The BlackBerry Bold’s Screen
Take a look at the screen capture above you. A good, long look. The question you should be asking yourself as you reflect upon this bucolic vision is not if you’ve ever seen anything so beautiful on a BlackBerry before, but if you’ve ever seen anything so beautiful on a mobile device before.
It feels slightly weird to write, but RIM, the company known for email and enterprise, has made the BlackBerry Bold’s screen a killer app. The media often points to the iPhone’s screen as the industry leader in mobile visuals, but RIM has shown that it’s not the size that matters, but the amount of pixels your packing. At 2.6 inches diagonally and .75in wider than the BlackBerry Curve, the BlackBerry Bold also an increased screen resolution of 480×320 (HVGA), leading to a pixel density of 240ppi, significantly higher than the iPhone’s 165ppi. What does this technical mumbo-jumbo mean? More pixels + smaller screen area = very pretty pictures. Having watched a variety of videos on both the Bold and the iPhone, the BBCool unanimously chose the Bold’s smaller screen over the iPhone’s.
However, the dynamism of the BlackBerry Bold’s screen isn’t limited to its pixel density. Bold users will never again be concerned with their screen brightness, because it is no longer an issue. That doesn’t mean that the screen is dramatically brighter than previous BlackBerrys, but that the contrast range is so much greater, no matter the brightness setting, the Bold screen is luminous and crisp, displaying whiter whites and inky blacks. Concerns over environmental lighting are a thing of the past, with the Bold screen performing beautifully in broad daylight or the fluorescent-lit office. The Bold screen also features a broad hue range as well, often to startling effect: with the right image or video, the Bold can display both subtle pastels and shimmering tones.
Don’t think RIM hasn’t taken the opportunity to show-off what the Bold screen can do. Transparent menus are visible everywhere in the OS, and tucked within the Advanced Options menu is a new option called Accessibility, which allows you set the Bold to display all colors in reverse contrast or greyscale. It may seem like a novelty option, but I found the reverse contrast setting to make sifting through OS icons significantly easier. It also makes our custom BlackBerry Cool background look even cooler.
