Blackberry Bold 9700 Review

After using the Bold for over a week now, I am pretty impressed by its functionality. I am a person who's always on-the-go and love to travel. Just last week, I went to DLSU to take the National Medical Admission Test and the Bold came in much pretty handy. From texting to web browsing, media playback, etc., - it is one of the best devices I've ever laid my hands on. I've tried to use an Iphone 3g before, but I'm not that much into touchscreen phones, and you can see in my blog's archives that I was an LG cookie user before - I've sold it after a few months because of the difficulty in creating SMS's. I had a hard time to text my friends and i was a little bit slow using the touchscreen and opted to buy another phone, now with a physical keypad - the sony ericsson k770i.

Now to the bottom of this: here's my quick review of the RIM Blackberry Bold 9700.

Display:

The display looks great. It's crystal clear and very crisp. With a resolution of 480 by 360, it's more than enough to let you watch your favorite movies or videos on the Bold 9700. It exceeds it's predecessor - the Blackberry Bold 9000 which only had a resolution of 480x320. It's a big improvement and trust my word - it's very crisp and clear.

Connectivity:

It's basically a quad-band phone. Has wi-fi, 3g, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1 - the  most common things that should be a standard now in today's phones, and all of it are embedded on the Blackberry Bold 9700. The only downside is that the browser is a little bit slow, but there's always opera mini, which is a lot faster.

Software and Applications: 

It's a good thing that RIM has created the Blackberry App World Application which let's us download free/paid software directly to our phone. It's like the apple store for the iphone. The BB Bold 9700 offers a variety of apps which really come in handy. I say that I'm impressed with the various apps available, especially the facebook and twitter apps, and even yahoo messenger do their jobs well.

SMS and typing:

The qwerty keyboard is fun to use with. Not only does it feel like you're on a real keyboard, it makes typing a lot more easier especially when sending SMS messages, surf the web, and/or edit and save documents with the built in document editor. This is very useful if you're a blogger and always on the road. I've gotten used to it so there's no problem for me, only those who haven't touched a qwerty phone yet will find difficulties in adjusting to this kind of layout. One thing not to forget to mention is the OPTICAL TRACKPAD. RIM has made a good decision in removing the trackball, and to replace it with a touch sensitive trackpad. I'm quite impressed with the ease of use of the trackpad, and if you'll get used to it, scrolling and selecting items will be more than just fun. LOL

Battery Life:

Let me see, I charge my phone every 2-3days - Wi-Fi, SMS, some calling. According to RIM, it has a standby time of 504 hours and 38 hours of continuous music playback. Seems long enough for me, and all I can say, the battery life is amazing. Period.

Camera:

The Bold features a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and 2x digital zoom. It also captures video at 480x360 resolution and I am very impressed with the video quality. Not like my previous phones I have, they only record at such low FPS and quality. Picture quality isn't that impressive but should do the job taking quick pictures if you're on the way.

Pros:

- Qwerty Keyboard

- Long battery life

- Crisp Display (480x360 pixels)

- Has wifi, 3g, GPRS, Edge and Bluetooth 2.1

- 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus

Cons: 

- You need a data plan to experience all of its features.

- There's no well-working free GPS app here in the philippines.

- Pretty big in the hands, need at least to use both hands to type.

Conclusion:

Well, if you want a Blackberry, and you're a geek who's always traveling, then this might be the phone for you. It's actually intended for business use, but it's like an extraordinary tech-gadget that anyone can put in their pockets. So take a tour of the Blackberry Bold 9700, if you like it - then buy it. I definitely recommend this phone to those who need wi-fi, 3g, a full-qwerty keyboard, as well as music and video packed in one device.