The Blackberry Bold 9000

The BlackBerry Bold 9000 is one of Research in Motion's latest 3G smartphones to hit the market. The Bold sports a sleek design, very sharp display, and high speed connectivity but is lacking other areas such as call quality and its camera's image quality. Although the phone presents a very enticing offer it's drawbacks may prevent you from justifying the high price tag. Here's what we have to say about the Blackberry Bold 9000.

The BlackBerry Bold is easily one of the most stylish BlackBerries yet and comes with a removable black leather cover which gives the phone a sophisticated look and is very comfortable to hold. The cover can also be customized with an optional blue, brown, green, gray or red to give it a more personalized feel. The Bold is also roughly the same size as the BlackBerry Curve 8300 with dimensions of 4.5 inches by 2.6 inches by .55 inches and weighs about equal to an iPhone at 4.8 ounces. The phone has curved corners and a glossy face but unfortunately lacks a touch screen that have become so ingrained in the world of smart phones.

The bold does come with a full QWERTY keyboard and various corporate e-mail and infrastructure characteristics that BlackBerry is known for. The keyboard itself is has been revamped in the Bold model with sculpted keys to minimize finger slippage and enhance usability. The Bold also has a superior battery life and provides over 7 hours and 50 minutes of talk time, which is longer than any other 3G phone I've seen. The BlackBerry operating system was revamped as well giving the interface in version 4.6 a looking cleaner and more attractive look. The new OS features background wallpapers and a customizable application view known as the Ribbon.

The phone itself also has an excellent display. Images and video look absolutely spectacular on the Bold's 480 X 320 VGA display which supports over 65,000 colors, twice as many as the BlackBerry Curve. In terms of performance, the BlackBerry Bold's display matches that of the iPhone's resolution and has great video playback with little to no pixelation or blurring. However the camera on the phone has much to be desired. The 2 megapixel camera has some advanced features including digital zoom and flash but many users report the flash being to bright causing indoor pictures to look grainy or overexposed. The camera also has very few megapixels for such an expensive phone and seems to be lacking on some features such as a self timer, which is non-existant.

The BlackBerry Bold has also had some reports on poor call quality. On several occasions calls made to other mobile devices consistently suffered from a background hiss and many times the voices on the other line sounded far away, as if they were talking to their phone from 5 feet away. People who have received calls from the BlackBerry Bold also reported hearing a lot of background noise and somewhat of a distortion in the voice.

The BlackBerry Bold undoubtedly delivers high-speed browsing and strong messaging capabilities and a definite step up in functionality and form from existing BlackBerry models, but some faults hinder its potential to compete with other well-known smartphones such as the iPhone and the T-mobile G1. With such a high price tag it will be hard to grab a consumers attention.