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Smart phone shootout: Which phone is most usable?
April 9, 2007 12:00 PM ET
Thornton and his group liked the small size and the way most screens look on RIM's BlackBerry 8800. The device also displayed bright icons that were highlighted when you selected them. Particularly helpful, Thornton said, was the fact that when an icon was selected, a description of what the icon represented appears on-screen.
Another aspect of the device that received high grades was the new trackball for pointing to and selecting on-screen items, which replaced the BlackBerry's time-worn roller-wheel. Thornton said the new trackball was easy to learn and use. Those characteristics gave the device a solid score of 3 out of 4 for usability.
However, the BlackBerry 8800 doesn't come with as many applications, such as Office-like programs, as the other smart phones in the group, Thornton said. "That lack of apps makes it more of a regular phone with some additional functionality than a smart phone," he said.
In addition, while the icons were bright and their functions were obvious, other interface elements were not nearly as satisfactory, according to Thornton.
"Some of the screens look like they were developed by different designers," he said. "Sometimes it's a retro look, and sometimes it's very Vista-like with translucent icons. Then you go to the setup wizard, and you basically get a clunky-looking text menu."
A final issue is poor file structure, according to Thornton. The 8800's main screen has a lot of icons but not a lot of subgroupings to help make sense of all the icons, he said.
"They shouldn't dump all the icons on the screen," Thornton said. "It needs a file structure, a hierarchy."
Global navigation: 3.5
Usability/information architecture: 3
Ergonomics: 3
Look and feel: 3.5
Functionality: 2.5
David Haskin is a contributing editor specializing in mobile and wireless issues.Related News and Discussion:
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- Daily IT Blogwatch: Samsung bests the iPhone? (and Oscar-torrents)
- Lucas Mearian: Why the iPhone is a ripoff
- David Haskin: Is Palm facing BlackBerry blackmail?
- The PDA Guerrilla: The Great Cell Phone Conspiracy
Read more about mobile and wireless in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Knowledge Center.
Tom Thornton
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