RIM understands that most people prefer using their own headphones to the ones in the box, so it's kindly included a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. We would have preferred it on the top or bottom of the Bold, but it's good to have it nevertheless. The music player is basic, but supports several formats and is usable enough.
Less satisfactory is the Bold's 2-megapixel camera. It didn't take great shots in daylight and with only an LED photo light, didn't overwhelm us at night either. It's fine if you just want to take the odd snap to send to your friends over MMS, but don't expect pictures to look great when you view them on a computer.
Performance
The Bold is a vast improvement over older
BlackBerries and combined with a speedy processor (624MHz) offers a
really punchy experience. You feel like it's delivering the kind of
power you expect from a smart phone -- from browsing the Web to
accessing apps, the Bold doesn't lag much at all.
It's worth mentioning that audio from the loudspeakers can be set to go very loud indeed, which is useful for hands-free or conference calls, although it still has the tinny quality you expect from a phone speaker.
Battery life is quoted at around 10 days standby and around 4 hours talk time. We found that with intermittent use of all the features it lasted around a day before needing to be recharged, which isn't bad considering everything you're likely to use it for.
Conclusion
For some time we were worried that RIM didn't
understand the increasingly powerful consumer market. Businessmen were
no longer content with boring business phones and the likes of Nokia
were quickly moving in on its turf. But the Bold is a clear statement
from RIM that it's listening to the market.
If you're a BlackBerry user, we seriously advise you to check out the Bold and even if you're only considering investing in a super-phone, we recommend you have a look too. This is RIM's pièce de resistance and will most definitely delight BlackBerry fans who refuse to get an iPhone.
Edited by Nick Hide
on Mobile Phones 
Facebook 
iPhone App 
Newsletters 
Twitter 
RSS Feeds 
Send Us Tips
User reviews6
Add your review
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
See all 6 user reviews