Ok, it's been a week now, since I received my Bold courtesy of Celcom so I should've amassed enough impressions to write a somewhat competent review. Here goes...
Appearance
The first thing you realize about the Bold when you see one is the screen. Yes it isn't very big but my God, it's beautiful! It's bright, sharp and the colors that it portrays are vidid and a joy to look at. Even the default Vodafone wallpaper looks vibrant and rich. My unit, being a pre-release unit didn't come with the complete accessories or even a charger for that matter, but I do hope the retail package includes a sleeve or something to protect the screen from scratches at that would definitely ruin the truly beautiful visual experience you can experience from this device. The default pictures included with the device does great work at showcasing the high resolution and sharpness of the screen. I have already purchased a small stock of screen protectors for the Bold which I will make available for sale once the device is launched. The "screen protector" in the picture above was a temporary solution made from an old Treo screen saver; the new ones are of the proper shape and dimensions so that it covers the entire glass area, including around the speaker opening. Well worth it, believe me. I am also using my old Treo belt holster which will do the job until my samples arrive and I will take a suitable holster for "demo" purposes. Also have replacement battery cover/back plate in different colors of leather, I believe, aside from the standard black, there's also red, blue, titanium and brown. Got to demo some of those too!
The casing itself is all black, with metal bezels at its edges as well as a leather covered battery back plate, which gives it a sleek and professional look. It will look just at home in the boardroom as it will in the swankiest clubs in town. I also love the way how after a user specified time period, the screen powers down its lighting and so does the keyboard and then the trackball, so for a second or two you just have the trackball glowing. Pretty cool in my books. The Bold is quite heavy in the hand, it feels good, it feels solid and it sure looks like it has been well put together. Given that, I wouldn't want to drop it though! A few days ago I did just that; drop it. I was despondent, sitting on the floor next to where it fell for a good few minutes as I was stunned by the horror of dropping it. Luckily it was onto the wooden floor of my bedroom from a height of two feet or so and it landed "well".. No visible signs of damage and it still keeps on ticking!
Using the Bold
I have to say, with the faster processor in the Bold, everything is so much more snappier. Applications load faster, pictures are rendered much faster and switching between applications is seamless. It's very rare you will encounter the "clock" icon as you hardly ever have to wait for the processor. On saying that, remember that my OS is pre-release version 4.6.0.65 so it's not quite ready for prime time; it has re-booted on me twice already this week, but I can live with that. However, the OS has gone "Gold" with Vodafone though, meaning the latest version has been accepted by Vodafone as suitable for release (so the rumor goes). I will make an effort to upgrade my OS on my next trip to see Celcom in KL. There is only two included themes on my device and they both pretty look much like one another so I kept the Vodafone theme so I can promote Celcom and Vodafone as best as possible. As usual it has a row of six user selectable icons at the bottom for the applications you access the most, and if you scroll downwards "past" this row of icons, it will immediately bring up the menu screen which is a lot more fluid then pressing the menu button or the trackball, so I like it.
The Bold has 3G and 3.5G capabilities as I'm sure you've heard. I only notice the difference when I'm downloading applications OTA for installation or when Viigo is updating my article list. Otherwise I hardly notice it unless Celcom is having problems with its GPRS network and everyone is complaining except me as I'm on 3G with a few others who use the 8707G devices. This device will also work in Japan and similar places ( I believe South Korea too) who operate on mainly non GSM networks. Those who frequent these two countries no longer have to keep an 8707G handy.
The one drawback of the 3G is battery life. The battery of the Bold is rated at 1550 mAh which is a lot higher then the Curve (1150 mAh) or the Pearl (900 mAh). However, with 3G that doesn't necessarily mean a lot longer standby time. On an average day for me, when I get home, my battery is usually hovering around the 50% mark, which isn't too bad really. So a day and a half shouldn't be a problem. For a 3G phone that's pretty good I suppose.
The Bold comes with 1GB of onboard memory but for applications its still something like 64MB. Usually you will have less then 20MB of application memory free depending on how many applications you install. The remainder 800+MB is for data only. You can supplement that with a micro-SD card which is accessible without removing the battery or the battery cover for that matter.
BB Messenger is still the main attraction for me and it has a new, minimalist look which I'm not so sure about. It also has the option to show "On the phone" and "Now Playing" presence status which I suppose will inform a fellow BB user that you are doing just that when they send you a BBM. Currently with the Curves, if you're on the phone it shows you as unavailable, so this is a little more specific. I also like how when you want to send a picture to a messenger contact, once you select who you want to send the picture to it will ask you to confirm if you really want to send the picture to this particular contact. The number of times I accidentally sent a picture to the wrong person... Lucky it wasn't anything incriminating or worth an upload to porn site or something!
Speaking of pictures, the camera is pretty good (2 megapixel) for those times when your 7.1 megapixel pocket powerhouse isn't handy and your son decides to sing and dance or something similar. I do wonder why RIM stuck to 2 megapixel though when it seems the minimal standard nowadays is 3.2 megapixel. But I'm not complaining. Oh yes, it also records video, which again comes in handy but I wouldn't throw away the JVC Enerio digital video camera just yet. The picture application also allows you to view your pictures according to user specified folders or just all photos together. I have encountered problems where after sometime, no pictures will show up in the "All pictures" mode when clearly you have pictures on the media card and it shows up in the "Picture Folders" mode. I assume thats one of the bugs associated with pre-release OS which will be sorted out soon.
The MP3 music player sound "richer" and "warmer" to me, who is unschooled in the ways of the audiophile but I have been told the MP3 player is way, way better then the one in the stock Curves (as opposed to the Curves that have been upgraded to 4.5) and both 4.5 and 4.6 have proper playlist features. I'm don't play much music on my BlackBerry so I'm not too sure on all this. I prefer to keep my BlackBerry battery saved for communications and use my iPod for music. Call me anal retentive.. I dunno.
My Bold comes with quite an array of games too. I'm not much of game player on a BlackBerry but besides from the original brickbreaker, it also comes with Word Mole, Texas Hold'Em King 2, Sudoko and Klondike. But like I said, I'm not much of a BlackBerry gamer. I usually delete all the games of m Curve when I upgrade the OS anyway.
Another big draw of the Bold is the ability to view and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. The Bold comes with Documents to Go which enables you to do all that except create new documents. For that you have to upgrade to the premium edition which requires $. That's to be expected. The Bold also does really well with viewing PDF files as well, which I do quite often.
The included BlackBerry Maps application is useless unless you live in a major city. Here in Kuching it's useless. However, you can download Google Maps for BlackBerry and that does a great job. The GPS in the Bold seems to acquire satellite reception much quicker then the Curve too.
The Email application is generally similar with a few small improvements. One which I like is the doing away of candy striping the background with the color you associate with enterprise and BIS emails. Now it colors the border around the message which is less garish. If you're not on BES, this means little to you I suppose. Also part of the Email application is the new search function that now enables you to do remote searches of the server. It allows you to search the email server based on address field, subject, message and it can search encrypted messages, individual email accounts or all at once, by folders, show sent and received messages that meet your criteria and even filter it according to emails, emails with attachments, PIN, SMS, MMS, Phone, Voice Mail or all at once. I find that incredibly handy but again, I believe that's a BES-centric feature. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The same goes for the other PIM applications; Calendar, Task and Address Book. The problem with me is that I had previously been using a Curve that had been upgraded to OS 4.5 so most of these changes are not new to me and I don't notice them. I do however like how the Address Book now displays each contact with two lines so you can now see the contacts name and the company if available. It also separates each entry by either a line or shading which makes it easier to skim through the address book. On the whole, I can say there are improvements in the functionality and presentation of the basic PIM applications.
The Browser is a huge improvement then the older version without a doubt. You know have a little mouse pointer that you can move any which way you want to and it does a pretty good job at rendering most websites. You can also zoom in to selected areas of the website if you want to. I'm a little disappointed that it can't do Maybank2u online banking site though and will try Opera to see if that will make me smile again. I do use the browser quite a bit in conjunction with Google and that is pretty much the limit of my browsing experience on the Bold (or any BlackBerry for that matter) as I prefer my MacBook Pro to do serious browsing. Oh, and it doesn't do flash either...
The WiFi is a great addition. A number of you who have the Curve 8320 or the 88xx series already now about this, but it's news to me. I especially like it when I can switch off the Radio (telephone part of the device) and connect to my house WiFi network and still have BBM, Emails and all IM's (Yahoo, G Talk and MSN Live) ticking along like nothing has happened. I downloaded the Skype application for BlackBerry but haven't tried if I can VOIP as well. Must give it a bash soon, but I have been told that it's not possible.
The alarm/clock has a very eye pleasing "bedside" mode which renders a beautiful analog clock but for some reason you can't press the shortcut "R" key to call up the program anymore. You have to go digging through the menu screen for it. Most annoying.
My personal take
Ok, so a review, by definition is a "personal take" but we're not here to quibble about how I name section of this article are we? I mean if I wanted to I could rename it "The mad adventures of Baha and his Bold - a reflection of the first week"...
I am very pleased with this device, even if there are a few "bugs" that I hope will be ironed out in the Gold release of the software. For the first few days I couldn't stop fiddling with it and I even was very cautious where I put it down. Usually a paper napkin or a cloth would be laid on the table ( I wouldn't leave it on anything that was not as stable as a table) before I would place my Bold on it.
The only "negative" things I can say about the Bold is it's keyboard. It reminds me of the 88xx keyboard but it isn't nearly that bad. They are a little too small and way too close together but after a week I am slowly getting used to it. The tactile feedback is quite nice too. Very solid feedback; it feels like you're pressing on a metallic button. Sounds like it too.
It compares quite favorably to the iphone (2G or 3G) in my opinion. Sure, it doesn't do youtube or surf the net as well as the iphone, but you try and type out a long email on a touchscreen. I can't. I'm a QWERTY kinda guy. I admit it. Next to the new Nokia E71 it blows away the competition. Some people say the E71 is sexier but I disagree. And the other day I tried setting up my gmail account on the E71 and it took me almost 10 minutes as I had to manually change the port settings for the SSL/TLS feature on the E71. With the Bold (or any BlackBerry for that matter) its almost a 3 step process. In fact, a BlackBerry usually auto-configures most email accounts except for some company specific POP or IMAP email access.
Given that, I strongly recommend the Bold to anyone thinking of upgrading from a Curve, Pearl or an earlier model. I strongly recommend the Bold to anyone who is thinking of embracing the BlackBerry way of life.
I say way of life because it is just that. It's more then a tool (as opposed to an iphone which is a toy in my opinion), its a new way of doing things. It's a new way of life
-end
Labels: Blackberry, Bold, Editorials and Opinions, Hardware, RIM
