I've made it to Day 19 of my 30-day BlackBerry Torch Challenge. This week was unique because I took off work for most of it due to a personal emergency and I got to use the phone in ways that I hadn't before. The difference this week was that I didn't have the luxury of patience or being able to give the phone the benefit of the doubt as I've done in weeks past. This week, I really just needed it to work. While I was out and about, I brought an Android phone with me just in case the BlackBerry let me down. Well, it let me down. I was using Maps, navigation, internet, and a few apps. The Torch was slow and did not work well enough. Maps was laggy and took too long to refresh; web browsing was slow; the apps I needed were not available. So, I took out the Android phone I had brought and used it instead.

The bottom line is that BlackBerry in its current state is not good enough to compete with other OSes like Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. There are a few areas where BlackBerry performs as well as those other OSes, but in most areas it's not as good as them and there are no areas where it's better. For me, I'm only going to use an OS if I think it's better than my other options. That's why I switched to Windows Phone - I felt it was better than Android and iOS in enough ways. I can't see any areas where BlackBerry is better. I probably won't use the Torch when my 30-day challenge is over, but I'm still in this for the long haul and I'm willing to stick it out. Things might change, but I doubt it.