Review: BlackBerry Bold

BlackBerry Bold 9000 is a smart phone from the stable of Research In Motion (RIM). The phone is often compared to the likes of the Apple iPhone. But in reality, they’re two different phones and a direct comparison between the two of them is often misguided.

Blackberry Bold has a screen size of 480×320 but lacks a touch screen interface. The phone is bundled with a keyboard which is slightly different from its contemporaries with a slight angular shift in the keys. This angular shift means that it takes just that bit more of time to adjust to, but once you do, the layout works like charm.

The build quality of the phone is superior in comparison to its predecessors and the addition of quite a few layers of gloss on the body gives it an incredibly attractive look. Though critics do say that the chrome finish on the phone is borrowed from the iPhone, it suits the Blackberry to the hilt.

One of the most important features of Blackberry – the email -hasn’t undergone any drastic change from the previous models. There are a few improvements with respect to the ability to view pictures and attachments and a full HTML support. Though these may seem to be basic improvements, they add a whole new dimension to the phone.

This phone supports all the current technologies such as 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi without any significant loss in the battery performance. The bundled browser renders pages very quickly without any noticeable lag and the addition of the full HTML support only means that the phone can now be used to view pages in a more complete form when compared with its predecessors.

One aspect of the phone where RIM has improved significantly is the User Interface of the phone. It has been tweaked enough to include new high resolution icons.

The menu and the organizer have been cleaned up a bit but not enough to warrant any special emphasis. While media capabilities are not the key aspects of a business phone, the Blackberry Bold could have done well with significant improvements in multimedia category by introducing a better video playback capability and of course a better media manager.

What is the cost of BlackBerry Bold in US and in India?

The Blackberry Bold retails at $249 under contract from AT&T in the United States and Rs 31,999 under contract with Airtel in India.

BlackBerry Bold Tour

Here is an official BlackBerry Bold video tour