After a month some good some bad. BB really messed up on some basic features we used to have

Question

I've been a BB user since they were Blueberry's. I have to say the Q10 after a month of using it is seriously deficient in features compared to my Tour. I thought I was getting the best of the Tour but now with a decent sized screen. Boy was I wrong. So here's my assessment from a road warrior that uses his machine to take care of emails, contacts and access to hotel and airline websites. I don't play games, watch movies or use it as a pacifier like so many do.
1.) Link - Doesn't work on my system. BB support tried and tried but couldn't get it to work on my Lenovo/Windows 7. So I have no easy way to synch Outlook contacts, calendar etc... I think BB Desktop was a far superior interface as was BIS for setting email. I don't know why they had to go backwards on this and not transport the key parts into the new OS interface. It's only programmer/developer time to make it happen.
2.) Not ringing when holstered? C'mon that's a HUGE oversight. I'm a business man in constant travel meetings around the world. I always had the Tour set to vibrate in holster and ring out of it. Now I have to shut the Q10 off or fiddle through a bunch of screen taps. The not ring in holster setting is key for me. Having someone's phone go off (especially mine) in a meeting with me is a big no no. I hope that they can add this feature back in.
3.) Battery Life - Great as expected with a BB
4.) MP3 Player - Looks like I'll have to keep keeping track of another device to listen to my MP3's. Really, what's it take to have high quality MP3 audio?
5.) Screen and ergonomics - Awesome human interface engineering. Too bad the features and supporting expectations are still weak sauce.
6.) Websites Access - Fast 4G, nice screen=Happy with improvement over 3G small screen Tour
7.) Call quality - Great
8.) Basic Operating descriptions - Maybe it's me but I couldn't locate how to make the center button between the volume rockers into a programmable hot key. I'd like that to be the Voice control so I can use it to initiate voice commands. There was no manual in the box and no instructions on where to go to get the user guide.  I found the guide via a link on this site.
Bottom line is that I'm going to keep it and hope that Blackberry actually reads some of these as they have no way to get feedback from their users. This is a basic flaw as well. I make my business better by listening to my customers and making my best effort to meet their expectations. It seems BB has gone the "Good enough" route. Maybe it's still early and there's hope.... That's my story and I'm sticking to it (for at least another 2 years).

Answer 1

S, Interesting analysis!
I am a user very similar to you. Fortunately for me, I have hit none of the snags you describe and don't care too much about the drawbacks you cite. Whew!...guess I was lucky!
I am enamored with the Q10 because of the positives that you mention as well as numerous others that exist with the Q10.
. . . . . Pete