RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 Review

BlackBerry Bold is neither hot like BlackBerry Curve nor inventive like BlackBerry Storm, but it is the pinnacle of what BlackBerry is meant for. It says little and does much with its large display, fast 3G HSDPA internet connection, sophisticated media player, GPS and WiFi capabilities. While it would seem like a challenge to iPhone or Palm Pre or Nokia N97 but the BlackBerry Bold is targeted towards people who mean business. But is this the best BlackBerry ever? We have made a review to find the answer. Let’s take a closer look at the device.

Design

Half the face of the phone is covered by the full QWERTY keyboard which is why the phone is on the wider side at 66mm. But that is reasonable size to accommodate the natural sized comfortable keyboard. However, it makes up for this being slim at 15mm and weighing just 136g, so it won’t feel like a brick in your pocket.

Display

The display is more detailed at 480X320 resolution than and average Blackberry phones with capability to show 65,000 colors. Though modern displays can show upto 16M colors, the Blackberry display is less richer in color but remember BlackBerry is all about business which means the display is bright, clear and easy to read – which is the essence of all BlackBerry devices.

Keyboard

The true hardware comfy keyboard makes all BlackBerry devices stand out from the rest. The keys are well spaced and slightly angled so that they are easy on thumbs. All symbols and punctuation marks acn be accessed by hitting the alt button and there’s a separate button for capital letters on each side. There are also separate keys for call start and end, menu and return and now-become-common trackball which provides very easy way to navigate through menus and scrolling through webpages.

Messaging

Messaging is easy and painless as one can expect from a BlackBerry. You can quickly access to e-mail accounts, and you can have your e-mail pushed to your device as soon as it reaches your mailbox. There are also a Documents To Go Application for BlackBerry using which you can create your own Word, Excel and PowerPoint Pages.

Camera

The camera is not so good for a phone like this. The 2MP Camera is less than average and you can find smartphones with better camera at a lesser price than this one. The only good thing about the camera is that it is fast and does the job of snapping in simple way. There is also option for geo-tagging and uploading the photos directly to your facebook profile.

Connectivity

It is a quad band GSM phone which means it would work throughout the world supporting all frequency bands. The system is also capable of tri band 3G HSDPA Connection supporting upto 3.6MBPS speeds. It can also connect to Broadband via WiFi connection. The web browser is also fine and navigating the pages with thetrackball also feels very nice. There is also Bluetooth A2DP Connectivity and USB Port for connecting it to your computer.

Battery

The device comes with a standard 1500mAh Battery which is officially stated to have 310 hours of standby and 5 hours of talktime. In our tests it ran for about 4 days in light usage and only two days for heavy usage. The battery life is just average as it uses only messaging capabilities of the BlackBerry Services.

Pros

• Nice QWERTY keyboard


• 3G HSDPA high-speed data connectivity


• Wi-Fi support, GPS Sat Nav capability


• Good browsing experience


• Excellent push email facilities


• Trackball control


• 3.5mm headphone jack support


• Good quality half VGA screen


• 1GB onboard memory with upto 16 GB MicroSD card expansion


• Bright Display

Cons

• Camera is a bit underpowered at 2MP Resolution and no other high end camera features


• GPS seems slow


• No face to face video calling facility

Conclusion

In terms of design, it is one of the top looking phones RIM have ever made. But if you ask me to recommend a BlackBerry device to a businessman I would definitely recommend theBlackBerry Bold not only for its nice design but also for the features that a businessman always needs. Truly this is the best BlackBerry phone ever made.