Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Blackberry Bold 9000

The Bold defined the slickest Blackberry ever made, until the new Curve 8900 was available. The Bold or Blackberry 9000, measures 114 x 66 x 14 mm. While it is by no means slim by today's smartphones' standards, the Bold measures up boldly with its offerings. The Bold weighs 133 grams and sits nicely in the palm. The rear is textured and has a leather covering to enhance the grip of the phone. The 2.6" screen offers a good experience in the half-VGA resolution. Below the screen are a trackball and four large buttons for Call, End, Menu and Back functionality. Further below is the Blackberry keyboard improved from that of the 8800, well known among Blackberry users for its uniqueness. Text entry was fast, accurate and felt definitely better than on an 8800. The UI of the Bold is based on the Blackberry OS 4.6, giving it a fresh look and improved usability.

The new Bold 9000 is powered by an Intel XScale 624 MHz processor coupled with 128 MB of RAM. The processor made this device worth it, there was no lag anywhere to be found on using the Blackberry Bold. The Bold's display stands out with a resolution of 320x480 pixels. There is 1 GB of onboard memory to store a lot of multimedia and documents. The multimedia support on the Blackberry Bold is almost unlimited, thanks to the Blackberry OS. There's a 3.5 mm standard audio output jack available on the side. The phone supports hot-swapping up to 32 GB microSD cards. The camera present on the Blackberry Bold is a 2-megapixel one lacking AF and image-stabilization. Shots taken were still decent and much better than the previous Blackberry 2 MP's. The LED Flash was quite okay for short distances. The document editor support was very handy at times. We were able to edit XLS, DOC or PPT files on the large, delightful screen with ease through the full QWERTY keyboard. GPS navigation was a pleasure to use with Blackberry Maps. Web browsing experience was very delightful too, thanks to the hi-res screen and Blackberry's improved full HTML browser.

The Bold was not short of anything when it came to connectivity. The Blackberry Bold 9000 is a Quad-band GSM with EDGE Class 10 and GPRS support. 3G and HSDPA is supported on all bands available on all regions. Expect a peak download speed of 3.6 Mbps on supported HSDPA networks. For local connectivity, we have Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 on the Blackberry Bold. WLAN support is outstanding with 802.11 a/b/g compatibility.

The Bold is designed to last longer with each charge, unless you switch on power-intensive applications using Wi-Fi or HSDPA. The Bold is powered by a large 1500 mAh Li-ion, the highest capacity available for most smartphones. Blackberry notes a 5-hour talk time and 12 day standby. We could use the Bold for two-three days, with occasional data and multimedia, on charging it fully.

No doubt the Blackberry Bold 9000 is a tough competitor from Blackberry's smartphone range. It is well-designed, feature-rich and like all Blackberrys, powerful. While the street price tag is moderately high at around 500 dollars, it is by all means reasonable.