TECHNOLOGY TIPS - THE BLACKBERRY BOLD REVIEWED
The following is adapted from Engadget.
We've been playing with AT&T's just-launched BlackBerry Bold
for a few days now, and once we got past the absolutely gorgeous
display (seriously, it's mesmerizing), we wanted to find out what else
there was to RIM's latest QWERTY device. Is the Bold more than a pretty
face? Well, it's a BlackBerry, so you can count on it.
Physically, the Bold is one of the most elegantly designed devices
we've ever had the pleasure of using. The matte metal ring doesn't add
even a hint of gaudiness -- it's tasteful and totally appropriate for
business use. We noticed that the top half of the front (everything
above the keyboard) is glossy while the bottom half is matte, which we
thought was a little strange.
Although RIM has made a huge splash in the consumer market over the past couple of years with devices like the Pearl and Curve,
there are still aspects of the BlackBerry operating system that let the
company's all-business roots shine through. This is evident in places
like the Options screen, where you get a completely plain-vanilla list
of categories that makes Windows Mobile look like a shining example of
circa-2008 UI design (okay, that's a stretch, but you see what we're
saying), and the bare-bones MemoPad app that lies somewhere between the
Unix commands ed and vi
for sophistication.
Let's turn our attention to
the Bold's most important function: calling. Despite some sporadic
reports of dropped calls, we had no problem using the phone on
AT&T's 3G network. Voice quality was good, and perhaps more
importantly, volume was excellent -- we could turn the phone up loud
enough to nearly hurt our ears. We wish we had the same praise for the
music player, though.
The browser does a commendable job of rendering full versions of
websites, but load times were a concern; calling up Engadget Mobile
(the full site, not the mobile version) took 83 seconds compared to 23
seconds on an iPhone 3G, for example. The sites were loaded at the same
time, so the phones were presumably connected to the same cell and both
were on HSDPA.
So how about that keyboard? We were skeptical going into it -- tiny
keys smushed this close together aren't often compatible with fat
thumbs -- but we adapted to it in short order. Anyone coming from an
8800 series will feel right at home, though Curve users
might have a little learning curve ("curve," get it?) since they're
used to having a little space between keys. What really saves the
Bold's keyboard, we think, are the keys' curious texture, which sweeps
to the left on the left side and to the right on the right side; it
does a surprisingly good job of keeping your thumbs in the right place
and prevents the majority of mistypes.
In
the final analysis, is this the BlackBerry that's going to win over a
whole new generation of users from competing platforms? No, we don't
think it is -- it's a really evolutionary device, and the Storm
probably has a better shot in that arena. Is this the best QWERTY
BlackBerry every made, though? There's absolutely no question about it,
and we're certain that users upgrading from Curves and 8800s are going
to be delighted with what they find here.
CATHY MALLERS & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
