Refinement For BlackBerry Bold 9700

RIM claims that the Bold 9700’s 1500 mAh removable Lithium-cell battery will provide 6 hours of talk time, 21 days of standby time, and 38 hours of music playback. After three days on continuous standby, and roughly one hour of talk time and three hours of web browsing, eWEEK’s test device is still at roughly 80 percent battery power.

Although the BlackBerry is not known primarily as a media-friendly device, music playback was notably crisp and clear. The music navigation is basic and intuitive as you can cycle through artists, albums, genres, “All Songs,” “Shuffle Songs,” and playlists. However, it lacks the bells-and-whistles of the iPhone or the Zune HD. The Bold 9700 supports MP3, WMA9 and a variety of professional audio formats.

BlackBerry’s traditional productivity tools are back. The Bold 9700 uses the new BlackBerry OS 5.0, which RIM touts as offering improvements including a faster browser experience, a snazzier-looking interface, and a boost in typing accuracy and selection. The BlackBerry Browser has also supposedly been improved with speedier JavaScript and CSS processing.

Many of these software improvements, however, seem more like minor tweaks than substantive improvements. Web pages seemed to load in the browser at roughly the same speed as with previous BlackBerry devices; and as for the graphical improvements in the interface – maybe the icons seemed to glow a little brighter, with slightly sharper lines, but overall the new version of the OS appeared a virtual carbon-copy of the previous iteration.

Those who rely on applications such as Word to Go and Slideshow to Go, which allow lightweight editing of documents on the BlackBerry device, will be relieved to learn that all those features are still present. Those who enjoy procrastinating with games such as BrickBreaker, those also continue to reside on the device. Customers using BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 will be able to manage email folders, access remote files, and juggle their calendar.

While the device continues to play to RIM’s strengths, the question becomes how much longer those strengths will allow the company to maintain its standing among a business community with increased exposure to competing devices from a variety of manufacturers. On the other hand, many business users are looking more for functionality than the ability to watch television shows or access Facebook, in which case the BlackBerry could hold enduring appeal.

The Bold certainly seems a more comfortable fit for the RIM line of devices than its BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone, released in August as an overt attempt to appeal to a more consumer demographic.

Although that device boasted the usual BlackBerry functionality and applications, it included more robust multimedia options. Along the outer rim of the Curve, RIM had placed a “Play/Pause/Mute” key, along with a “Previous” and “Next” key, so users could cycle through multimedia files. These dedicated media keys seemed tailor-made to appeal to the iPhone set, but the marriage between traditional BlackBerry form-factor and portable media player seemed an awkward one.