A short while back I decided to switch my phone plan to a “MyFavs” plan. I realized that with the majority of my calls going to only a few numbers I could save $10 to $20 a month with unlimited calls to those numbers.
There was a small problem in that my 7100t Blackberry didn’t support the “MyFavs” functionality. So I had to get a new phone. That made the savings have a much longer payoff but I decided to go ahead.
Just before that a friend had asked about good phones on a list I participate in with some past co-workers. I had recommended the Blackberry because it was a solid phone with great battery life and features. Others had recommended the Dash because it supposedly had great features and could connect to wireless. In theory you could not pay for a data plan if you used the wireless but I don’t think that works when you consider that you probably want to check email on your phone without having to find a wireless hotspot.
Despite my own recommendation I decided to try the Dash. Next time I’ll know better than to ignore my own advice. The Dash stinks as a phone. The battery life leaves much to be desired and the features are not that amazing. Before anyone asks I didn’t leave the wireless on. I also had one unexplained issue synching the Dash which required a hard reset of the phone before I could synch it again.
So I’ve ditched the Dash and I’m back to a Blackberry. I forgot how much better the Blackberry is compared to the Dash. I had to get a newer model (the Pearl) but it is the same solid Blackberry functionality that I now know is far superior to the Dash.
Email from multiple accounts automatically shows up in the messages area on the Blackberry (the Dash did not do this automatically). The really nice feature is that on the Blackberry I can delete a message and choose to delete on the handheld only or on the handheld and mailbox. Messages deleted only on the handheld show up in my Outlook inbox later but if deleted on both they are gone. This is a much better way to manage email. On the Dash it didn’t matter if I deleted them or not they would always show up in Outlook.
The Blackberry also has a scheduled on/off functionality that allows me to schedule my phone to turn off and then back on at a set time for weekdays and weekends. This makes the battery life of the Blackberry even better. Even without that feature the Blackberry’s battery life is easily 3 to 4 times longer than the Dash under the same usage.
And the final reason for the Blackberry is that the data plan for the Blackberry is $10 less a month than the same data plan for the Dash.
So the bottom line is I will only recommend the Blackberry. Skip the Dash it is a waste of time.
