Got to get a new smartphone for work as my current Blackberry is getting less responsive and is pretty much on its way out.
I have big thumbs which make the newer Blackberrys more difficult to type on (my current one is a Bold 9000 and I tried a Curve 8900 which I struggled with) as the keyboards are more cramped

So I was looking at
HTC Desire Z
Nokia E7
Blackberry 9780 (seems to be the biggest keypad)

Blackberry would be easiest to set up as that is what I am using now and they just auto update when you plug in a new phone. I am worried about the Symbian software ending soon – had a quick look and couldnt some up with too much apart from Accenture taking it over till 2016. The Desire Z is not stocked in any shops round here so cant easily go and have a look
Is there anything else with a full keyboard that anyone can recommend? it really is just email and calls that I want it for as I have my own private smartphone for GPS, music etc

I know everyone wants a tiny zoolander phone but it is no use whaen you have spades for thumbs

iPhone 4

TBH, there’s more to it than just keyboard. What do you do with it, and will a change in workflow affect that?

Of the three you’ve listed there the Blackberry would make most sense as it’s what you know and you’re happy with it. I’d probably go for the Desire out of those three personally, but it’s a lower spec than other non-keyboarded Android phones. Symbian’s been an also-ran for a long time now, sadly.

If you want to lose the ability to read questions and just blurt out “iPhone4” every time anyone asks a vaguely telecommunications-related question, you could indeed get an iPhone.

If you lose your requirement for a ‘hard’ keyboard, you’ll have a much wider choice of handset.

Thanks, but no keyboard, and I would probably have to pay the extra for it

I know that giving up the keyboard would offer much wider choices, but I just find the physical keyboard much easier. I do a fair few emails on trains so touchscreen is a bit of a pain for pressing random letters and then having to pick a work at the end or rewrite. I also know that I wont be using the phone to its full potential so lower spec is something I am happy to sacrifice to get the keyboard. As mentioned above I will use my other phone for maps, music, radio etc but a decent camera would be good for site pics. I know Symbian does get a slating but is it that bad if all I want is mail and calls with a decent camera?

Not at all.

The problem with Symbian is that it’s not high on the list for an application developer. If you don’t use all that many third-party apps anyway, it’s a non-issue. Arguably, coming from a Blackberry you’ll be used to this. (-:

The iPhone soft keyboard is very good, and the Android platforms have numerous keyboard applications including innovative solutions like Swype. As someone who still mourns the passing of the Psion 5 I hear you when it comes to keyboards, but you do get used to it.

iPhone 4 is pretty good tbh. We have moved from BB Bold 9000’s to iPhone’s running an app called ‘Good Messenger’ for exchange email, and it covers our needs.
Blackberry’s seem to be stagnating these days, as the current models offered nothing better than what we had acouple of years ago, I reckon they will be in the same boat as Nokia in a few years.
The only thing I preferred with the BB’s physical ketboard was that they were better to send messages with over an iPhone when completely trollied. 😀

If you do keep with a BB, stick to the ‘Bold’ line, the newer ‘Torch’ is pants.

iPhone 4

+1

So many people that I or the wife know have switched to them from bb, android etc, never heard of one single person going the other way. Really don’t miss the physical keyboard whatsoever.

So many people that I or the wife know have switched to them from bb, android etc, never heard of one single person going the other way. Really don’t miss the physical keyboard whatsoever.

I know of 3 so far, in my office, one of which complained heavily about losing all the apps he’d paid for but thought it was worth it…

Htc sensation?

Only my 2nd day of use, suitably impressed so far, emails aren’t as quick compared to the BB and the vibrate isn’t as good

Im sure some apps will sort that out tho. Battery life not as bad as I thought, not as good as the BB but acceptable

B

June 27 (Bloomberg) — Research In Motion Ltd., struggling to compete in the smartphone market with Apple Inc. and Google Inc., is losing support among some software developers who have been making programs for the company’s BlackBerry.

Seesmic Inc., a developer of social-media applications, and Mobile Roadie LLC, which makes apps for fans of the Miami Dolphins and country singer Taylor Swift, have decided to stop making products for RIM. Purple Forge Corp., which makes programs for political campaigns and polling, will stop building BlackBerry versions of its apps unless customers request it.

“You have to put your resources where the growth is,” Seesmic Chief Executive Officer Loic Le Meur said in an interview. “It’s coming down to the explosive growth of the iPhone and the Android operating systems.”

RIM has been trying to build support among developers to fight back against Apple and Google’s Android, which have drawn away users with greater varieties of applications. RIM last week said quarterly revenue may drop for the first time in nine years and unveiled plans to cut jobs.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company’s share of global smartphone sales fell to 12.9 percent in the first quarter from 19.7 percent a year earlier, as Apple gained and Android more than tripled to 36 percent, according to researcher Gartner Inc.

RIM said it continues to increase the number of programs for customers. There are more than 35,000 apps in the company’s online store, up from the more than 25,000 in March, said Marisa Conway, a spokeswoman. There are more than 200,000 apps in the Android Market and more than 425,000 in Apple’s App Store.

Expensive ‘Gotchas’

RIM fell 43 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $28.14 at 10:03 a.m. on Nasdaq. The stock had lost 51 percent this year before today.

The developers are stepping back from BlackBerry because they say creating apps is too complex and costly for the size of the market. RIM’s devices have different screens sizes, varied operating systems and several ways to navigate, from a physical keyboard to touchscreen to a scroll button.

“As soon as RIM brought in a touchscreen and mixed it with a thumbwheel, a keyboard and shortcut keys, it made it really difficult and expensive to develop across devices,” said Purple Forge CEO Brian Hurley. “What Apple scored big on is having a touch screen and a button and that’s it.”

There are also costly surprises that turn up during development for RIM, Hurley said in an interview.

“In deploying Apple applications, there are very few surprises,” said Hurley. “In Android, there are increasingly more surprises. But in BlackBerry, there are immediately lots of gotchas across the board.”

‘Whoa’

When Seesmic’s Le Meur tried to load his San Francisco- based company’s application on the new BlackBerry Playbook tablet, the application wouldn’t run, he said.

“To me it was like, ‘Whoa.’ BlackBerry isn’t even an option,” Le Meur said.

For Mobile Roadie, which allows its customers to design and build their own applications, the variation across devices was particularly frustrating. In an interview, CEO Michael Schneider said users would blame the Beverly Hills-based company for inconveniences like distorted images on different-sized screens.

“At the end of the day, I even felt like developing for BlackBerry could be hurting our reputation,” Schneider said.

The decision to back away from BlackBerry was made easier by waning user engagement, developers said.

“When we put an application in the field, there was a 20- to-1 difference between Apple and BlackBerry downloads,” said Purple Forge’s Hurley. The Ottawa, Ontario-based company devotes about 80 percent of its investment to Apple development.

Growing Challenge?

Schneider said less than 2 percent of BlackBerry users interacted with Mobile Roadie’s applications, compared with more than 50 percent of iPhone and Android users.

“We were putting a ton of resources into something users were not engaging in,” he said.

The challenges for RIM may grow with a new operating system it’s planning to use across all its devices. The company, after buying QNX Software Systems last year, introduced its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in April on a new QNX operating system and plans to introduce BlackBerry phones built on QNX next year.

That switch will only encourage more developers to not bother with the BlackBerry OS used on current devices and adopt a wait-and-see approach to RIM, said Peter Misek, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. in New York.

“The vast majority of developers build for Android and iOS and have no plans to build for RIM until QNX is fully up and they can evaluate it,” said Misek, who has an “underperform” rating on RIM. “Until then, they are unlikely to support QNX in any meaningful way as an active platform.”

Whilst I’m not debating that RIM aren’t on the back foot,

When Seesmic’s Le Meur tried to load his San Francisco- based company’s application on the new BlackBerry Playbook tablet, the application wouldn’t run, he said.

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get Seesmic running on a regular Blackberry for weeks, so I’d suggest it’s less of a problem with the Playbook and more a problem with their app being crappy.

a nice Android phone and SWYPE, it’s the only way to text, email, write small novels…