magnumpi

Just use the floatation app, I think it's free?

bats

my OH has this phone

http://www.sonimtech.com/company/110829_guinness.php

but it says nothing about retrieving from the seabed. Obviously a design error.

Greenhill

Here you go, Oink, this is what you need.

It's in your colour, too.

Oink

I'll just keep buying cheap unlocked phones and consider them a fixed cost.

Alan2005

I have a work supplied blackberry. It's a pile of crap, but it's free - free is a feature I like in a phone.

RIM will have a chance if they go with android; they need to either move over wholesale or allow android apps to run on their phones (apparently this is technically possible cos jawas or something). What they can't do is rely on the "enterprise" market as apple and google are just going to continue to take that away from them if they don't do up their game.

The lacklustre iphone 5 will help - only the apple hardcore are going to be excited by this and they don't buy blackberries anyway.

I don't expect any of this to happen - but I wouldn't write them off until I see what they come up with.

Oakvillian

I think BlackBerry as a hardware platform will die of natural causes in the next few years; I can't see RIM licensing a third-party OS for its own hardware. Despite off-the-edge-of-a-cliff market share numbers for new handset sales, there's still an enormous installed base, particularly in enterprises where the default work-provided mobile device is a BlackBerry and nothing else is allowed to connect to the corporate network. I know increasing numbers of people who now carry a work BlackBerry and a personal iPhone.

I've read in a couple of places recently that RIM is touting its latest OS to embedded device manufacturers (particularly automotive gadget types) as a sound OS for multifulctional, multitasking in-car systems etc. I suspect that, if the next round of hardware product releases tanks as badly as PlayBook and Torch, the company will become a software (BlackBerry OS) and services (BBM, enterprise mail servers) company and junk the hardware altogether.

Alan2005

A lot of corporates are moving over to BYOD. I know the company I work for does this and also offers iPhones as well as blackberries to new users. The blackberry's strength is it's comms and keyboard, but it's software on the usability front is awful. They have to move to android in some fashion - if they don't it will be as you say.

Atlantic Xpat

I have the most recent bold 9900. It is a pile of crap. Not only does the battery last less than a day, but when roaming it seems not to want to establish and maintain a data connection. I got off the plane in London on Thursday and was without data for most of the day. It took multiple hard resets....e.g. taking the battery out.... to get it to function. I do like the keyboard and like Alan its free cos its paid for by work and that's the killer feature for me.

I'm no fan of i-devices but they and android will inevitably eat RIM for lunch IMHO. Apropos to RIM I was in a distribution facility in Slovakia earlier this year that was stuffed with not selling BB devices. The operator - who are the worlds largest logistics provider for mobile devices - are going to be in considerable trouble when RIMs hardware business tanks. They did appear to be in a significant state of denial over this!

As for the iphone 5, its a slightly more spangly iphone4s. Scarcely revolutionary but it'll shift in bucket loads such is the power of the apple brand.

Hawk13

+1 for me on the like the keyboard and like Alan its free cos its paid for by work

I've had a few phones (they are almost disposable now when you pack them around construction sites) with both the touch screen and the keyboard and admit the crackberry keyboard works the best for me.

And I've had the same problems as AX regarding the data connection but wasn't sure if it's all the phones fault.

Stephen47

Hi guys!

Any body know if buying an iPhone 5 from an Apple store on pre paid, will it work in the UK still?

Novocastrian

Eh? Why does it matter where and how you buy it? (If you're daft enough to do that).

cornmatthew

If you pay the outright price and get an unlocked phone — yes, on GSM and 3G.

The UK and Canadian models are different when it comes to the new 4G LTE network. An iPhone 5 from Canada won't work on British LTE networks and vice versa.

exenglishman

it will still work on 3G networks though.

Anyone tried GiffGaff? going home soon and need a phone for a couple of weeks.. looks like a cheap network

London Mike

Stephen47

Thanks for your input. You've really made my mind up.