Poll: What Would It Take For You To Switch To Blackberry?

I'm submitting this on behalf of ekalvi, who posted this as http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3780586

I switched from Blackberry to Android (Samsung Galaxy Glide) last week and I'm mostly happy, except for some features that I had taken for granted as a BB user (good physical keyboard, notification LED, and stellar battery life). If RIM were to release a Blackberry that could run Android apps and had better Google Apps integration, I would switch back in a heartbeat.

Even as late as 6 months ago I would have bought a 9900. But the promised wifi calling OS upgrade never arrived. And in order to get the seamless OTA syncing I would have had to buy hosted BES (an extra $10/month) and would have had to pay T-Mobile extra on top of normal data costs.

This week I was at a conference of a bunch of bankers in Dubai. As is normal, everyone sits down and puts their phone(s) on the table. I looked around. Out of eight of us, there was one BB, and that person had an iPhone as well.

Two years ago this would have been an all-BB crowd.

I now find it simple and cheap to roam with an unlocked iPhone and local SIMs.

BB, to live, must eliminate the cost surcharge. Stop charging the carriers extra. Stop forcing us to buy BES for the same performance we get for free on iCloud or Android's integration with GMail/etc.

Then concentrate all efforts on delivering -- on time and without "software upgrades to do 'that' coming real soon now."

I doubt that will be enough, though. Anyone want an old Curve 3G with Arabic keys for $20?

The keyboard is a huge differentiator.

I am a loyal blackberry user and personally feel it is a nice phone. However I am unhappy over the fact that the company doesn't seem to give a F888 to it's users. For example the cheapest Android phone in the market that act as a Wifi Hub but my blackberry curve 3G cant. Also, most of their OS update come separately for each carrier. That is outright nonsense. While Email is their strength they have done very little upgrades to their email interface.

One feature that I want to see is, the dates in my emails should be highlighted and I should be able to directly put reminders in the calendar application by selecting the date. iOS does it but BB wont.

I wonder how many SKUs RIM must be maintaining and this must be damn complex for them. Besides they should understand that their brand does not have any value anymore and hence stop seling crappy phones at such a high price.