You just said it in your question. For the BlackBerry, messaging is not one of the many things it does, it's the focus of what it does. Here are some simple differences: I get a separate icon for each inbox on BlackBerry, whereas on Android I get one mail 'app' that has drop-down menus for each inbox. With BlackBerry I automatically get true push email, but Android only offers that if I'm using a Google hosted email account (yes, probably some way to fix this, but BlackBerry it is automatically set up on every account). BlackBerry is loaded with really great shortcuts available at all times because the physical keyboard, which allows me to accomplish routine tasks in a fraction of the time required on an Android. If you deal with high volumes of email (both receiving and sending -some people receive lots of email, but rarely respond, so that wouldn't matter), pick up a BlackBerry and try it out. If you don't deal with high volumes of email, then you probably will never understand why such a tool is better.