The Ultimate BlackBerry Bold Review

Posted
by
Douglas Soltys
on August 21, 2008, at 10:47 PM
in Reviews and Spotlight
. Tags: blackberry bold, blackberry-9000, hardware, review, RIM, rogers.
Comments: 123 responses
123 Comments

BlackBerry Bold OS

Along with other types of goodies, a major device release like the BlackBerry Bold’s often comes with an OS update from RIM. Since most people are still waiting for their carrier to roll out OS 4.5, the Bold’s OS 4.6 might seem like a vision from a highly sexy, Utopian future. Let BlackBerry Cool be your guide through this magical land.

BlackBerry Bold Icon Screen

The first thing that stands out in OS 4.6 is the new look. Taking advantage once again of the Bold’s beautiful screen, icons in the default Precision Zen themes are now larger and in a stylized wireframe design. The new look is actually quite disorienting at first, and it will take a couple of days to be comfortable finding what you’re looking for. RIM has made a few changes to help break up the clutter, however. First are the preset folders for Music, Games, Applications (for any application that didn’t warrant inclusion in the main window, I guess), Downloads (all third-party applications are sent here until you move them elsewhere) and Setup (containing setup options for Wi-Fi, email and Bluetooth). The Appearance option in the Advanced Settings menu, also allows you to decide how many icons are displayed per row for better spacing.

BlackBerry Bold Applications Folder

Wait a minute, did I just mention a Games folder? Yep, and it comes with pre-loaded games! You’ll find BrickBreaker, Sudoku, Solitaire, Word Mole and Texas Hold ‘Em King Poker ready to offer an entertaining distraction when you pick up your BlackBerry Bold, but unfortunately our pre-release model only came with Word Mole and BrickBreaker. Oh well.

BlackBerry Bold Pre-Release Games Folder

Not all changes are aesthetic, however, and some are quite useful. The most useful being the ability to delete applications without having to enter into the Advanced Options menu — it’s now a matter of two clicks. The Advanced Options menu will still be a key destination though, because of the new additions Wireless Upgrade, GPS Extended Ephemeris, and Cell Broadcast Settings.

BlackBerry Wireless Upgrade Menu

Wireless Upgrades does exactly what you think it would, allowing you to eschew the Desktop Manager in favor of upgrading your BlackBerry OS and applications over the air. No updates are available for the Bold yet, but we’ll keep checking.

BlackBerry Bold GPS Ephemeris

GPS Extended Ephemeris provides detailed metrics about the the Bold’s internal GPS and the information it’s sending and receiving — probably not of interest to casual users.

BlackBerry Bold Cell Broadcast Settings

Cell Broadcast Settings is an interesting new addition in that it allows you to receive cell broadcast messages that are transmitted from mobile stations at regular intervals, such as weather, travel and emergency updates.

One final item that deserves mentioning relates to the scorn of all BlackBerry users: the dreaded hourglass icon. Don’t worry, you won’t be seeing it anymore on the Bold, and not just because RIM changed the graphics to a small clock. The BlackBerry Bold OS runs so fast and clean that we were unable to cause it to show up for a screenshot. Hopefully, as we add more applications and media files to the device it will stay that way.

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  • BB Bold LOVER!

    I’ve had the Bold from Rogers for about a week now… and what can I say… AMAZING! I was a loyal fan of the Sony Ericsson before I moved into smartphones, then became a very very loyal fan of the HTC line-up of smartphones. When Rogers decided to discontinue the HTC Touch and not pick up the newer HTC phones, I was talked into buying a BlackBerry. As I’m a 21 year old male, I figured I needed the best, and folks, that’s exactly what I got! My phone seamlessly switches back and forth from 3G to WiFi and back (but the WiFi does drain a TON of power). As I’m still getting used to going from a Windows Mobile 6.0 to a BB OS .162, there are either things lacking, or I’m just not as tech savvy as I think I am. The documents to go is great, but having to pay to be able to creat new documents is a pain, so I just leave a blank file on there and edit and “save as”. Pictures load quickly and are actually displayed better than my digital camera! And for the review writer, you are incorrect about one thing: there is a stand-alone video recorder icon. You just have to search for it ;) (its in the applications folder).

    My only complaints so far: lacking applications, which is what the WM and iPhone are killing the market with, the browser is really good, but could be better, storage card easy accesibility (its a bitch and a half trying to get that sucker out), and whenever I try to sync the phone with my computer for pictures, videos, and music, while it does it, it tends to slow my computer down and has actually caused a 30 minute freeze!.

    Other than that, it’s an amazing phone, and while its $30/mos. more than a typical cell phone, I can’t figure out how I went without one for such a long time!

  • http://aol.com/ Ralph

    Turned off Wi-Fi, battery last one day. Need charging every night. :-(

  • http://aol.com Ralph

    Turned off Wi-Fi, battery last one day. Need charging every night. :-(

  • Anya

    Does anyone know where I can find maps/gps for the blackberry bold?? I have purchased bb bold recently and I love it! On the box it said that it has built in gps but it’s not there??!! Very annoying…
    Thanx in advance!!

  • Anya

    Does anyone know where I can find maps/gps for the blackberry bold?? I have purchased bb bold recently and I love it! On the box it said that it has built in gps but it’s not there??!! Very annoying…
    Thanx in advance!!

  • Alex

    Hi every body I just bought my BB Bold and it doesn’t have the GPS or map icon in the menu. Can any body help me with it?

  • Alex

    Hi every body I just bought my BB Bold and it doesn’t have the GPS or map icon in the menu. Can any body help me with it?

  • Zaroff

    First, thanks for the wonderful review, it really is the most thorough I’ve read yet.

    I love this machine! And IMO it beats everything else hands down on most subject. I come from the Nokia world, and as much as they are hyped, they just can’t compare. And not only in the most familiar Blackberry areas…
    First, I got an N95-8, which was relatively nice, if somewhat flimsy in parts, but it did a good job. Deal breaker for me was the fixed storage memory. Once you’ve filled the 8 gb, you’re out of luck. As I’m a voracious music consumer, and was looking for a handset that would be a really good music player among other things, I could foresee the 8 gb becoming too small after a while. On the 95, music quality (through headphones of course) was correct, lacking a bit of punch, with the slightest hiss, but overall good enough.

    Swapped it for the apparent ultimate from Nokia, the E90, and that has to be the most overhyped handset in recent times. It does suck, pure and simple. The keyboard, as good as it looks in the pictures and everything, is simply close to unusable, so stiff are the keys. There is practically no response from them, and it does take a while to correctly type any length of text with it. The internal screen was nice enough, but seeing as most apps don’t make proper use of it, except for editing word documents or about, it’s just there for show.
    As for sound quality for music, let’s not even go there… Hiss a-plenty, weak basses, murky rendition, the works. And that is with a very respectable set of cans (Koss KSC75T). Ah, and the 2.5 mm jack sucks miles, too. Using an adapter is not exactly user friendly.

    Sound quality regarding calls were acceptable on both devices, with an edge to the 95, sounding clearer and less muffled, but nothing to write home about.

    The straw that broke the camel’s back as far as the E90 was concerned was when the genuises at Nokia decided to completely lock their firmware, rendering installation of many, many unsigned third party apps impossible on the phone. So far, this hasn’t been cracked, I’m told… Sorry, but if I pay the major bucks to buy a handset, I do intend to use it as I see fit, and not as the manufacturer thinks I should use it in its great wisdom.
    So, I decided it was time for Nokia to go screw themselves, sold the 90, and decided to turn to other solutions, and never having had a Blackberry before, I got wind of the Bold and decided to look closer, and finally got one…

    MYYYYY! What a wonderful piece of gear it is! I was extremely pleasantly surprised in every way, I must say. From first contact, the thing oozes quality, whether it is the feel of it, the incredible screen, the keyboard! Ahhh the keyboard… It does put to great, great shame, the E90′s…
    The OS is a straightforward, no-nonsense affair, and one does get used to it pretty quickly, despite the vast number of options. I appreciate the level of detail and customization, it makes things much easier in the end.

    Call sound quality is mindblowing. Apparently there were hiss problems with the first few firmwares, but this has obviously been corrected and I hear all my correspondents crystal clear, and they do hear me just fine too, whatever the environment. Anyway, a major improvement to what I was used to with both Nokia’s.

    As a multimedia device, which can be surprising for a BB, it destroys everything Nokia and co have ever put out. No honestly. Sound quality via headphones is very, very nice, very precise, no hiss to speak of, and deep, solid bass that will make your jaw tremble ;-) It does sound better than an iPod (after comparing) AND an iPhone, which basically have the same audio circuitry, no matter what Jobs chants. And while the Media Player is simple and rather minimalist, it does the job more than adequately, and is very responsive and reactive, even with a (for now) almost full 8 gb card full of music.
    I can’t quite tell about battery life for now (I’ve only had it for a few days), but while it seems good, it does not appear to exceptional. Good, but not fantastic. I think I’ll give a shot at the Innocell 1650 mAh battery from Seidio and see what gives…
    I won’t relate all the other goodies the thing is capable of regarding push, email etc, they are well known, and they do work totally as expected.

    I have to say the device gets snappier and snappier as FW updates roll out, and they do roll out a great deal, and it’s quite appreciable that RIM churn out bug fixes and improvements on such a regular basis. It does inspire confidence that you won’t be out of luck two or three months after the machine initial release when something better comes along (something a lot of other manufacturers could take as an advice… Especially in Finland. Ahem)
    Plus, I do have the possibility of installing anything I like on it without having to say “please” and hearing “no” as a reply. Another hint here.

    All in all, it’s so far a fantastic device to use, without any nasty surprise so far, and I’m not even thinking to go back to more so-called consumer oriented brands in any foreseeable future. This is exactly the device I wanted to have, and it does everything I need extremely well.

  • Zaroff

    First, thanks for the wonderful review, it really is the most thorough I’ve read yet.

    I love this machine! And IMO it beats everything else hands down on most subject. I come from the Nokia world, and as much as they are hyped, they just can’t compare. And not only in the most familiar Blackberry areas…
    First, I got an N95-8, which was relatively nice, if somewhat flimsy in parts, but it did a good job. Deal breaker for me was the fixed storage memory. Once you’ve filled the 8 gb, you’re out of luck. As I’m a voracious music consumer, and was looking for a handset that would be a really good music player among other things, I could foresee the 8 gb becoming too small after a while. On the 95, music quality (through headphones of course) was correct, lacking a bit of punch, with the slightest hiss, but overall good enough.

    Swapped it for the apparent ultimate from Nokia, the E90, and that has to be the most overhyped handset in recent times. It does suck, pure and simple. The keyboard, as good as it looks in the pictures and everything, is simply close to unusable, so stiff are the keys. There is practically no response from them, and it does take a while to correctly type any length of text with it. The internal screen was nice enough, but seeing as most apps don’t make proper use of it, except for editing word documents or about, it’s just there for show.
    As for sound quality for music, let’s not even go there… Hiss a-plenty, weak basses, murky rendition, the works. And that is with a very respectable set of cans (Koss KSC75T). Ah, and the 2.5 mm jack sucks miles, too. Using an adapter is not exactly user friendly.

    Sound quality regarding calls were acceptable on both devices, with an edge to the 95, sounding clearer and less muffled, but nothing to write home about.

    The straw that broke the camel’s back as far as the E90 was concerned was when the genuises at Nokia decided to completely lock their firmware, rendering installation of many, many unsigned third party apps impossible on the phone. So far, this hasn’t been cracked, I’m told… Sorry, but if I pay the major bucks to buy a handset, I do intend to use it as I see fit, and not as the manufacturer thinks I should use it in its great wisdom.
    So, I decided it was time for Nokia to go screw themselves, sold the 90, and decided to turn to other solutions, and never having had a Blackberry before, I got wind of the Bold and decided to look closer, and finally got one…

    MYYYYY! What a wonderful piece of gear it is! I was extremely pleasantly surprised in every way, I must say. From first contact, the thing oozes quality, whether it is the feel of it, the incredible screen, the keyboard! Ahhh the keyboard… It does put to great, great shame, the E90′s…
    The OS is a straightforward, no-nonsense affair, and one does get used to it pretty quickly, despite the vast number of options. I appreciate the level of detail and customization, it makes things much easier in the end.

    Call sound quality is mindblowing. Apparently there were hiss problems with the first few firmwares, but this has obviously been corrected and I hear all my correspondents crystal clear, and they do hear me just fine too, whatever the environment. Anyway, a major improvement to what I was used to with both Nokia’s.

    As a multimedia device, which can be surprising for a BB, it destroys everything Nokia and co have ever put out. No honestly. Sound quality via headphones is very, very nice, very precise, no hiss to speak of, and deep, solid bass that will make your jaw tremble ;-) It does sound better than an iPod (after comparing) AND an iPhone, which basically have the same audio circuitry, no matter what Jobs chants. And while the Media Player is simple and rather minimalist, it does the job more than adequately, and is very responsive and reactive, even with a (for now) almost full 8 gb card full of music.
    I can’t quite tell about battery life for now (I’ve only had it for a few days), but while it seems good, it does not appear to exceptional. Good, but not fantastic. I think I’ll give a shot at the Innocell 1650 mAh battery from Seidio and see what gives…
    I won’t relate all the other goodies the thing is capable of regarding push, email etc, they are well known, and they do work totally as expected.

    I have to say the device gets snappier and snappier as FW updates roll out, and they do roll out a great deal, and it’s quite appreciable that RIM churn out bug fixes and improvements on such a regular basis. It does inspire confidence that you won’t be out of luck two or three months after the machine initial release when something better comes along (something a lot of other manufacturers could take as an advice… Especially in Finland. Ahem)
    Plus, I do have the possibility of installing anything I like on it without having to say “please” and hearing “no” as a reply. Another hint here.

    All in all, it’s so far a fantastic device to use, without any nasty surprise so far, and I’m not even thinking to go back to more so-called consumer oriented brands in any foreseeable future. This is exactly the device I wanted to have, and it does everything I need extremely well.

  • steve H

    It odd that you got no clock during your test but while reading about your test on the Bold on the Bold I am getting the clock every
    5 econds or so

  • steve H

    It odd that you got no clock during your test but while reading about your test on the Bold on the Bold I am getting the clock every
    5 econds or so

  • http://www.blackberrybbs.com/ jacky

    blackberrybbs

  • http://www.blackberrybbs.com jacky

    blackberrybbs

  • VictorR

    Hi all, can some of experienced BB Bold users explane how is syncronization between phone and LotusNotes (on PC) working? I have actually Nokia and has no any problem to syncronize LotusNotes datas (contacts, calendar, ToDo) with phone. During the day I do almost everything on PC and then make syncronization, so this feature is critical for me. Would this the same with BB?
    Thanks in advance.

  • VictorR

    Hi all, can some of experienced BB Bold users explane how is syncronization between phone and LotusNotes (on PC) working? I have actually Nokia and has no any problem to syncronize LotusNotes datas (contacts, calendar, ToDo) with phone. During the day I do almost everything on PC and then make syncronization, so this feature is critical for me. Would this the same with BB?
    Thanks in advance.

  • VictorR

    Hi all, can some of experienced BB Bold users explane how is syncronization between phone and LotusNotes (on PC) working? I have actually Nokia and has no any problem to syncronize LotusNotes datas (contacts, calendar, ToDo) with phone. During the day I do almost everything on PC and then make syncronization, so this feature is critical for me. Would this the same with BB?
    Thanks in advance.

  • Megan949

    i hate the blackberry bold! it was nice at first but then it started to get slow after about 2 months and all i really use it for is calling and texting. one of my buttons on the side were stuck so it made it hard when i was texting cuz it kept going off! my old one ended up breaking so i just got my new one and the speaker sounds muffled! i’m starting to think i should of gone with the iphone instead!

  • Megan949

    i hate the blackberry bold! it was nice at first but then it started to get slow after about 2 months and all i really use it for is calling and texting. one of my buttons on the side were stuck so it made it hard when i was texting cuz it kept going off! my old one ended up breaking so i just got my new one and the speaker sounds muffled! i’m starting to think i should of gone with the iphone instead!

  • MARK

    I want to buy one but does it have the world timer and converters (currency, weight,etc.) like the Nokia phones? I travel a lot so these are important features for me. Thanks!

  • MARK

    I want to buy one but does it have the world timer and converters (currency, weight,etc.) like the Nokia phones? I travel a lot so these are important features for me. Thanks!

  • J de Jong
  • J de Jong
  • Mrsadams X

    how do i change my conversation style on my blackberry curve?

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