Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Shira's Blackberry Bold 9700 Review

It's been almost three years since I got my Blackberry Pearl. Since then, I've used multiple Blackberries for work, and also had the Blackberry Curve (for which I did no review). Being a slight Blackberry junkie (who somehow managed to let the Curve 8900 come out without buying it), I was compelled to go out and buy the new Blackberry Bold 9700 just a few days after T-Mobile released it. While in some ways, the Bold is not a giant leap from my Curve, there are some highlights I'd like to mention given regarding my initial thoughts on the device.
  • First of all, Blackberry continues to impress me with how easy it is to transfer from one BB device to another. I simply had both devices plugged into my laptop and the Blackberry Desktop Manager software transferred my data/settings (including to the browser history level) from my Curve to the Bold. Outstanding.
  • They replaced the trackball with a touchpad for movement. This works very well. The only downside is that for someone (like Ben) used to a touchscreen phone, he may be inclined to also think that the screen is a touchscreen, and I did have to wipe off an ugly fingerprint from the bright, gorgeous screen.
  • Battery life is fabulous. Giving into some old wives tale, I still run down the battery a time or two when a phone is new. Well, it took me 5 days of medium usage to run this battery down.
  • There is a 3.2 megapixel camera which takes nice photos (haven't tried the video yet).
  • While Blackberry still gets a bum rap for its browser capabilities, running this phone over 3G has definitely increased my browser usage, and I think they have made some slight browswer improvements.
  • While Blackberry's operating system/menus/applications remain somewhat primitive, there are certain improvements such as the number of choices you have in constructing profiles, and visual improvements to make the applications and interactions look a little (very little) less stark.
  • All in all, it's a slimmed down, souped up, upgraded version of the Curve. It runs faster, it's sleeker and remains true to its Blackberry roots to provide a great messenging phone.

After only 6 days of use, my only negative comment so far is that they changed the USB adapter size from the standard that all of my past Blackberries have had. Thus, while I would have had a dozen extra adapters lying around, I am currently beholden to the one that came with the phone.

Will the Bold 9700 rock your world? No. Will it prove to be a good upgrade? I'm hoping so.

3 comments:

  1. The BlackBerry browser doesn't compare to the competition. The handset's compact size results in a smaller display and keyboard, but they aren't deal-breakers.

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  2. one of these days, i need to bring back your old pearl. that said, I need to replace Lauren's Pearl and I was thinking the Bold... good to know that if I get it for her, she'll have someone to compare notes with.

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  3. Definitely get Lauren the Bold. It will be a noticeable step up from the Pearl but will still be very usable for her. We should get together and she can try mine out.

    No one claims that the browser is anything special. I think just some slight improvement and mostly the 3G speed makes it more user friendly.

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