo, AT&T]

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 in a word? Compact. It’s efficient, almost cramped, like a Japanese car from the 80s.

Succinctly, it’s the new BlackBerry to buy if you’re on T-Mobile or AT&T. Doubly so on T-Mo, since it’s their first 3G BlackBerry.

It’s not very much like the original Bold at all, which was the Escalade of BlackBerrys: big, obnoxious, but seriously comfortable to drive because it gave you tons of room to spread your legs (err, thumbs). If you’re used to that, at first the 9700—which is even smaller and lighter than the Tour on Sprint and Verizon—feels like you’ve been shoved inside of a clown car because the keyboard and screen, while retaining the same shape and resolution, respectively, have been shrink-rayed. (Update: Actually, the resolution’s been bumped up 40 pixels, to 480×360, from 480×320.)

But, then you realize you’re not typing any slower, or less precisely. The 9700’s keyboard isn’t as flat out comfortable as the original Bold—purely a matter of physics—but it’s a minor marvel of ergonomics that RIM has recession-sized the keyboard this effectively. They’re simply brilliant at building keyboards. The screen has the same resolution as the Bold’s, but in a smaller size, meaning it has a higher pixel density. Despite that extra clarity, I felt a bit constrained by it, especially browsing the web.

It’s the second BlackBerry to ditch all-too-easily-slain-by-lint trackball for an optical trackpad, and the first that’s not built for Walmart. You’ll miss the trackball for about 15 seconds. Like I said before, the trackpad’s 90 percent as good as the ball. You might miss the physical feedback, and it sometimes doesn’t totally accurately interpret a diagonal swipe that you know wouldn’t be a problem with the ball but it’s good enough, and by far the most accurate and responsive trackpad I’ve used on a phone.

It’s running BlackBerry OS 5.0 which isn’t tons different than the OS that shipped on the original Bold or Curve 8900, but it’s definitely springier and it has a few brushstrokes of added polish here and there. One place you notice is the browser—while not as fast as the iPhone 3GS or Android, it has some extra zip to it, and it even sped past the Storm 2 loading pages, despite racing on T-Mobile’s 3G network vs. Verizon’s.

gawkerGallery(5397352,12,”); Note: In the gallery, the T-Mobile one is the Bold 9700, the AT&T phone is the original Bold.

Basically, barring any major bugs that pop up over the next couple of days, this is the BlackBerry you probably wanna bug your corporate overlords to handcuff to your pants if you’re on AT&T or T-Mobile, since it’ll slide into them easier than any BlackBerry yet. I just hope you enjoy the feel of faux leather. [BlackBerry]

RIM very quietly just showed off the new BlackBerry Bold in white, with a white leather back that somehow manages to outdo the previous version in tackiness. It’s due out on AT&T for $200, as usual, on October 18th.

We knew it was coming, so this is just some concrete confirmation. The RIM rep told me it’ll be out on the 18th only online and in “select stores,” which look restricted to LA and Phoenix, for some reason. One more shot:

We found out way back in May via the FCC that the Pre would not put out so much radiation to boil your brains, but recently the Environmental Working Group culled the databases to find out how all these phones stacked up against each other. The numbers above are a sampling of the most popular smartphones in the United States right now, and as you can see above, the Pre ranks near the bottom (with only the BlackBerry Storm pulling a lower score). And that’s a good thing, as with the specific absorption rate, smaller numbers are better.

Essentially, the SAR measures the amount of electromagnetic (radio) energy put off by by a phone during use. SAR is measured in watts/kilogram. Most smartphones do receive high, but poor, marks in comparison to their dumbphone brethren, but when you’re sporting 3G radios and bluetooth and WiFi and all sorts of fancy high power chips and processors you’re going to be emitting all sorts of radiation anyway.

For the record, the United States limits SAR ratings to 1.6 W/kg, while the EU sets the bar at 2.0 W/kg. If you’re interested in seeing how the Pre stacks up against other phones out there, you can head over to the EWG website and search their database.

Also, we should note that some of the information on the EWG website may not be completely accurate or complete. For instance, the Palm Pre page lists the phone for both Sprint and Verizon. We contacted EWG for clarification and they confirmed for us that Verizon’s listing on that page is indeed an error  (for now, of course).