BlackBerry Bold 9700

 

Its back and its badder and bolder than ever. The BlackBerry Bold 2 or BlackBerry 9700 has been shrunk, juiced up and beautified. It has all the features of the Bold in a much nicer package and probably the biggest addition is the responsive trackpad and size and shape of the new Bold. I cant wait till i get my hands on this!

It has yet to make its way to Asia but be sure it will be here in 2010 soon. I’m afraid only StarHub supports this phone for now.

 

Available Features

• Trackpad navigation
• Bright, hi-resolution screen
• Full QWERTY keyboard
• 3G technology
• Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® enabled
• 256MB flash memory
• 3.2 MP digital camera with
  video camera
• Multimedia player
• Wireless email
• Organizer
• Browser
• Phone
• SMS/MMS
• MicroSD card reader

Size and Weight

Height:
4.29 inches (109 mm)

Width:
2.36 inches (60 mm)

Depth:
0.56 inches (14.1 mm)

Weight:
4.30 ounces / 122 grams
(including battery)
3.17 ounces / 90 grams
(without battery)

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/blackberrybold9700/bold_videos.jsp

 

BlackBerry App World in Asia- What took so long?

BlackBerry App World - Where have you been?

Since yesterday 27th October Users in Singapore and Indonesia now have access to the BlackBerry App World. Hallelujah! I’ve been waiting 696 days for this day to come – however my question is still going to be – RIM, What took you so long?

As a direct comparison the Apple iPhone App Store was available at the launch of the iPhone. When your users are global roamers and worldwide business travellors – making Apps available throughout the globe is essential to gaining popularity in users, increased development and overall profits.

RIM really needs to increase its reach to Asia and beyond if it wants to compete with the likes of Google, Microsoft, Apple and Nokia. I’ve mentioned this before in previous posts but its worth mentioning again – strategies of diversity, global reach and technology will come hand in hand if you want to stay afloat in this Corporate Tech War.

For now, I can access some Free Apps on my BB Bold but I’m not overly impressed that there is no availability to Paid Apps in Singapore! Why can’t we access this on the BlackBerry App World or the Desktop Manager. WHY!

Opinion:The Blackberry Curve 8230

Why the BB Curve? Lost my iPhone,  and my flatmate who has many contacts happened to have a pristine, BB Curve, still in the package! You cannot beat good mates!Have used the BB Curve for over a half year now…

Image via CrunchBase

First Impressions
The Blackberry line of phones has always been touted by RIM as ones for business. However, my first impression of the phone was that it looked toylike and far from executive. The matte silver casing did little to create any gasp effect and this was compounded by the weight of the phone itself, which was very light. Excessively light, if that makes sense. Normally, I would be agog at a function filled phone that are lite in the pocket, however, in my opinion, mobile phones nowadays need a fine balance of heft and weight to convey a certain sense of gravitas. So, first impressions were ho hum.

Switching the phone on, from insertion of the battery took about 40secs to a minute but felt like forever, especially in comparison to other phone models. I say the egg timer icon needs to take a holiday – someone get the
idea people to come up with a new and engaging icon.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

SMS’ing: Cupping the blackberry in the same manner that a persons prays with joss sticks, fingers encasing the sides, and two thumbs used as the primary digits to navigate between the buttons had me in conniptions for about a week or so.

The trackball – white and glowing, like a prop from tron, does a good enough job to allow you to navigate through the menus and application icons, but the sensitivity took longer than it should for a user to attune themselves. Learning to spin, rotate and again spin and depress the ball had me wincing everytime I would scroll past the application that i desired to use…and using the trackball to select and activate the application was also an act of digit-agility. That being said,after some weeks, my fingers and thumbs have taken on the agility of russian gymnasts, trained at an early age in a kibbutz. But it did take some time. And, as I mentioned, some wincing. To date, out of phones used – Nokia is my preference for best and easiest to use text messaging. Motorola, the worst.

Someone needs to take the interface and make it a look more palatable.  It looks child like, doesnt have the same panache that many phone interfaces have. The font, display of sms messages etc, are  basic and without oomph. I know this shouldnt matter in a business setting,  but some style never hurts. The screen resolution to me seemed washed out.

Camera: The pic quality is poor, and the photos take some time to manifest  themselves after shooting for viewing. The result is always disappointing,  grainy and grizzled.

Speaker sound is good, I must admit that the first few times the BB rang, I thought the sound was coming from the general air around me, rather than the  silver gadget in my right pocket. I did have previous issues with the iphone and hearing the ring tone, so this was a pleasant aural pleasure.

Battery life was good. Average use and talking, had the phone last for about three days before a charge was needed. This was especially a marked contrast when compared to the drizzle of the iPhone which required a daily charge – though admittedly, there are different purposes to the two phones. The iPhone is more of an experience and status symbol, the BB more of a phone of a traditional use.

Image by Dan_H via Flickr

Havent gotten around to using the push email function, which admittedly is one of the main features of the BB. Reason: like to keep work at work…at the moment, anyway.

Internet: Had trouble connecting to wi fi and opening the browser. Though my expectation of the browser display was not good when compared to the abilities to display webpage that Apple have conjured.

More to come.

Review:BlackBerry Bold 9000

Key Features

• Wireless email
• Organizer
• Browser
• Phone
• Camera (2.0 MP)
• Video Recording
• BlackBerry® Maps
• Media Player
• Built-in GPS
• Wi-Fi® Support
• Corporate data access
• SMS
• MMS

Size and Weight

• 4.48″/114mm (Length)
• 2.6″/66mm (Width)
• 0.59″/15mm (Depth)
• 4.8 oz/136g (Weight)

The GRAND

Voice Calls

The Bold has excellent call quality. This can be attributed to its 3G [3^rd Generation] capabilities. (3G allows simultaneous voice and data services to be linked at high speeds of up to 14.4 Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8 Mbit/s on the uplink) Reception is perfectly clear and you don’t need to press the phone up to your ear or speak loudly into the mic to be heard. With a dedicated volume switch and indicator you can easily turn the volume up and down as you see fit.

Switching over to the speaker phone for hands free usage is seamless and simple. Again, clarity and Mic reception is excellent! Given I have been using the Bold for over 10 months, the Bold can sit on standby for up to 48 hrs while talk time can last up to 3hrs on one charge. RIM claims the Bold can last Up to 13.5 days (Standby time) and Up to 4.5 hours (Talk time).

Input

Trackball

The Trackball glows like a beacon of light!

The Trackball sits conveniently at your thumb tip and enables effective navigation of all your applications with just one hand. I find the Trackball one of the joys of the Bold, it acts as a mouse and can be depressed to select and activate menu functions, scroll pages of text on email or in the browser and intuitively navigate the blackberry interface. The sensitivity can be adjusted for those who have itchy fingers making the Bold highly user friendly, to those less coordinated.

The Home screen allows you to display six of your most favorite applications – customizable and quickly accessible.

QWERTY Keyboard

The four main keys – Send, Menu, Back and End sit between the screen and the keypad which is right where they should be!

When you think BlackBerry, you immediately associate it with its now famous QWERTY keypad. The Bold has a fantastic keypad with contoured buttons for both left and right thumbs. The keypad is clearly marked with symbols and characters making typing a breeze. You’ll be a text wizard in no time!

Operating System User Interface

Theme – Precision

The Blackberry Bold works with a revamped O/S version 4.6 which looks strangely familiar to that of its smart phone rival- Apple’s iPhone.  Applications open quickly with simple menus being available for you to work with. You can sort all your applications into Folders for Music, Applications, Games, Downloads and Setup. Or create your own Folders when you go crazy on the BlackBerry App’s Store – Sound Familiar?

Display

The Bold has a rich, sharp display and herein lays the beauty of the Bold. Its 2.6 inch display half VGA resolution- 480 x 320 pixel colors or 65,000 colours- is rather pretty to look at and enables you to view movies, pictures and Internet as it should be. In fact is has a greater pixel density than that of the iPhone, wow (240 ppi vs 165ppi)!

Output

3.5mm stereo jack

The Bold comes with its own hands free earphones, so you can listen to music or talk while driving. The great thing about this is that you can use any standard earphone to plug in a listen to your music.

USB plug for charging and up/downloading files – The Bold is supplied with a wall charger and a USB cord which again makes the Bold a universal product. You don’t need expensive proprietary accessories and cables or memory cards to utilize the Bold – unlike the Sony’s, Nokia’s and Apple’s of this world!

Email

BlackBerry IS Mobile Email. The Bold stands head and shoulders above all other mobile products when it comes to pushing email to your finger tips. The Bold allows you to view HTML and download attachments as if you were at your desk! When Email is your main form of communication between colleagues and clients – the BlackBerry Bold is simply the best.

• Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange
• Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM® Lotus® Domino®
• Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Novell® GroupWise®
• Integrates with an existing enterprise email account
• Integrates with existing personal email account
• Integrates with optional new device account

Multi-media

• Video format support: DivX 4, DivX 5/6 partially supported, XviD partially supported, H.263, H.264, WMV3
• Audio format support: .3gp, MP3, WMA9 (.wma/.asf), WMA9 Pro/WMA 10, MIDI, AMR-NB, Professional AAC/AAC+/eAAC+

RIM has finally come to the party with its entertainment and multimedia experience. The Bold plays Stereo quality music, snaps great photos on its 2.0 Megapixel camera and captures video and voice snippets whenever you need to remember what’s on the grocery shopping list!

Memory

The External SD slot on the left hand side enable a micro SD Card to be easily slotted in and out of the device. Simple!

• Expandable memory – support for microSD™ card
• 1GB On-board + 128 MB Flash

Connectivity

You can access the internet through the BlackBerry Browser with a Data plan or through WiFi. The browser is solid though unspectacular – you can access most websites on the Bold. It also can act as a modem which probably isn’t very useful in this day and age.

• Wi-Fi: 802.11a/b/g
• UMTS: 2100/1900/850 MHz
• GSM®: 1900/1800/900/850 MHz
• North America: 850 MHz GSM/GPRS networks
• North America: 1900MHz GSM®/GPRS networks
• Europe/Asia Pacific: 1800MHz GSM/GPRS networks
• Europe/Asia Pacific: 900MHz GSM/GPRS networks
• EDGE networks
• HSDPA networks

Price Plan

StarHub Mobile Line and Unlimited Data Plan – $150/month

This includes Email connection to Exchange, GPS and unlimited Internet surfing. You are always connected.

The Not so Good

Battery Life

My biggest gripe with the Bold is the Battery life. With constant business and personal use throughout the day your Bold will run out of juice within 24 hours. It’s ok if you work in an office environment where you can plug it in all day but you definitely can’t go an entire weekend without at least one charge.

Desktop Manager

The Installation disc that comes with the Bold provides you with the Blackberry software – rather limited in its function – it enables users to backup contacts, set preferences and install applications.  In short, not much attention has been paid to this piece of software – though you won’t use it often. Always keep a backup of files and contacts!

The Wrapup

The BlackBerry Bold sits amongst royalty in the Smartphone Kingdom. It’s the best phone on the market with triple threat technology – GPS, WiFi and 3G technology. RIM’s strength in the corporate world is its security and access to corporate data and email. Add to this the multi-media enhancements and a snazzy Black design and you have a real winner fitting both form and function wonderfully. This is as good as it gets for today’s internet savvy techie and most importantly for those million dollar mergers! As I write this review the latest news from RIM BlackBerry is the release of its newer and smaller phones – the BlackBerry Tour 9630 and BlackBerry Gemini or Curve 8520.

Great Apps to download: Gmail, Windows Messenger, Google Maps, Facebook.