For those of you looking to buy a new phone, there really isn’t one clear “best” cell phone out there. What’s “best” for YOU depends on what you consider the most important factors. As much as I dislike Apple for overpricing their products and how proprietary they like to keep their products, if you like the big touchscreen phones that are so popular today, the iPhone is one of the best software-wise, if you can afford it. But hardware-wise the main complaints is the lack of the ability to expand its memory via memory card slot, a removable battery, and a physical qwerty keyboard. The lack of a removable battery might not sound like a big deal at first, but the reality of it is, no matter how good quality a battery is, all batteries have a life-span, they can only be recharged so many times before they lose so much of their ability to hold a charge that you’ll have to replace it. On most phones you simply buy another battery, which is cheap, and pop it in and call it a day, but with the iPhone, you either take it back to apple or you throw it away and buy a new one. And if you dislike touchscreen phones for reasons such as not liking the touchscreen keyboard (preferring a physical qwerty keyboard) or you dislike the battery life of touchscreen phones, the Blackberry Bold is definitely the way to go.
Personally, I HATE typing on a touchscreen. Can never get used to it. I very much prefer the physical keyboard, and it HAS to be qwerty. No more hitting one key 5 times to type one letter, or waiting between keys if two consecutive letters in a word reside on the same key… Secondly, the phone my current Bold replaced was a Nokia 6555, which had absolutely the worst battery life from any phone I have EVER used. Literally if you talk on that phone for an hour your battery is dead… So battery life was a MAJOR concern when shopping for a new phone. And from what I’ve seen and heard, touchscreen phones tend to have worse battery lives since the digitizer has to be continuously powered in order for the touchscreen to function. Not to mention the larger screen means more lighting, and the digital keyboard means the processor has to work more while you’re typing which means more power consumption. It all adds up to worse battery life.
I read a lot of reviews for the Blackberry Bold and one thing that most people say is that it has great battery life. Let me tell you, they are absolutely correct. I can surf the internet, chat for 3 hours, send texts, send emails, read texts, read emails, and look at the phone and still have battery to spare. Of course after extensive usage like that you will probably need to charge it, but normal phones would have required a charge hours before this one does.
Another thing that REALLY stands out about this phone? The absolutely gorgeous screen. I’m not metrosexual, but there’s no other word to describe the screen that I can think of but gorgeous. It is slightly smaller than the iPhone’s screen, but is the same resolution. That means the picture on this screen is super sharp. And not only that, it is very bright and easy to read from but doesn’t create the hazy gray black effect most screens with a strong backlight would have. This is due to its great contrast ratio. The higher the contrast ratio, the sharper pictures appear. You can tell this easily by seeing how black black looks on the phone. If black looks gray, the contrast ratio sucks. On this one, despite the bright screen, black on the screen is absolutely black…
Now, the Curve 8900 has a screen with almost as good (or just as good) contrast ratio as the Bold, and costs less, so why do I recommend the Bold over the Curve 8900? For one thing, 3G. If your network supports 3G and you plan on using your data plan extensively, you will want 3G speeds. I can surf the internet fast, and I can stream music and videos without problems. On phones without 3G, I’ve noticed that while using Slacker or Pandora, sometimes it’ll have to pause to re-buffer during songs. Never have a problem with my Bold because of the 3G. Also, the Bold is slightly larger than the Curve 8900, which means bigger screen, easier on the eyes to watch movies and shows on. And lastly, the back cover on the Bold has a leather texture to it, which makes it easier to grip than the smooth back on the Curve 8900. But I’m sure that is easily fixed.
Another thing to consider when shopping for a phone, is how well the phone is supported. What I mean is what add-ons or apps can you get for the phone. Typically since apps are made independently by people and not by the maker of the phone, the more popular a phone is, the more apps will be available and the better the quality of the apps. From what I can see, the only phones that seem to have very good apps are the iPhone, Google G1, and the Blackberry. You will find apps to do just about anything you can think of. Downloading the Blackberry World App store makes downloading apps quick and easy. And don’t worry about having to pay, there are great FREE apps that will do just about anything to help make life easier while on the move. App support on phones like the Samsung Eternity is downright horrible. You can’t even watch youtube movies on that phone.
The only cons of the Blackberry that I can think of is just how unwieldy it is, especially if you’ve never had a smartphone or a PDA style phone before. But you quickly get used to it. Another thing is the built-in media player it comes with is glitchy sometimes while streaming movies. And I also wish it would give me better quality youtube videos. Youtube videos on the iPhone are definitely better. But that’s really just 5% of what matters on the phone. And since the Bold has the same resolution as the iPhone, you can use any program that converts videos to iPhone format and use those for the Bold, and videos look absolutely amazing on this screen. The Blackberry Bold is a life-saver. When I recently moved, I didn’t have internet or tv for like 2 weeks, I lived off the Blackberry Bold while at home, and I am SO glad I bought this phone.
If you’re looking for a phone with a full qwerty keyboard that you can surf the web with and watch movies with without having to worry about the battery all the time, look no further than the Blackberry Bold. You can thank me later. :-)
I know I didn’t really mention it, but it has all of the typical features and functions you expect to find on phones now. A good quality camera and video capture capability, customizable ringtones, speakerphone, etc. etc. etc.
UPDATE: I know an update to a positive review seems like a bad thing, but don’t worry, it’s still a 5-star phone. I just realized I forgot to mention two little things I don’t like about the phone. They are both minor things and would most likely not affect your decision to buy it, nor should it, but I might as well mention them. First thing is, you can’t disable the stupid camera shutter sound effect on the phone’s camera. No I’m not trying to take pictures of girls at the mall without them knowing. I ALWAYS disable stupid sound effects. I have a Digital SLR camera, and the REAL shutter noise doesn’t sound like that, why would I want a fake one? I disabled all of the noises on my Canon Powershot digital camera as well, it just annoys me. But oh well, it’s not too loud, just would have liked for Blackberry to let me customize my phone all the way. Another thing is the notification of a call or new message while you’re on the phone is quite soft in my opinion. A few times I’ve been in a conversation and another call was coming in or I received a message and didn’t realize it until after I was done with the call and I looked at the phone. I’ve looked all over and asked around and it doesn’t seem to have an option to change the tone. It does notify you, I’ve selected the option to notify during calls, but it’s just real quiet. I guess that might be better than it being very loud and annoying, haha. That’s it, see, told you they were real minor. :-)
Related Posts
Tags: BlackBerry Bold 9000