Most people associate BlackBerry with business email, but things are about to change. The BlackBerry Bold is certainly aptly named: it's a very daring step into the world of all-in-one super-phones. The Bold's core features are still made of serious stuff, but with the addition of HSPDA (3.5G) and GPS, RIM hopes to capture a larger piece of the smart phone pie.
We boldly went where several reviewers will likely follow to see if the Bold lives up to its name. The BlackBerry Bold 9000 will launch around September for free on contracts from several networks, including 3, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone.
Design
The first thing you notice when you pop the Bold out of its box is its considerable width -- but this does allow for a full Qwerty keypad and a wide screen. Similar to the Nokia E71, the Bold's keypad is superb. Its keys are spread out just the right amount and they're raised at one edge so you can easily distinguish between each one.
As if a good keypad wasn't enough to grab our full attention, the Bold's screen is also impressive. RIM claims the Bold got its name during user testing, when many people remarked how 'bold' the screen looked. We can confirm that it is indeed very sharp -- excellent for watching videos or reading emails.
In between the bright screen and easy-to-use keypad there's a trackball similar to the one found on the BlackBerry Pearl, which some users like while others found fiddly. We think it works well and once you get used to it, it can make searching through lists or going through the menu very straightforward.
We've never been huge fans of the BlackBerry menu system, but the latest redesign takes the old icons in a much sexier direction. Gone are the naff icons on white -- behold an array of neon symbols, which still take some time to figure out but look far prettier than anything we've seen on a BlackBerry before.
Slightly less impressive is the faux-metal border that surrounds the keypad and screen -- it simply doesn't have the same quality feel as the Nokia E71's metal casing. Then there's the back, which houses a 2-megapixel camera and is covered in mock leather -- it's a bit 'BMW interior' for us but you may like it.
Features
Before the Bold came out we struggled to understand why RIM omitted certain features from its BlackBerries, such as HSDPA or Wi-Fi, but the Bold has it all. HSDPA and Wi-Fi are present and correct, offering high-speed email and Internet access almost everywhere you go, and GPS means you can accurately find out where you are.
Setting up email is fairly straightforward, depending on what you need, but if you're not going to use it to access your company email, you can use BlackBerry Internet Service to setup a variety of email accounts, including Microsoft Exchange. The Bold's Internet browser is equally easy to use, rendering pages in a desktop format, although it doesn't support Flash.
The GPS works well outdoors, but don't expect great things when you're indoors. Navigating around town, you can use BlackBerry Maps, which lets you do cool things such as sending your location to other people, but we prefer using Google Maps, which you can download from the Internet.
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User reviews6
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kanga999 30 December 2009
Good: The Idea of a Querty Keyboard
Bad: Bad Software, Sound Quality
Comment: Firstly, I am not a big fan of the I-phone, but I would Put Apple above this product anytime, simply becasue its much more intuitive and for a new user, the Blacklberry would drive people to frustraion very quickly. If your intending to purchase the Blackberry as a business tool (as most companies seem to do these days) then DONT. Any Windows Mobile phone, a HTC Hero, or I-phone would provide much more intiuitive and function rich software than this blackberry device. I have used 2-3 of the different blackberry range recently in various business enviroments, all the products seemed flawed and this is why.
They try to re-invent the wheel, why try to develop a different user interface when the whole phone marketplace is already adapted and is using somthing else. Touch screens is a case in point, can you imagine any consumer walking into a store and coming accross a "business" phone that doesn't have a touch screen?
Other issues that Blackberry should address using the media player as an example
* the 3.5 Headphone jack only takes certain headphone types, not all, so your limited on getting the headphones to work.
* Sound quality, the Headphone jack supplied a very low quality
* Inbuilt Equallizer is very bad and may as well been ommited
* Carnt hear phone calls thru headphones (one user points out that you can if you unplug and replug phones duing call,)
* No external controls of media Player - See I-phone
* Very basic Controls for media player
So this just give you an idea of flaws in just one section of the product. My best advice for any product is to download the manual first and read through, if it makes sense, then take it to the next step.
Dont buy it, there are 3-4 different products out there that are simply better and allot easier to use.
bowser 28 October 2009
Good: Design, ease of use, keyboard
Bad: Reliability, bundled software, third party applications.
Comment: I really want to like this phone, its design is top notch, works straight out of the box. But I love it and hate it in equal measure and ultimatly it is a big let down.
Reliability has been a problem and I am on phone number 4 from T-mobile, not a problem except that the backup software does not backup everything and a restore does not put the phone back as it was.
The bundled software is just useless, as a basic function you need to be able to open save and edit in some basic form, office documents, the bundled software is read only uless you pay to upgrade and even then will only open a very restricted number of file formats, for a phone aimed at the professional market this is unacceptable. The choice of third party software very poor compared to other smart phones, compairing it to windows mobile or apple versions of the same software is like compairing windows vista programs to graphical DOS based versions, they look childish and reto and appear to be missing functionality. There is little or no ability to install anyting to the memory card. The built in GPS works well but the mapping software is poor, it works WHEN it finaly gets a GPS fix but it takes a long time and there is no turn by turn, there is a massive need for a mapping program that is installable on the SD card, as unless sombody else is paying the bill the data services are not useable when out of the uk, so forget using the phone to get a quick fix when your lost on holiday, and roaming as the ammount of data transfered will bankrupt you!!!
In short a fantastic phone that is badly let down by the software, the look and feel of the software and its functionality.
My last gripe is not really the fault of the phone but of developers, when you purchase software it is generaly linked to the ID of the particular phone, this has been a reall headache when the phone is just replaced rather than repiaired, I have had problems with number of programs purchased where the developers will not relicence it to the replacment phone without futher payment.
My advice steer well clear, the overall experience is poor and a big let down.
boleslawpetersen 15 April 2009
Good: reliability
Bad: price
Comment: i am happy in every aspect , i had so many phones b4 but i found the one!
all my life i thought BB is som kind amecican shit... its not, anyway its canadian lol, Research in Motion save my time and money. Really
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