The best BlackBerry decision I have ever made was to upgrade from the BlackBerry Storm to the BlackBerry Bold 9650. Robb previously raised the point that the Bold 9650 could not do anything the Storm couldn’t, so why upgrade? Well, 512 MB of RAM is a lovely reason to upgrade to the Bold 9650, and that feature alone made every issue I had with the Storm seem to vanish. I was constantly struggling with memory restrictions on the Storm and now that is all history.
Another benefit was the physical keyboard, but not for the obvious reason you might be thinking. I like typing on the glass keyboard of the Storm because the keys are larger and I can decide between SureType (Preferred) and Qwerty. The real benefit was the constant presence of the keyboard allowing me to use all the great BlackBerry shortcuts. This makes the Torch a nice hybrid option as you can have the best of both worlds.
I think my favorite change is how the phone feature is handled. On the Storm, when you press the talk button it puts you to a phone dialer screen. From here you can go to a call log or the contact list. On the Bold, you arrive at a call log window that lets you scroll the log, dial a number or enter a contact name all from one screen. For me, this is an efficiency I did not realize I was missing.
My BlackBerry is my work device and it is great at being a phone (regardless of how I hold it) and at messaging. I have only installed Google Maps, PodTrapper, Capture It, TripIt and Google Voice. I no longer need Meterberry as memory usage is no longer a concern. I am looking for some other useful apps, but I think those will go on the iPhone as that is more of a play device.
Overall, this move to the Bold has been a good transition and I have not even looked back at my Storm. The only real downside was resending invites to my BBM contacts which makes me believe I did something wrong in the process. Either way, the Bold 9650 is a HUGE winner for me, and is a great phone.