Very GoodSprint now has two top-notch smartphones. The Palm Pre is the energetic, if still somewhat unformed adolescent. The BlackBerry Tour 9630 is the mature adult. Both have things to learn from each other. The Pre could learn a lot from the Tour's great power management, world-phone capability, and rich third-party app catalog. The Tour, on the other hand, could learn a lot from the Pre about fun and about browsing the Web.
That's not saying the BlackBerry Tour isn't fun. It's as much fun as a BlackBerry gets, with excellent music and video players; it just never really lets its hair down in the interface department. That will actually come as a relief to BlackBerry loyalists, who have been clicking on similar icons for almost a decade.
Software Bundle
The Sprint Tour looks exactly like Verizon Wireless's Tour and shares most of the same features, so read that review for more details. It's a great world-roaming voice phone, a good camera phone, and a satisfying media player. It syncs music with iTunes without annoying Apple. The built-in Web browser is abysmal, but excellent alternatives are available such as Bolt and Opera Mini. The Sprint version, I'm thrilled to say, didn't show any of the bugs that bedeviled my Verizon Tour experience. It didn't crash while I was testing it and handled my 16GB SanDisk and Kingston memory cards just fine.
The Sprint model comes with a slew of exclusive Sprint apps, though. Between actual apps on the phone and stubs that lead to downloads, there's Handmark Pocket Express, a NASCAR app, NFL Mobile Live, MLB.com, Sprint TV, the Sprint Music Store, Pandora, Sprint's own software store (powered by Handmark), Sprint Navigation, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and five IM apps covering every popular protocol. Whew!
App Testing and Multimedia
Some of these apps are great. Some are no fun at all. The Sprint music store/player, for instance, had trouble displaying some of the titles for AAC-format songs on my memory card, ran sluggishly, and generally felt superfluous. The BlackBerry has a perfectly good music player, and you can buy songs for less money from several major stores including Amazon.com. The Sprint software store was just a Web link, nowhere near as usable as RIM's own BlackBerry App World.
Sprint TV, on the other hand, delivered at least a dozen channels of streaming video content without a problem. Pocket Express is a quick and easy way to get news and other information, and Pandora played several stations smoothly (though not over a Bluetooth headset.) NFL Mobile Live delivered jerky video in a tiny window, but it's also chock-full of stats and news that appeared to be useful, but made no sense to me as a non-football fan.
With all of those apps loaded, the Tour had about 99MB free for more applications and data. That seems like a decent amount, but remember, you can't store your apps on a memory card.
World Phone and Conclusions
One other advance Sprint has made is their no-nonsense SIM unlocking policy. Unlike Verizon, which makes you jump through a few hoops, the Sprint Tour can be used with foreign SIM cards for lower international rates with no fuss, although you'll probably lose your BlackBerry data service if you try that tack.
The BlackBerry Tour isn't a flashy new touch-screen phone. It's a reliable performer on a proven platform. On many measures, it's neck and neck with the Palm Pre. The Tour has removable memory, video recording, world-phone calling, strong battery life, and a much better keyboard. The Pre has a far better Web browser, better Microsoft Exchange connectivity, and a more sexy style. Much of the Pre's goodness also comes from its touch screen, multi-touch support, and accelerometer, though the Tour doesn't have those by design.
Ultimately, though, it's the BlackBerry's thousands of third-party applications that win the day. At the moment, there are BlackBerry apps to do hundreds of things the Pre can only dream of—manage your travel, sling your video, play lots of games, even connect to Google Voice.
Palm assured me that the Pre's third-party app catalog will ramp up, but it sounds like that process may take months. Until we see the next WebOS phone, then, I'm crowning the BlackBerry Tour 9630 as the Editor's Choice smartphone on Sprint.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS: Continuous Talk Time: 5 hours 11 minutes
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