Blackberry Bold

No the blackberry bold is not an iPhone killer. That title goes to the new Thunder model that will be available in the third quarter of 2008. The Blackberry Bold is the latest in the company’s line of super smart phones that have won the hearts of business executives and consumers alike.

BOLD DESIGN!<br/>
The name fits the phone perfectly. The new Bold looks like a cross between the Blackberry Curve and the Motorola Q9c. The device is much more streamlined than previous models from the company and the new interface lends a hand of approval to the new design. The phone still sticks the QWERTY keyboard we have gotten used to and four soft keys along with the Blackberry button.

One of the best features to the external design of the new Blackberry is the leather back. The leather back will also be replaceable with different back plates of assorted colors including gray, blue and red. The phone is pretty lightweight also weighing around 4.7 ounces with dimensions of 4.5x2.6 inches.

PERFORMANCE!

The new Bold has some pretty impressive specs. The new 624MHz Intel PXA270 is a big improvement from the 312MHz processors found in previous systems. There is 128MB of flash memory installed and 1GB of onboard memory. The expansion slot supports up to a 16GB microSD/SDHC card.

The phone is quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) along with support for HSDPA/UMTS (850/1900/2100). The means that you are getting 3.5G technology in one phone and according to the folks at Blackberry this new technology (new to Blackberry phones that is) does not come at the sacrifice of vital battery life.

The phone also includes support for Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 (stereo Bluetooth), A2DP and built in GPS.

SOFTWARE!

First lets deal with the web browser: It offers full support for HTML surfing (just like what you have on your iPhone or Desktop computer) and of course you can always opt for the mobile web experience (which of course is less appealing). The trackball also offers some very good features for scrolling through pages, mouse cursor and zoom feature.

Multimedia includes a 2.0 MP camera that includes (of course) support for video recording with the ability to zoom up to 5x. It also supports playback for multiple video and audio formats including MP3, WMA, AAC DivX4 and WMV3. And if you are still into the wired thing it does support a 3.5mm headphone jack for listening to your tunes.

Do I need to mention all the regular things that have made Blackberry famous? Full support for email (including corporate accounts and Microsoft Exchange Server), Blackberry messaging and Dataviz’s Documents for viewing and editing documents.

The software interface has also been streamlined to compliment the new “Bold” design. So of course that means more black and less of the colors.

AVAILABILITY!

Unfortunately the Bold will only be available on AT&T until September when Sprint and Verizon will be allowed to pick up the CDMA version of the device (no word on t-mobile yet).

All in all the Blackberry Bold is a great phone with some quality features. There will be no need to convince Blackberry fans to upgrade but for those who have not experience the Blackberry goodness yet, it might be a little hard with that price tag of $300-400

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