BlackBerry Bold 9000 Review

Overall Rating

I have recently upgraded to the BlackBerry Bold from a BlackBerry 8800, and it's a marked improvement! The handset design is more inline with the more stylish Apple iPhone, complete with chrome outer finish. The keyboard, whilst the same size, feels different, better and more ergonomic.

The interface is clean, appealing and completely customisable. The LCD screen is bright and vivid, but without sacrificing battery life (still very, very good).

One of my main gripes with the 8800 was the lack of decent document viewing software. The Bold includes 'Documents to Go', which covers the main document types (doc, docx, xls, ppt), allowing you to view and edit on the go. It takes a little while to get used to, but on the whole works very well.

Downloading additional applications is easy, and relatively painless. I normally download direct to handset, than try to use the Desktop Manager, so far I have FaceBook, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger - all pretty mainstream, but useful nonetheless.

The physical dimensions of the handset are identical to it's predecessor, but the questionable inclusion of the faux leather reverse panel makes it feel larger, more clunky.

The 2MP camera doesn't hold up to other similarly priced phones, the image quality is excessively grainy - like the ISO has been jacked up to maximum to allow for low light shots. Doesn't work.

Also, browsing the web is still slow. The new magnify feature works okay, but doesn't really let you control how much or little you want to zoom. I sometimes found this frustrating as you'd need to use the horizontal scroll to read across where it had zoomed in too far.

RIM has a long way to catch up with the iPhone when it comes to applications - there are some useful apps around, but it all feels very 'businessy'... even business people like to have fun too (shock!). Come on RIM, put your fun hat on and give us some pointless, random stuff to play around with.

Overall, a solid successor to the previous model. The Bold is a worthy upgrade, once you've picked one up and had a tinker, you'll be sold. If you've never had a BlackBerry, and you need something to keep you hooked up to your business at all times, I would wholeheartedly recommend this handset over all others.

It has its negative points, but most of those are related to the 'extras' - not the core factors when choosing your next handset. If you can get over the mix of 90s style chrome and 80s style faux leather, you'll find few other things to criticise.

I find this handset very intuitive, and it has allowed me to keep on top of my emails with relative ease. I used to go into the office and fight my way through an overflowing inbox, now it's manageable, but you have to get used to the winking red light... once you've started, you can't stop... so use with care, try not to let it take over your life :)

Members' Comments onmentalnote's Review

• andy08835 on 1st Jun 2009

  I found this review helpful because it was well written and addressed the points I was looking to clarify..