This is a guest post from Brad Behnes, owner of Behnes.com. This is an interesting take of the ever popular Droid Bionic from a BlackBerry User.

The first thing you’ll notice about the phone is that it’s big and quite heavy.  I used to think that was a sign of quality, but no more.  Now it seems just cumbersome.  Stick this on your belt and it looks like you’re walking around with a monitor stuck on you.  Put it in your pocket (if you have a pocket this big) and it will slowly pull your shirt off or your pants down.  Is that an ipad in your pocket or are you just smuggling out a few packs of Kraft cheese singles?  My usual phone is small and feels like plastic.  I didn’t like that before but am now looking forward to going back to it.  

PHONE:  I really liked the way the touchscreen disabled when you put the phone to your ear and automatically unlocked when you took it away.  That was really nice and intuitive. The size made me reminiscent of a time when phones were big and filled your whole hand.  I had a smaller, more ergonomic phone in the 1990’s.  Put this up to the side of your head and enjoy the mini tablet computer that it is.  It feels like you’re making a call with a Blackberry Playbook. 

Perhaps an earpiece would work well since the only place to store this slab is rolling around on the dash, sliding on the passenger seat, or pasting it to the windshield like a GPS.   Speaking of GPS, the Google Navigator for this phone is awesome.  The graphics beautiful, the response quick and clean, and the verbal directions clear and timely.  Much better than most GPS’s I’ve used.  The Verizon Navigator app that was on the review phone had the turn-by-turn premium option turned off.  Apparently not even Verizon can stomach paying itself $10 a month for someone to test a product that is inferior to their free competitors.  The free Verizon navigator version tries to save the battery by turning off the screen every few minutes, just about the time you need to refer to it.  Then you have to push a button, swipe your finger, read the screen then swerve out of the grass back onto the road.  Repeat every few miles.  Google navigator solves that problem with the automatic setting keeping the screen on.  But let’s hope your destination is less than an hour away because you would have drained your battery.  

That leads us to the battery.  I didn’t make it one day without having to charge the battery about lunchtime.  I didn’t really use the phone feature at all either.  I can’t imagine making a lengthy call and how that would affect the battery.  Plus, holding this up to your head in the car would be like a Shake Weight.  Remember to switch arms.  Don’t want to bulk up too much one side.   To let you know how bad it uses power I was using Google Navigator and had it plugged into my car charger cable at the same time.  After using it about 30 minutes the charge WENT DOWN.  Yes, with it plugged in.   I’m sure there are ways around this and the phone is full of suggestions to save battery life and it’s not afraid to share them.  ‘You’ve been using this app for 45 minutes and is draining power would you like to exit?’  ‘You are at 15% power.  Please connect to charger.’ ‘You are at 10% power.  Please connect to charger.’  After you plug it in and disconnect it from the phone it says ‘Remember to unplug the charger from the wall to conserve energy.’  

Hope you don’t have guilt issues because you’ll be in the corner weeping to yourself after a cold shower if you read and concern yourself with all their friendly conservation messages.  ‘This app clubs a baby seal and melts the icecaps because polar bears like to swim.  Are you sure you want to continue ruining the planet… energy whore!’  Maybe it didn’t say that, but that’s how it felt.  Yes I want to use the app!  Why do you think I went through the trouble to download it and start it!  “Are you sure?!”  Maybe I’m not.

 Maybe this whole telephone internet thing is beyond me being able to manage.  Maybe someone could tell me what to do?   It does the same with data. ‘This app uses a lot of data.  Are you sure you want to continue?’ ‘This will use up data.  Make sure your data plan will cover this.’  ‘You’ll be charged for the data used by this app’.  Really?  I suppose you need to sign away on it’s energy and data usage since once you start an app if you don’t hunt it down and kill it it will merrily run in the background until you find it (or get another app to kill it).  The apps that are running in the background are not easy to find but the data usage meter is pegged right on the home screen so I can look at my gluttony every time the screen comes on.  Geez.  

Why should I be made to feel guilty to use my phone or ration its usage out of fear?  If you have a limited plan you will spend your day babysitting this phone so you don’t get a mortgage payment phone bill at the end of the month.  It’s like buying a turbo Hummer and the dash keeps giving you reminders about what kind of crap gas mileage you’re getting.  And you get 5 gallons of gas a month to use.  Enjoy.   For people with good computer ‘housekeeping’ skills and enjoy manually power off their screen after every use you might make it through a 8 hour work day without a charger.   Internet:  The 4G LTE service was solid.  Only a few places in the city did it jump to 3G.  That still was solid enough to stream Pandora without pausing.  It was great to be able to view regular (not mobile) sites on it with speed.  That came in handy a few times. 

The voice recognition was very fast but about as accurate as typing with thick fingers.  As mentioned before the screen was big but not big enough to satisfy when looking at webpages vertically.  Turn it horizontal and it’s better, but pray you don’t have to type anything since the keyboard comes up and blocks all but a 1/4 inch sliver of webpage at the top.  Not cool.   Speed:  Yes, it was very fast.   Summery:  Big and fast.  That is its specialty but also the biggest weaknesses. 

Too big to work well as a phone and too small to be a tablet.  So fast they will need a tiny nuclear reactor to power it.  It’s the size of a large maxi pad (no wings) but doesn’t hold the juice.  Unless you have OCD for exiting apps and turning off screens you’ll be dead in a few hours.  Fast internet if you can pay the bill and handle the guilt the morning after.

The BBM^TM Music app is out of beta and will be available beginning later today* for BlackBerry® smartphone users** to download from BlackBerry App World^TM. BBM Music is a BBM-connected music service that enables viral music discovery and social interaction, allowing music fans to connect on a whole new level.

BBM Music is a cloud-based service that allows users to enjoy an evolving, community-based music library together with their BBM Music friends. The size of a user’s music library continues to grow as they invite friends to join their community. Each user can select music from a catalog of millions of songs from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, EMI, IODA: Independent Online Distribution Alliance, VidZone Digital Media and The Orchard.

 Here’s how it works:

• Download  BBM Music from BlackBerry App World, and select 50 songs that will automatically be shared with your BBM Music friends
• The songs that your friends select (as well as the songs you selected) become part of your BBM Music library, thereby significantly increasing the number of songs you can listen to. For example: if you have 25 BBM Music friends, and each has 50 songs, your library could increase to 1,300 songs!
• You can create music playlists comprised of any number of songs from your BBM Music library
• Easily discover music that your BBM Music friends are listening to, and comment on your friends’ songs and playlists
• Songs can be cached, so you can listen to music even when out of wireless coverage, such as when you are on the subway or on a flight
• Each month, you can swap out up to half of the 50 songs you personally selected to explore new music

RIM is releasing BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) v6.0.1.  This new version makes it easier than ever for users to discover and share BBM-connected apps from within BBM.  With BlackBerry Messenger’s active user base now over 50 million, there are even more users to discover and experience BBM-connected apps.

BBM 6.0.1 Key Features:

• Explore BBM-connected Apps – BBM users will now be able to pull up “Explore BBM-connected Apps” from a menu in the BBM Contacts screen, which starts a BlackBerry App World storefront search for “BBM” by redirecting users to a list of up to 25 of the most popular BBM-connected apps available.
• Sharing App Content with Your BBM Contacts is Easier – Users can share app-specific content with BBM contacts regardless of whether the contact has the app installed.
• Include BBM v5.0 users in application invites – Now users can now invite BBM v5.0 & BBM v6.0 contacts to join in the fun and share BBM-connected app experiences.

RIM is pleased to announce an update for Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones. Available today in BlackBerry Beta Zone is Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones v2.1.

Twitter updates include:

-       Additional Profile Functions – The ‘My Profile’ will have two new icons: Edit Profile and Switch Accounts. Now users can use the Edit Profile icon right from the Profile screen to change a picture or update personal information.

-       Multi-Account Support - The new Multiple Account Support feature allows users to have up to five accounts on their Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones app. When logged into multiple accounts, the current user name will appear in the upper-left corner of the header bar and the user picture will appear in the My Profile icon. Users can switch between accounts by using the Switch Account function, accessible from My Profile or via the Menu. Users can also cross-post Tweets and Retweets from one account to another without switching the current account view.

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) announced today that a selection of premium apps worth a total value of more than US $100 will be offered free of charge to subscribers as an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions. The apps will be made available to customers over the coming weeks on BlackBerry® App World™ and will continue to be available until December 31, 2011.*

“Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers,” said RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers.  We’ve worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future.”

The complete selection of premium apps will become available to download at BlackBerry App World over a period of four weeks beginning Wednesday, October 19th.  The selections over this period will include the following (with more to come):

·        SIMS 3 – Electronic Arts

·        Bejeweled – Electronic Arts

·        N.O.V.A. – Gameloft

·        Texas Hold’em Poker 2 – Gameloft

·        Bubble Bash 2 – Gameloft

·        Photo Editor Ultimate – Ice Cold Apps

·        DriveSafe.ly Pro – iSpeech.org

·        iSpeech Translator Pro – iSpeech.org

·        Drive Safe.ly Enterprise – iSpeech.org

·        Nobex Radio™ Premium – Nobex

·        Shazam Encore – Shazam

·        Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant – Vlingo

RIM’s enterprise customers will also be offered one month of free Technical Support.  Current customers will be offered a complimentary one month extension of their existing Technical Support contract, and customers who do not currently have a Technical Support contract will be offered a one month trial of RIM’s BlackBerry Technical Support Services - Enhanced Support, free of charge.  Additional details about the program and information about how to register will be available at www.blackberry.com/enterpriseoffer.

“We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience,” added Lazaridis. “We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence.  We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from

Today, RIM announced BlackBerry Analytics Service 1.0 powered by Webtrends, a free service that enables developers to collect and analyze data on how their apps are used. With the insight from this service, any developer of Java-based apps for BlackBerry smartphones can:

• Understand how users are engaging with an app
• Enhance user experience to drive more downloads
• Learn how to market apps more effectively
• Better deal with bugs as they arise

The BlackBerry Analytics Service is simple and easy to use as developers can integrate tracking into their applications with just a few lines of code. More than 20 interactive reports can be generated which include:

·         Overview metrics showing active users, new users, frequency of use, engagement in duration and depth of use, number of screens viewed, and conversions

·         Detail in usage of screens, content, media, features, products, in-app search, and in-app ads

·         User information including country and language, device characteristics, carrier, connection type and errors

Developers can register for the service here.  More information and step-by-step instructions are available on the BlackBerry Analytics documentation page, as well as today’s post on the BlackBerry Dev Blog. Please also let us know if you would like screen shots of BlackBerry Analytics Service 1.0.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES–(Marketwire - Oct. 10, 2011) – GITEX – During his keynote presentation at the GITEX conference in Dubai, Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) Co-CEO Jim Balsillie today unveiled a new way for BlackBerry® smartphone users to connect with one another and share multimedia content.

BlackBerry® Tag, which will be incorporated in the next BlackBerry® 7 OS update*, will allow users to share contact information, documents, URLs, photos and other multimedia content by simply tapping their BlackBerry smartphones together. BlackBerry Tag will also enable friends to instantly add one another as contacts on BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger).

"BlackBerry Tag is an exciting and innovative feature that makes sharing contact information and multimedia content effortless and seamless," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. "BlackBerry Tag opens a new dimension to the BlackBerry platform that is powerful, simple and intuitive and we think it will be welcomed by both users and developers."

BlackBerry Tag takes advantage of Near Field Communications (NFC) technology included in the recently launched BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900/9930 and BlackBerry® Curve™ 9350/9360/9370 smartphones, and these are the first BlackBerry smartphones that will support BlackBerry Tag.

RIM also announced plans to expose BlackBerry Tag through APIs on the BlackBerry platform, allowing software developers to take advantage of "tap to share" functionality from within their own applications.

* Subject to network operator certifications. Check with your local operator for availability.

You look at the two comparisons here of the 9980 and 9900 and you may either love the design of the 9980 or hate it.  I would love to hear your thoughts below.

<image via pocketberry>

I wanted to bring to your attention that Research In Motion® (RIM®) announced today the public beta availability of the BlackBerry® Advertising Service SDK for BlackBerry® WebWorks™. With this beta, BlackBerry WebWorks developers can now easily and quickly integrate an additional source of recurring revenue into their applications. All they need is the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK and a few lines of code to gain access to a large and growing network of advertisers.

Developers can register with the BlackBerry Advertising Service to receive their registered copy of the BlackBerry Advertising Service beta SDK and a unique zone identifier to use in their application. To learn more about the BlackBerry Advertising Service SDK public beta, go to http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/09/blackberry-advertising-service-sdk-beta