Consumer Reviews

I love Blackberry devices and think they are great for anyone who wants/needs a smartphone. I switched from the Curve 8310 to the Bold due to all the hype surrounding the incredible screen resolution. At 480 x 320 the screen’s details are clear and vibrant not to mention incredibly sharp and make a huge difference for viewing graphics and multimedia. Other features which users will appreciate are:

GPS
Although not new to Blackberry devices, the GPS on the Bold works great and there are several apps available over the internet which you can download for free and work well with the Bold. ATT also offers a GPS app for a small monthly fee.

Keyboard
Full QWERTY keyboard, but the keys are set at an odd angle compared to the 8310 which makes it somewhat harder to type on, especially if you have larger fingers.

Battery
Both the 8310 and the Bold have basically the same battery life ~ I am able to use either phone for an entire day without having to recharge it. Sometimes I can get 1 1/2 days out of one charge. Great battery!

E-Mail Support
Blackberry has always had incredible email support. The Bold allows you to open HTML attachments, but other than that I can see no major difference between the Curve and the Bold.

Bluetooth
The features of both the Bold and 8310 are basically the same here. Both offer mono/stereo headset and hands-free capabilities for Bluetooth.

Body
The size of the phone is LARGE and weighs almost a full ounce more than my old 8310! I have small hands and so my fingers barely wrap around it making it hard to hold. Not to mention there is no way I can type or text without using both hands. The back of the phone is covered with a faux, black leather finish. Which creates both good and bad points: the good is that it improves my grip, the bad is that instead of small scratches appearing on your phone from normal wear and tear, the “leather” becomes nicked and the off-white backing really stands out (result..looks tacky fast). It is, however, a very contemporary design and a very striking phone.

Great new additions include:
WI-FI
The connection speed is excellent and a great addition to the Blackberry device.

Memory
The memory of the Bold is almost twice that of the 8310 which is an incredible upgrade (64 mb vs 128mb)!

Headset Jack
I can finally plug a headset into my phone in order to listen to music when I don’t want to bother others around me!

Video Recording
The 8310 has a great camera but the addition of video recording is a welcome feature. The videos come out clear and look amazing on the new screen.

Clock-face
One of my favorite things about the Bold is that when I plug it in at night, the screen becomes a clock. This is nice for when I wake up at night I can glance over to see what time it is (I no longer have an alarm clock – using my phone is just easier). But you don’t want to use this feature if your phone isn’t plugged in because it will run your battery down faster.

The Bold is a great phone with new features and a great looking screen. Unfortunately for me, the screen is not enough of a “WOW” for me to keep the phone. It’s just too big for me. It’s too big for my back pocket (I know I’m not supposed to keep it there) and I don’t want to wear a “suitcase” on my hip to house this thing. So, if you don’t care about size and want a smartphone with a can’t be beat screen resolution and great Wi-Fi capabilities – then the Bold is for you. If however, you need a smartphone that’s not so clunky, you probably want to keep looking.

I was never a huge BlackBerry fan, honestly, and really only got the Bold as a result of my Samsung Epix kicking the bucket twice in a month. I don’t regret the decision to buy it, because overall, I’m quite pleased with the phone. I’ll list out why.

-Email: This is the reason why people buy BlackBerrys, and it’s something that RIM doesn’t really have to improve upon. They have the edge over any Windows Mobile device, and the iPhone, with plenty of space in between the competitors. I set up all three of my personal email accounts, with just my username and password, and all three PUSH perfectly, without any trouble. I never had that with Windows, and certainly not Apple. If email is something you aren’t really worried about, or just something that doesn’t matter, then this feature won’t weight too heavily, but honestly, I am a huge fan of how seamless the entire setup and operation is.

-Text/Multimedia Messaging: Here is where BlackBerry could improve, especially since Windows recently upgraded their messaging setup. BlackBerry has “threaded” texts, in the sense that all of your outgoing and incoming messages are kept in the same box, and when you open a message on a thread, it shows all the previous messages, sent and received, that were stored. However, it doesn’t save and group the texts according to the receiver or sender, as Apple and Windows do, but instead just allows all the messages to pile up, and become very tedious to scroll through. There is a search feature, but that only adds to the tedious factor, and makes keeping track of your text conversations somewhat tiring, after awhile. Nothing that’s a huge detractor, but it certainly doesn’t add anything, either.

-Media (Camera, MusicPlayer, etc.): Blackberrys have a surprisingly sharp media set-up, and the Bold only improves upon it. Music can be dragged/dropped on a storage card, and the phone will search and scan for the files automatically. The music recognizes quite a few different formats, though since I primarily use MP3’s, it didn’t matter much to me. I also create my own ringtones, and the phone recognized those without any trouble, and played them perfectly. The speakers on the phone, though, are pretty awesome. The sound and balance is great, loud and clear, and I am constantly showing off my music through the phone to other people. There is a standard headphone jack, which is really nice, especially when other phones (like Samsung) still use proprietary jacks. Pictures also transfer really easily, and can be dragged/dropped from your computer. However, if you really want a fantastic media experience, or the primary reason why you would get a phone is for playing music, then you would be more advised to get the iPhone. Nothing matches the Apple, in that respect.

-Battery life: Not bad, overall. I can get through a little over a day, maybe a day and a half, on a charge, with heavy internet and texting usage. The battery life for the media is actually pretty impressive, though what I usually do to preserve it is to turn off the network connection, which saves quite a bit. Without the network connection on, and the WiFi running, I actually had my Bold go for four days, with intermittent music playing, and reading off eReader. Not bad, really, and great compared with the battery life of the iPhone.

-Software: Here is where RIM is somewhat stuck in the past. I’ll start by saying that the one thing BlackBerry does extremely well is running multiple applications at one time. I can have Facebook updates come to me, along with texts, Myspace, and Twitter updates, all at once, continually running in the background, which is something that even Apple doesn’t do. However, though they have applications for various functions, like Facebook or Amazon, to initially get them, you usually have to just find them online, from your phone. There is an AppWorld that you can download, similar to the App Store on iPhone, but nowhere near as extensive, or easy to locate, since it isn’t included initially. Plus you have to download every application from your phone directly, instead of just putting the program on and opening it, like you would a Windows Mobile phone. No CAB files to open from the phone’s internal folders, or anything; limits the customization of the phone quite a bit. That and the pithy memory included on the phone itself doesn’t allow for very many application functions, anyway. I installed a few applications, and then tried to download a theme, and was informed that there wasn’t enough space, which I couldn’t solve by sending the program to my storage card, because there’s no default function to install programs from your card. Plus a lot of the applications, when running, seem to be throwbacks to the beginning of development, as in someone created the program years ago, and didn’t bother updating it as time went on.

-Keyboard/Screen/Layout: Awesome. The entire keyboard is spacious, very comfortable, and clicks nicely, thanks to the ergonomic design of the keys. I haven’t had any trouble with it at all. It’s a bit loud, and I’ve found that trying to type in a silent room is really not a good idea, but otherwise, it’s one of the best keyboards available. The screen is large, very bright, and has an automatic sensor feature that dims it in different light. The sensor also works for the keyboard as well, and automatically turns it on in lower-lighted conditions. The trackball is what it is, and works well, though I’m not necessarily a huge fan, though I think that’s more of a personal preference then something to do with the phone itself. The phone is somewhat wide, and isn’t terribly pocket-friendly, but the phone feels very comfortable, and is easy to grip, thanks to a leather-like back cover. Probably not real leather, but it really adds to the nice solid, feel of the phone. I get the impression that the phone is somewhat masculine, just looking at it, but it’s sleek and thin enough to really not matter.

Overall? Great phone, very solid construction with some really solid software features. I wouldn’t recommend it for someone looking for a fun interactive, media-oriented phone, like the iPhone, or a flexible-platformed and generally customizable phone, like Windows Mobile, but for a business or more serious-minded individual who will mostly use it for email or texing capabilities, and not worry about extra frivolities, this an excellent choice, with a very solid performance rating.

I have years working with Blackberry. As an IT Manager and Blackberry Enterprise Server administration I had gained lot of experience with Blackberry equipments.

Cons:

- Low photo camera quality: I don’t like the photo quality results.
- Low video camera quality: video quality is poor in video camera.
- Size: is bigger than curve
- Batt time: 3g and wiFi drain batt time like crazy

Pros:

- 3G speed: enterprise activation, email, sms, browsing, etc are high speed now thanks to 3g technology.
- Menu speed: thanks to the new OS and the cpu speed, the menus and response of the unit is superb
- external SD memory card size allowed: you can add 32gb of sd card externaly without need to open the batt cover. with 32GB you have enough space for a lot of videos, mp3, photos and docs
- Wi-Fi: you can connect to your company, home or hotel wifi without issues. include some tcp tools like ping, etc
- Bluetooth: good for headphones, address book transfer and sync with your car bluetooth system. you can even dial to anyone in your addressbook from your car by say the name if you car support the feature
- Tethered Modem: this is a nice feature. in an easy way you can connect your laptop or pc to internet using 3g speed and your provider. I even connect my laptop in the highway in emergencies to internet at good speed. you need a data plan from your provider (i recommend and unlimited one)
- Level 2 device: this is the first time you can use phone and receive emails at the same time. older bb versions don’t allow that. now you can use the device as tethered modem and still receive phone calls. very important feature.
- BES security: there is nothing compare to BES security. Blackberry is the top notch security and mobile email provider in the world. no iPaq, iphone, palm can compare with BB solution. From the BES server I can lock, kill or locate Blackberry devices when stolen, etc
- Qwerty keyboard: i love the BB keyboard and the full qwerty with good response
- GPS: I do not use too much the gps functionality in the BB but works great with BB maps and Google maps.
- Video screen quality: video screen quality is amazing, the unit I have come with some demos and is a real HD video. now the BB have half VGA screen but the colors and sharpness are amazing.
- Audio quality: if you connect your BB to your home theather you will hear full digital 20hz-20Khz audio quality.
- iTunes sync: you can sync your itunes library with BB (i never tested this feature)
- Bluetooth tathered: you can use the thatered modem option without wires, using bluetooth. Tested!!
- light flash for photo and video: the flash can be used for taking photos and for videos.

This is a real good unit. another bad thing is this is expensive, but with a data plan you can save your money.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Getting the Bold and an ATT service package was very easy, however, I had several major problems actually getting the unit up and running.

First, the local ATT store cannot touch the price of the Bold so the Amazon price, plus the ATT rebates, are a great deal. Second, you get the exact same ATT rate plans so that issue is simple to deal with.

Problem is, however, that the Amazon on-line cellphone people aren’t exactly 100% on point with their customer advice as to how to set up the phone for email access. For example, they do not understand the difference between a “work” email and a “personal” email. If you have a domain name that you use for email, whether or not it is related to a business or not, as long as it is not hosted by your company on their network server, it should be considered “personal” for the purposes of setting up both your email address and your data plan. You only need the $30 data plan and not the $50 Enterprise server data plan from ATT.

Also, if you are using the “personal” type of email, DO NOT install the Blackberry Redirector software on your computer or you will mess up everything. You should only have 5 items in your Main Menu, not 6 if this is your setup.

It took me almost 5 hours a day for a week, with both Amazon [who had no idea how to fix it], and ATT, who were unable to figure out what the Amazon person had initially done wrong to get it set up, and then finally two all night sessions with Blackberry themselves in Nova Scotia customer service to resolve the issues with programming. They had to remove the software from the device via the internet and then reinstall it from their customer service center.

Also, the best way to set up emails is not from the device itself, but from the www.att.BlackBerry.com website so you can include your signature block, etc.

Finally, after all of that time, Blackberry finally told me that it was a hardware issue, and that the Bold was probably fried from so many Service Books and other customer support attempted fixes, that I needed a new Bold. Since Amazon sold me the initial unit, the local ATT store wouldn’t give me the replacement device. Amazon was very understanding, replaced it for free, shipped it overnight, and helped me get back onto the correct ATT data plan. ATT did provide a one month data plan credit because of their earlier mistake.

All is now good and I’m again addicted to a fantastic BlackBerry product.

I chose to get the Bold when it first came out in early November instead of the iPhone because of the keyboard and the excellent reviews on its email capability – use it to keep in touch with my patients. After using it for a month, I have become absolutely dependent on it. The phones reception is EXCELLENT – much better than my previous Nokia cell phone. The navigation is simple and intuitive. Email is flawless. Having all of my calendar and address book information on hand is incredibly helpful. I also use it as a replacement for my iPod to listen to Podcasts – I have not touched the iPod I used daily in weeks now. I would not want an iPhone because of the keyboard being on the screen and no cut and paste. I have not a drop of remorse over my choice – as a matter of fact, one of my friends has dumped his iPhone for a Blackberry.

I give the Bold 4 stars because I have had problems with syncing the Bold to my Mac. I decided to use Missing Sync for $40 because the reviews on PocketMac (free) were terrible. Syncing contacts, notes, and music can be a little tricky. The Missing Sync developers are working on a resolution for these problems. In the mean time, in order to keep all of these syncs working properly, I have to avoid updating contacts on the Bold, sync the programs in Missing Sync one at a time, and manually drag podcasts and music to the Bold when it is connected to my Mac, (otherwise the podcasts are not uploaded).

As long as I do this, the Bold works GREAT. If I don’t, contacts and notes become unreliable and data on my Mac can be lost (thank you Time Machine for preserving my important data). In order to regain stability with this data, I have to wipe the Bold and start anew with Missing Sync following the protocol detailed above.

By the way, I spent a day syncing MobileMe to Outlook on my PC and then using the Blackberry Desktop Manager software to sync contacts and calendar data. It was even less reliable, but I don’t know if that was due to the Bold being messed up from the effects of Missing Sync. I also tried PocketMac, but had similar issues that were only resolved by wiping the Bold and syncing anew as detailed above and not inputting contact data on the Bold.

Summary: The bold is excellent – can’t work without it, but syncing is touchy. I look forward to these issues being resolved and enjoying flawless syncronization like my colleagues with Macs and older BlackBerry products.