The bottom line: The BlackBerry Bold is perhaps the best offering from RIM so far, which makes it a great smartphone for business types and hardcore fans. However, its feature set is not enough to convince other users to make the leap.
Research in Motion (RIM) has unleashed a wave of BlackBerry smartphones, including the Bold 9900, Curve 9360, Torch 9810 and 9860. Of these models, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is the flagship offering. The handset is one of the slimmest and most responsive RIM smartphones we've seen from the Canada-based company. The Bold 9900 may not bowl you over at first glance, but it has eventually grown on us. Surprisingly, it has even attracted the attention of strangers.The design is reminiscent of the Bold 9000, with stainless steel bumpers and high-quality plastic on the front and back. On the back, the faux leather battery cover of past Bolds has been replaced by glossy plastic. A soft touch bezel surrounding the battery cover provides enough grip so that we don't have to worry about the phone slipping out of our hands.
Generally, the Bold 9900 has a nice heft to it, and feels sturdy and well-built, at a weight of around 130g. At 10.5mm thick, RIM claims that this is the thinnest BlackBerry phone ever made.
This is also the first Bold with a touchscreen display. The 640 x 480 (VGA) capacitive LCD screen is vibrant and sharp. However, screen real estate had to make way for the QWERTY keyboard, so the display is only 2.8 inches, which is tiny compared to the slew of 4-inch and above smartphone displays.
Also, do note that the touchscreen isn't oleophobic, so it can be a fingerprint magnet.
RIM has managed to squeeze a great QWERTY keypad on the Bold's tiny frame, and has even made the buttons slightly wider than before to cater to bigger hands. The raised beveled edges on the buttons make it easy to type with few mistakes. There's a satisfying click sound with each press, but it can be quite distracting if you're banging away at an email in a quiet place. Other than that, we found the overall typing experience very pleasant.
Discerning BlackBerry fans will notice that the red and green call buttons below the screen have been changed to one color: White. The monochrome color scheme gives the phone a classy feel.
RIM has replaced the lock and mute buttons on top to a single lock/unlock button, and a quick access key on the side launches the camera app and snaps pictures by default. However, this is customizable to launch other apps. An additional button has been added to the volume rocker on the side, so that you can use it to play/pause when operating the music player.
Finally, do note that you will have to remove the battery to gain access to the microSD slot.
The Bold 9900 is the first BB 7 OS handset to be released and there are things we like and things we don't. The refreshed icons are now opaque and have a 3D feel, compared to OS 6. It's prettier and we prefer it this way. We also like the fact that BB 7 retains the ability to swipe between viewing all, frequently used, favorites, downloads and media apps.However, other than these minor cosmetic changes, we were hard-pressed to tell the differences between BB 7 and BB 6.
Look under the hood though, and you'll see where RIM has made the improvements that matter.
The Webkit browser now comes with a JavaScript compiler for faster loading of Web sites, as well as full HTML 5 support. As usual, there's pinch-to-zoom functionality, text reflow and tabbed browsing. Sadly, Flash video support is still sorely lacking.
There's an added voice-activated feature with the universal search function, but like all vocal recognition services, it doesn't work. For example, saying "Audrey" yielded incorrect search options, like "on Jean" and "Ford g", to name a few. Imagine trying that with Asian names and you'll get nowhere. Our advice: Don't use it.
In terms of connectivity, you get the full suite of options here: Bluetooth 2.2, Wi-Fi, GPS, HSPA and near-field communications (NFC)--a first for any BlackBerry device. We didn't get the chance to test this function, but it should come in useful in future when NFC payments and Google Wallet become commonplace.
The phone has a standard 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and now comes with HD 720p video recording capability. There are also various scene modes that you can select when taking pictures, but this is not new. Frankly, it's a little disappointing that RIM has chosen to retain the number of megapixels, instead of bumping it up as it usually does when introducing a next-generation device. Also, a front-facing camera for video calls would be nice.
The Bold 9900 comes with the new Social Feeds app, which consolidates all the latest updates from social networking sites and RSS feeds. It doesn't send push notifications though, and we found ourselves using the preinstalled Facebook and Twitter apps instead.
It's no secret that BlackBerry doesn't have the best selection of apps out there, but that should change once QNX--which will soon support playing Android apps--arrives on RIM's smartphones. Until then, we're happy with apps like Wikitude, which incorporates augmented reality (AR) and location-based search using the phone's built-in compass. For example, you can find and chat with other BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) users simply by scanning your surroundings with the camera, or locate and view Wikipedia entries of places around you. It would be a good thing if more app developers made use of this AR capability in BB 7 OS.
BBM now supports social apps, so that it's not simply about chatting with a contact. For example, some apps like foursquare allow you to update your BBM status whenever you check in to a location. We didn't manage to test this function as our contacts did not have BBM 6, but we like that our app and BBM experiences are made more social. Imagine being able to invite your contact to play a game you just downloaded, and face off against each other, rather than simply sharing pictures and videos as with other messaging platforms.
However, the Bold 9900 is ultimately a business-oriented smartphone. Most users will be concerned about being able to do work on this device, which supports most corporate email systems alongside the usual POP3/IMAP accounts. What we like about email on all BlackBerry devices: When you view or delete any email on the handset, it is automatically synced to your online inbox. You can either view separate email inboxes, or in a combined inbox that consolidates emails, BBM messages and Facebook notifications. Documents To Go comes preinstalled for viewing and editing (basic functions only) Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents.
Finally, there's 8GB of onboard memory and up to 32GB external memory expandable via microSD.
The BlackBerry Bold 9900's 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor is a single-core chip, but it has given the fastest performance on a RIM smartphone so far. Coupled with what the company terms Liquid Graphics technology and a better graphics processing unit, apps loaded quickly and multitasking didn't slow down the phone.RIM claims the phone's 1,230mAh battery will last a full day with average usage. On occasion, we could even stretch it to one and a half days, while pushing two email accounts with Facebook and Twitter set on 30-minute refresh intervals.
Voice calls and reception were generally fine and we didn't experience any dropped calls during our time using the handset.
The BlackBerry Bold 9900 makes a good business smartphone, as long as you can overlook its weaknesses in apps. Let's face it, who uses a BlackBerry for apps anyway? As usual, it retains its strong tradition in good hardware and email and messaging capabilities, but that may not be enough for the more demanding consumer who uses his smartphone for entertainment, information and more.Still the litmus test for RIM's future will come when it releases its first QNX-enabled smartphone early next year. We're keeping our fingers crossed that these phones will be better received and more polished than the PlayBook.