Nov 30, 2012 09:07 AM
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Its almost end of the world for Blackberry lovers. And why only Blackberry, the entire mobile industry seems to have gone in reverse gear with all players racing against each other to produce and market more and more inferior products/technology. Buying a mobile is no longer fun these days. It has turned into a nagging realization of being painfully ripped off.
So when I accidentally broke the screen of my Blackberry 9700 last month, I found myself in a soup. The current generation of Blackberries offer an extremely restricted choice. I didnt want to spend 33k on 9900 only to discover the batteries are grossly underpowered. Especially with OS 10 around the corner, I thought it better to go for a cheaper alternative so that when the time came I could upgrade straight to the new OS10 devices. Models that were shortlisted included the 9220, the 9320 and the 9360. All three have the same processor and the same OS so it really boiled down to features that I valued/cared two hoots about. I ended up with the 9220. To find out how badly it fares against the competition, read on. Remember, since this is supposed to be a race unto inferiority, things might appear a bit 'unusual' here.
Display & Glass - The 9220 pretty much leads the competition here. You'd be hard pressed to find a 2.4 incher with 240*360 resolution these days. Blackberry is having them for years and the 9220 is no exception. The resolution would hardly support any games which is precisely what Blackberry wants. This device is meant for work, not play. To add to that, the display is covered with plastic that seems to take to scratches like ducks take to water. Samsung at the rear end of the spectrum offers gorilla glass in almost all its smartphones so that scratches are a thing of the past.
Keypad & Fascia - Samsung is leading the pack here with the ugliest phones and keypads (if at all they are kind enough to give you one). The 9220 is way behind competition and although it is 'uglier' than its Bold counterparts, its still one of the most tactile and 'easy to type' keypads around. Styling has long been one of Blackberry's weak points and the 9220 with its glossy fascia and curved contours manages to out style Samsungs by yards.
Processor - At a time when 1 Ghz processors/dual core processors are considered par for course and quad cores not so uncommon, you have 9220 with a 800Mhz processor, not only taking on the competition but beating it by a decent margin. The only issue is that the 9220 still manages to keep applications running and responding. Blame it on the OS I guess.
OS - Nobody, I repeat nobody, including even Microsoft can beat BB when it comes to booting time. It is by far the slowest booting OS known to man or animal (make that 'plant and animal' since man is the same as animal) and the OS 7 is no exception. This is certainly not the phone to use for frequent switching on and off. If there is one department where OS7 isn't as bad as OS6, its the browser which is seriously spruced up (including support for HTML 5) making browsing even with large webpages, a pleasant experience ! But wait the real shocker is yet to come. You can actually stream youtube videos. I tried it just out of curiosity expecting the browser to hang but no Sir, it wouldn't. Just took 4-6 seconds for buffering and then it played on continuously. Just how this BB machine manages to stream videos with 2G BIS services (read 10-15 Kbps) remains a mystery to me.
Memory - With 512 MB or RAM and 512 MB of inbuilt memory, the 9220 is right up there… - in the crowd that is ! With OS7 itself occupying around 300 mb of onboard memory you have little choice but to look at the external memory support. It took only a couple of years for mobile manufacturers to rise the bar for external memory support from 2 GB to 32 GB. Looks like they have been taking a breather since then with nobody interested in upping the ante. External memory support remains pegged to 32 GB with the 9220.
Hotswap - what is that ? Nevermind. All companies with the exception of Nokia stand united in not offering hotswap. Clearly a technology of the past, hotswap increases security risks significantly as someone can pinch your memory cards in a second. And since security is primary concern with BB, hotswap is strict no-no with the 9220.
Camera - With Samsungs 5 Mpx is as common as dirt. Sony clearly wanted to take the lead here. So they came out with a 10k mobile (Tipo) that 'sports' a 3.2 Mpx camera. But Blackberry wouldnt go down without a fight. So it outdid Sony by 'sporting' a 2 Mpx camera in a 10k mobile ! Remember this comes at a time when you can have a 16 Mpx dedicated zoom camera for 4.5k these days. Inspiring, isn't it - The way cameras in mobile phones are being 'upgraded'.
Battery - processor power is growing, graphics power is growing, display pixel power is growing, so battery power should be growing too, isnt it ? No sir you are wrong. 3.5 inch android power guzzlers are fitted with 1100mAh batteries nowadays to ensure that you dont lose out on the pleasure of charging your battery everyday/every 12 hours. This is where the 9220 is seriously behind competition. It comes with a 1450 mAh battery thats more than enough to last 2 days without charge even on moderate to heavy use.
Software - BB doesn't believe in wasting time in 'games' but it does believe in 'getting work done'. So you have the full version of "Documents to Go' preloaded. I haven't seen anyone use it on a 2.4 inch mobile but all the same its there if you need it. BB has even thrown in a surprise gift in the form of FM radio so that if you feel like having a breather you can do it the old fashioned way. The inbuilt speaker, though not very loud, generates excellent sound compared to its peers. You're almost deluded into thinking that you're on a 4.1 or 5.1 playing low volume.
So in the end how does the 9220 fare ? Not very well I'm afraid. With a small & low resolution screen, underpowered processor and a 2 Mpx camera, it tries very hard to fail but just falls short. The marathon battery life, the browser, the keypads and the OS all manage to pull it back from what it could potentially be - A Brilliant Disaster !
