iPhone 3GS vs BlackBerry Bold 9700 as a world phone

G

gunetilake

New member
Hello,

I am currently torn between the iPhone 3GS and the BlackBerry Bold 9700. I am in Canada and this would be via Rogers. I am looking for a good "world phone" that I can use for traveling around to many different countries, Europe and South America for sure but also possibly Asia. Which of these two phones would be better suited? Also, which of these two phones has better reception and signal strength in general?


Thanks!
 
You're assuming you plan to live on roaming right?

Just based on my subjectivity---remember this is subjective---my bias would be for the Blackberry as in my experience these things have exceptional signal performance.

But assuming even if the iPhone has mediocre signal performance, still won't be factor because generally in Asia and Europe, reception and coverage is superior to the US, I mean like IMO puts AT&T and Verizon collectively to shame.

Now if you plan on using different SIMs in each country to avoid roaming charges, unless you somehow got an unlocked iPhone or Blackberry, I would rather go with a Nokia with 3 band 3G, one with 850 and 2100. You can find these among the top end N-series sold in the NAM market. Easy to switch the SIMs and boot them up.
 
I'll definitely have a look at those Nokia models, especially if I do plan on extending my stay in a specific country and get a local SIM. I would be mostly just roaming. I'm guess to put this into an actual situation, if one was to do a trip around the world making stops in many different countries, does either of these phones have the advantage here? Can I do VOIP calling with both?
 
I don't feel any of these phones have a specific advantage over the other if you're referring to global coverage as long as they have 2100 band on 3G and quad band GSM to fall back on. Whatever you decide may hinge more on the general platform attributes themselves. Do you like iPhone? Do you like Blackberry? I never used VOIP really. Skype is on the iPhone and beta on the Blackberry. I should check more on VOIP options on the Blackberry.
 
Does the iPhone have more "travel" related apps available, such as bilingual dictionaries and local yellowpages for different countries and that sort of thing? One of my friends recommeded that I get a phone like the X1a that has Windows Mobile because WM has many good travel apps available for it, but I would think that with all the apps available to the iPhone that it would have a fair amount as well. And I have no idea about the app situation of BlackBerry, but BB doesn't seem to have as many third party apps as either iPhone or WM phones. I just really don't wanna get a WM phone haha. But I know many people who travel all over the world on business trips must use BB's so they must be pretty good as well for that kind of thing.
 
iPhone has the tom tom application which is available for ALL different parts of the world. Theres only a few small countrys that dont have a "tom tom" map for it. Also you can jailbreak and unlock the iphone with a simple 2 minute application, after doing this there are SOO many possibilities which make it simply amazing.
 
When traveling internationally, I prefer Nokia ( e71, n95, n86 etc ) but if my choice was restricted to the BB 9700 or iPhone, I'd take the BB!

I personally carry the Nokia E71 when going overseas. It's an amazing, and perfectly reliable, device!!
 
Both iPhone and Blackberry has plenty of travel apps. The hottest travel app for both is Kayak, which seems to be also the gold standard for travel apps lately.
 
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