My Cellphone My Terms

Transferring my contacts and other data from BlackBerry to Android

I’ve been a BlackBerry fan for the last 5 years and I got tired waiting for my ideal BlackBerry to arrive on the scene, so I made a switch….to Android.  The decision to go to Android wasn’t rocket science, our company leverages Google for mail, calender and documents, so to keep true to work commitments with a little bit of play – can you saw “Android market” and its 10 billion downloaded apps – it made sense. My device of choice is the Google Nexus smartphone made by Samsung.

The Good

In 1 hour, I had set up the phone, transferred my contacts, gained access to my email and downloaded 15 apps from Android Market. What did I do? I don’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary, I just answered prompts and then Viola, I’m setup. No importing of contacts or weird cables, all my information came from “the cloud” and in no time I was ready to get going.  I had to retrace my steps for this blog in order to understand how this process materialized. For those you looking to repeat this process here are the key steps in moving from a BlackBerry Torch to the Google Nexus:

1. Install Google Sync for BlackBerry, this app will sync your contacts, calender and email with Google

Because we leverage Google for our mail services this was already installed on my BlackBerry and my Windows desktop computer also included Google Sync, so my calender, mail and contacts were all linked together via Google

2. Do a successful sync with a Google email account (create a gmail account if you haven’t one already)

3.  I transferred my pictures, music and video files to my laptop using BlackBerry Desktop Manager

4. On my Google Nexus cell phone I activate my Google account as part of the normal activation process and it automatically transferred my contacts over

5. I connected my Google Nexus to my computer and manually transferred my documents, music, picture and video files over

And then I was done!

The great news is that experience on the Google Nexus is amazing (well compared to my BlackBerry) the Super AMOLED screen, 1 GHz processor and 512 MB considerable out powered the BlackBerry and my browsing experience was significantly improved, I even had Flash running with no issues. The best part of all is access to 300,00+ apps in Android Market place.

The Bad

Leaving Blackberry wasn’t easy and you do lose some key features which I grew accustomed to, namely:

1. Losing BBM was the biggest regret – can someone make BBM for Android

2. I noticed a drop in my email experience, emails weren’t as straight forward as it was on the BlackBerry but I’m learning and getting used to the new interface

3.  It may be just my phone but the Battery experience on the BlackBerry was more efficient I only need to charge once a day, seems like the Nexus runs down faster. I will have to review how many apps I have running and whether the animated desktop is taking up too much juice.

The Ugly

The real ugly is that unless BlackBerry joins the rest of the smartphone world with a phone that Blows your mind, I will not be the last BlackBerry user to jump ship to Android or iPhone. So let’s hope that BlackBerry gets it together with BBX, opps sorry BB 10 next year because Android and Apple are not going sit still.