BlackBerry Bold 9700 review

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 has finally arrived in India - and it's well worth the wait!

The original BlackBerry Bold, a new entry into the world of 3G for RIM, had an amazing screen, decent sized keyboard and fast data access, but was let down by its appalling battery life. The original Storm also had its fair share of issues with software foibles and a moody touchscreen.

Both of these models have now been replaced with new versions that should hopefully be problem-free. In the case of the Bold 9700, reviewed here, it would certainly seem to be the case.

The new Bold is simply amazing to look at, being slightly smaller than the existing 8900 ‘Javelin’ and sporting the trackpad first introduced on the low-end 8520. When put it beside the original Bold, you suddenly realise just how big the first one was.

Besides the size reduction, there are subtle changes to the design, such as rubberised buttons on the sides, a new chrome finish around the edges and a redesigned battery cover. It still retains the faux-leather finish, but actually looks more integrated than before.

The camera has been upgraded from 2-megapixels to 3.2, with autofocus thrown in to bring it into line with the Storm. In a world of 5, 8 and 12-megapixel cameraphones, this may not sound like much but the camera still produces decent sized images that can be printed, uploaded to your favourite social networking site or emailed. The flash is powerful enough to light up things nearby, and video recording is acceptable - if not amazing.

Unlike other devices where keeping the size down is paramount, there’s always the risk that a smaller BlackBerry will compromise its ease of use. The key feature of the Bold and Curve models is the full Qwerty keyboard, and the buttons here are inevitably smaller than the original Bold.

However, the ridges on the keys ensure you can still press keys with a high level of accuracy. You won’t be writing a novel, but nor will you feel limited to writing incredibly short responses when you’d rather go into a bit more detail.

The numbers must still be entered by using the Alt key, and there’s no separate colour to differentiate them from the other letters anymore, but long term users of a full Qwerty BlackBerry probably don’t even look at the keyboard. Otherwise there’s a small learning curve, but within a day or two you should be typing messages easily - and appreciating the clever tricks that speed up text entry, like automatic punctuation and spelling corrections.

RIM has wisely chosen not to swap anything around, which could have proved disastrous, so anyone upgrading will be up and running in minutes - especially if staying on the same network, meaning a quick re-send of the appropriate service books will have the device set up just as quickly.

If there is to be any risk of early teething problems, it may come from the use of BlackBerry OS 5.0. Also featuring in the Storm 2, the new OS has had a series of enhancements, especially apparent to BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) users, as a number of changes are visible when managing and searching for email.

Other changes include the integrated support of Google Mail, including contact and calendar synchronisation. There’s an additional security process to complete now before you can start using your BlackBerry with Gmail, but the result is instant delivery of Gmail in the same way as using a BlackBerry email address. You’ll still need to have a suitable BlackBerry Internet Server (BIS) account provisioned on your account, often at a premium of around Rs 300 on your standard tariff - with Vodafone Essar.

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