BlackBerry Bold 9900: Review

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That’s not to say the new Bold is without its perks in the audio-visual department. The five-megapixel camera is well-suited for the casual shutterbug, and the camcorder function captures HD video at 720p. Available scene modes for the still camera include Portrait, Sports and Landscape; those who take photos of documents for work and/or corporate espionage will be delighted in the option to better capture lettering on white backgrounds.

Good keyboard and battery life

The keyboard has always been a RIM strong point, and the latest Bold carries on that tradition. The keys are raised in such a way that, despite their small size, error-free typing is a easy feat. The keyboard’s backlighting is useful in dim situations, like when a hurricane comes ripping through New York and deprives your apartment of precious electricity.

As previously mentioned, RIM’s BlackBerry 7 OS isn’t a radical departure from the company’s previous operating-system versions. It comes with preinstalled applications such as the enhanced BlackBerry Messenger 6, and offers access to the BlackBerry App World—which, while not nearly as large as Apple’s App Store or Google’s Android Marketplace, still has 5,240 apps and 331 games on offer.

According to RIM, BlackBerry 7 OS includes a faster browser and speedier navigation, and for the most part this seemed true. The application folders are a nice touch, and the interface offers the usual staples: YouTube, maps, and the like. On a more funamental level, though, the screen feels a bit small to accommodate this burgeoning collection of apps and functions; the interface sidesteps this issue a bit with its sliding app tray along the bottom.

Calling was flawless, with crystal-clear reception. Although BlackBerry devices don’t have the iPhone or Android’s reputation as a multimedia device, the Bold’s music player is loud and clear.

The integrated voice search accurately guessed my queries, which included “Pizza,” “Chinese food,” “Time Warner Center,” “grocery store,” and “Seventh Avenue Subway Stop.” However, you have to physically tap the little microphone icon to activate voice search, then tap an app (Bing, YouTube, Facebook, Google Local Search), which sort of prevents this function from being truly hands-free.

As with previous BlackBerry generations, the Bold offers battery life superior to many other smartphones on the market. On paper, the 9930 boast up to 6.3 hours GSM talk time (as does the GSM-only 9900) and 6.6 hours CDMA talk time. In practice, I found the Bold went for nearly two days of moderate use before it needed recharging.

Overall, the new Bold offers the quintessential “BlackBerry” experience. Those who like RIM’s smartphones will probably be happy with this one, particularly the hardware. But if this doesn’t draw in those users who’ve already embraced the iPhone or Android, RIM will have to hope it can overcome its image problems, and that its QNX “superphones” actually change the game.