The latest Android 2.0-based "iPhone killer" won't kill the iPhone or the BlackBerry -- and the cheaper HTC Droid Eris is the new smartphone that I think Apple should be concerned about. But there are now six smartphones on the market that will appeal to business and professional users, each with different strengths and weaknesses. This article gives InfoWorld's ratings for all six -- the Apple iPhone, HTC Droid Eris, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, Research in Motion BlackBerry Bold, and RIM BlackBerry Storm 2 -- plus an interactive ratings form in which you can enter your own weighting for each category in our exclusive Mobile Deathmatch Calculator and get a customized score for each smartphone.
Our buying advice is simple:
[ Read InfoWorld's in-depth mobile deathmatch series: BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone | Palm Pre vs. iPhone | Motorola Droid vs. iPhone. And see our deathmatch slideshows' head-to-head comparisons: BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone | Palm Pre vs. iPhone | Motorola Droid vs. iPhone | Read our review of the HTC Droid Eris. ]
The WebOS-based Palm Pre was innovative last spring but has been bested by the new generation of Android devices. (Its sole U.S. carrier, Sprint, appears to have moved on from the Pre, now focusing on Android devices.) The Motorola Droid's keyboard is unusable, and the lack of multitouch support in its included apps makes its few technical advantages over the HTC Droid Eris -- basically, a few extra security features -- a lousy bargain. The BlackBerry Storm 2 was supposed to fix an unusable clickable touchscreen in the original version, but the solution doesn't address the core issue: Tapping is very slow on the screen, to the point that sustained text entry is out of the question. It's not surprising that within weeks of its release, carriers are selling it as part of two-for-one specials.
Windows Mobile and Nokia Symbian devices are also out of the picture. Microsoft's long-delayed Windows 7 Mobile remains vaporware, and making purchase decisions on Microsoft's promise is foolhardy. Nokia's Symbian OS has evolved slowly in the last decade and simply isn't in the same league as modern mobile OSes; Nokia knows that and has a plan to move -- over several years -- to a new OS called Maemo. Someday we'll see what Maemo has to offer; in the meantime, Nokia has been unable to get U.S. carriers to sell its smartphones.
[ If the InfoWorld Test Center comparative scorecard does not display properly below, see the original story at InfoWorld.com. ]
| Test Center Scorecard | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
For midsize and large business (InfoWorld standard) |
For personal use |
For small business |
For regulated business |
|
| 15% | 15% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 15% | 15% | Overall Score | ||||
| Apple iPhone 3G S | 9 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 9 | 7.9
Good
|
8.4
Very Good
|
8.0
Very Good
|
7.4
Good
|
| 15% | 15% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 15% | 15% | Overall Score | ||||
| HTC Droid Eris | 7 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 6.5
Fair
|
7.3
Good
|
6.7
Fair
|
5.7
Poor
|
| 15% | 15% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 15% | 15% | Overall Score | ||||
| Motorola Droid | 7 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 6.2
Fair
|
6.9
Fair
|
6.4
Fair
|
5.5
Poor
|
| 15% | 15% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 15% | 15% | Overall Score | ||||
| Palm Pre | 9 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 6.9
Fair
|
7.5
Good
|
7.3
Good
|
6.8
Fair
|
| 15% | 15% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 15% | 15% | Overall Score | ||||
| RIM BlackBerry Bold | 4 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 6.9
Fair
|
5.8
Poor
|
6.0
Fair
|
8.1
Very Good
|
| 15% | 15% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 15% | 15% | Overall Score | ||||
| RIM BlackBerry Storm 2 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 9 | 1 | 5 | 6.3
Fair
|
5.0
Poor
|
6.6
Fair
|
7.7
Very Good
|
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Download now »Everyone has different criteria for what matters to them on these devices, which is why we created the Mobile Deathmatch Calculator, where you can enter your own percentages and see how the devices fall out.
As for business-level smartphones, we did include the BlackBerry Bold, which is the premier business BlackBerry, according to RIM.
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119 Recommendations
1 reply
To me, the iPhone is a great executive phone - for the executives. It is just a toy.
Only 10% allocated to the scoring for voice capabilities? Are you kidding? I find it very important to be able to talk on my smartphone.
For someone who needs a phone as a play toy, I think that the way you weighted each of the scores is appropriate.
Now, if you want to weight the scores properly for secure business use, I would suggest dumping in more points on voice, usability, business connectivity, and security.
So, if we were to use these percentages from left to right: 5%, 25%, 5%, 25%, 25%, 10%, 5%, you get some different scores - in my opinion, more realistic scores:
iPhone 7.00
HTC Droid 6.50
Motorola Droid 6.30
Palm Pre 6.95
BB Bold 8.20
Storm 2 7.80
And if you do not give the Storm 2 a ridiculous score and use a 4 instead of a 1, it gets an 8.10
I think you just fudged your percentages around to make Apple products king again, as you always appear to do. I would also expect any Android phone to be a toy for at least a couple of years. 5 years from now it may start getting good market share compared to the rest. I did some development for it in school when it first came out and it looks promising.
Now, I will read the rest of the article...