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.

-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.

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!

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 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.

Looks-wise, it is a beautiful device. With an overall sleek and stylish black design with silver edges, the back of it is made of some leather-like material, making it sturdy and resistant to scratches. It is also thicker and slightly taller than the Curve, making it somewhat bulkier. The QWERTY keyboard is a bit bigger as well, which in turn makes for a rather comfortable and pleasant typing experience. Your thumbs won’t hurt from typing long emails or texts, that’s for sure. And I don’t think you’ll suffer if you have large or fat thumbs/fingers. Mine are tiny, but it won’t make a difference to you if your hands and fingers aren’t small.

The most arresting feature in the Bold is its gorgeous LCD screen. With its cinematic resolution, it is the first of its kind, and the colors, picture and sound quality truly stand out. The Bold comes with some video samples, a couple of movie trailers and whatnot, and you can appreciate the wonderful LCD display with the Speedracer trailer. In addition to its bright screen, you get a great music, video and picture menu, where you can store as much stuff as you’d wish, depending on the amount of space you get in a memory card. You can sync from both a Mac and a PC, which makes this a must-have for both platforms. (You’ll have to convert your iTunes music to MP3s though.)

As far as other features goes, it gets better and better. The menu has a neon-like quality that makes it better than previous versions of the OS. AT&T’s 3G network is fast and reliable. Where I live, I get five bars 97% of the time. It depends on where you live, but AT&T has expanded their 3G network, so chances are you’ll get a decent signal. Web browsing has much improved with the Bold. The BlackBerry has never been known for its good browsing capabilities, but RIM has remedied that. The browser here is pretty good. Like in previous versions, you navigate with the trackball, scrolling through the page, zooming in and out, pressing certain numbers on the keypad for shortcuts, etc. It’s not as good as Mobile Safari on the iPhone 3G, but it’s getting there. This also has some good applications. You get the standard ones, like YouTube, Facebook, news, weather, stock market quotes, etc., but you can download some extra ones as well. Again, and I hate to compare this to the iPhone, but the aforementioned is my current phone and so it can’t be helped, it isn’t as good as the iPhone’s app store. Then again, this is fairly new for most phones, and I’m assuming that it’ll improve with time. The video recorder is also great on this phone. The built-in GPS is a great tool. I think it’s Google Maps, but I’m not 100% sure. This phone has wifi, a must-have tool for me. Battery life is terrific — one of the most long-lasting I have ever used. You can use most of the features and still have some juice left by the end of the day. And then there’s the standard stuff, like e-mail, IM and text messaging. They are all top notch, of course, and you get the great stuff you don’t get with the iPhone, like MMS and the ability to copy and paste. If these things are very important to you, then you’ll be happy to know that these features are still available in the Bold, as they were in the Curve and other BBs, only more refined.

The one Con for this device is that there isn’t a touchscreen. Touchscreen has become a popular thing since the iPhone, and any new phone that lacks this feature seems somewhat old-fashioned, almost obsolete. But this is no big deal if you’re not a fan of touchscreens. If a touchscreen smartphone is important to you, you could always try the BB Storm for Verizon.

And so, the BlackBerry Bold is, in my opinion, the best BlackBerry on the market today. (I haven’t had the opportunity to use the Storm, which is why I can’t comment on that one.) This is the phone I’d buy if I didn’t already have (and love) the iPhone 3G. But if you’re looking to upgrade your BB or other smartphone device, and you’re with AT&T, then the Bold is the way to go. No doubt about that. RIM has created a one-of-a-kind device with the BlackBerry, and they have taken a quantum leap forward with the Bold. You won’t regret the upgrade.

Once I got the bold, I was completely satisfied. The Wi-Fi works great, 3G works great. The user interface is top notch. I also really like the bedside mode feature of the clock.

The screen is clear as day, and the sound is awesome. I played one song on my Bold and found out, much to my surprise, that the bold has stereo sound. Every phone I’ve had prior had one tiny, undersized, speaker with which to pump out the ringtones and mp3’s. The bold, however, sounds fantastic.

The only thing that has happened to me is that when I first got it an set up my personal email address on it, it kept saying that I had a new message when I didn’t have one anywhere. With some research online, I found out that this is a common problem that people get initially, but can be easily fixed by popping the battery out and back in. The problem hasn’t happened since.

I think that any and all bugs will be cleared up when the first firmware updates are released.

I also really like the programs that come with it. [....] program, in conjunction with the built-in GPS, works great. You need to find a Target near you? Simply type in target, tell it to look up the nearest store from your GPS location, and viola! Step by step directions to the top 10 closest matches to your request (closest as in distance, and relativity to your search terms).

I also downloaded google maps program. It is a great replacement for the telnav program if you don’t want to pay for it. I input an address and told it to get me directions from my GPS location, and it told me how to get there. Also, it showed a rendered map of the are with a dot and arrow indicating my car and the direction I was traveling. When I stopped driving, the dot stopped moving on the rendered map. When I turned, the GPS told the program and the dot turned. Great stuff!

To put my review shortly, if you like Blackberry’s, you’ll love the bold. If you don’t like Blackberry’s, get an iPhone and quite worrying about it. To me, it seems like the Bold can do pretty much everything the Iphone can do minus the touch screen. Any feature you can get for the Iphone, you can probably download for the Bold. If you are like me and hate touchscreens, then get the Bold. You won’t regret it.

As to the other reviewers that said that their bold kept breaking/freezing/dropping calls, etc… I don’t know what to tell you. You must have simply gotten your phone from a bad batch because mine has worked flawlessly (minus the one problem mentioned above).

***THE DEVICE***
Looking at the device, it looks really big. It is. I actually don’t mind the size, but some people will, so they should consider this. It is about half the size of a standard DVD case, to give you an idea. However, despite it’s heft, the Bold is lighter than you would think. It doesn’t feel heavy.

The keyboard on the Bold is very big and well shaped. The buttons are angled based on what side they’re on. In other words, the left buttons are tilted slightly left and the right are tilted right. It makes for a comfortable typing experience. The keys are also well sized, so I don’t have to use my fingertips to press them.

It also has a standard headphone jack, which is nice. It comes with some really good earphones, too. They’re the kind that cut out other noise so you can hear the music.

The screen on the phone is my favorite part. HD BABY! Pics and Videos really look nice on the phone. The colors are vibrant and bright, and videos play flawlessly, especially accompanied by the stereo speakers on the phone. I also like that the screen will adjust the brightness depending on the surrounding light.

I have mixed opinions regarding the trackball. On one hand, it is a very convenient navigation method. Partially more innovative than a standard D-pad. On the other hand, it rendered some of the java games from my old flip phone unplayable cause they wanted a D-pad.

The phone has a really nice camera on it. It’s 2 megapixels, but it performed ALOT better than the 3 megapixel shooters on previous phones of mine. The colors come out very nice, and I like the fact that it has an automatic flash feature. Recording videos is a different story. Videos recorded with the BlackBerry’s camera were mediocre. Quality was subpar, but what upset me the most was the fact that the sound was not in sync with the video. As the video went on, the sound and video grew farther and farther apart.

There is a little LED indicator on the top right of the phone. It flashes different ways and colors depending on what kind of notification it is, like email, missed call, low battery, etc.

The battery cover has a nice leather-like texture to it. It’s a nice change from the usual slick or matte phone backing.

And speaking of batteries, the Bold has a good battery in it. Better than previous phones of mine. With 3G and Bluetooth on, and moderate to heavy usage (texting, web browsing, IMing, etc), the Bold managed to last me 2 days. That’s impressive.

One thing about the Bold, the chrome finish on the edges is actually made of cheap plastic. It dents very easily. I dropped it from about 2 feet onto a gravel ground and it got about 3 dents in it. I dropped it again and it got 4 more. I ended up buying a skin for it, which made it bigger. I didn’t mind the size but that rendered the included holster unusable, which was sort of an inconvenience for me.

The included holster itself is innovative: When the BlackBerry is placed in it’s holster, it will automatically turn off. It will wake up when you take it out of the holster. That’s nice. It ensures that I don’t dial anyone by accident when I put it in.

Overall, the BlackBerry Bold is a great looking device. Everything except that cheap chrome edging.

***THE SOFTWARE***
The Bold has the latest version of the OS on it. Turning it on, it presents a nice interface to mess around with. The icons look cool. It was very easy to navigate and customize.

BlackBerrys are most known for their email capabilities. I don’t see why. The phone doesn’t support the IMAP protocol (a way to see folders and their messages on the webmail account and change them and all feom the phone). Only the POP protocol (it just sends new messages to the phone). That’s my only complaint about email, as well as the other reason I took away one star. On the bright side, it does push new messages to the phone as soon as they arrive in my Gmail account. Furthermore, the phone also reformats HTML messages (messages with pictures and formatting) to look nice on the phone.

Typing on the phone is very nice as well. The BlackBerry has many shortcuts to make typing more convenient and easy. For example, when typing a document or writing an email, you can press the space key twice to insert a period and space after it, instead of pressing ALT+M. Also, if you want to type a capital letter, you can just press and hold the letter until it capitalizes. I like that. If you were in the web browser and entering an address, you can press the space key to insert a period, which makes things easier.

As well as typing shortcuts, there are also shortcuts in apps like the mail client and web browser, allowing you to carry out different tasks, like replying to mail or pulling up the web address page, without pulling up the menu.

The web browser on the phone is nice. Its no iPhone browser, but it gets the job done. It renders most pages like you would see on a PC. However, if the site had a mobile counterpart, it would load that instead. These settings can be changed, however, so that all pages are loaded like on a PC. There are a few problems though. There are two different browsers on the phone. One for 3G/EDGE browsing and another for WiFi. What’s worse is that it doesn’t automatically switch depending on what I’m connected to, forcing me to go into the options panel, navigate to browser config and change it there. They could have at least included that option in the browser itself. The other problem is that on certain web pages with a lot of formatting, the browser will take a while to load them.

I liked the media application on the phone. I loaded my entire music collection onto the phone (with the help of a 16GB memory card), and it all played flawlessly. It got all of the information and tags on the music (with the exception of the CD cover), and sorted it nicely. One VERY convenient feature of the media app is the ability to route the sound to the phone speaker (the one you hear calls through). The sound converts to mono for this, however, it proves very useful when you want to listen to music without bothering others and you dont have earphones handy. You just put the phone up to your ear as if you were talking on the phone.

Videos played flawlessly as I mentioned above. The media app also allows you to view and organize your pictures. It is very nice, but also sort of bare bones. All I can do in terms of editing is rename and move the pic to another folder. I would have liked it if RIM had included some basic editing options such as rotation and cropping.

The Bold comes preloaded with Documents to Go, which is a mobile office suite for BlackBerry (and Palm and Windows Mobile). It has a Word (text), Excel (spreadsheets), and PowerPoint (slideshows) app. It’s got nice editing features, reads alot of the formatting from various documents and spreadsheets that I threw at it. The Word and Excel programs do their thing nice, but the PowerPoint app just flat out sucks. It has no animation capabilities, which kinda kills it’s purpose. This disappointed me, because now I can’t watch slideshows wherever I go (like I could with Windows Mobile) because of lack of animations.

When you plug the Berry into the charger, it pulls up a nice clock. What I like about it is that it has a feature called “Bedside Mode”, which will turn off the LED indicator, dim the screen, turn off the keyboard light, and (optionally) disable the network. Basically so the lights dont keep you up at night. The Bold makes a nice alarm clock, too. Saved me about $20.

Bluetooth is easy to use on the Bold. I can connect it to my computer with ease, and when I turn on my earpiece, the Bold connects to it automatically.

There is alot of software available for the Bold. Along with the BlackBerry specific software, the Bold can also run most Java apps nicely, so I can play (most of) those Java games from my old flip phone. There’s a wide variety of apps available, so you can customize the Bold to be what YOU want it to be.

Overall, I find the Bold’s system to be really nice and easy, with a few rusty edges here and there.

***THE PHONE***
This part is to review the Bold as a phone.

Call quality was very nice on the Bold, even in a low signal area. And though I never asked, folks on the other side of the call never complained.

The call screen has a lot of stuff on it. It tells you who you’re talking to, their number, the volume, the signal, the call timer, the time, your number, and so on. The menu gives options to mute the call, hold, turn on speakerphone, and start a conference call.

Texting was nice thanks to the Bold’s keyboard. Unfortunately there isn’ threaded text messaging. Instead, it shows you the last 9 or so messages from that sender in the conversation on the compose screen. You still see all of the messages in the inbox.

Reception on the Bold was really good. AT&T’s signal was really good most of the time, and I’m on 3G alot. Even when I’m not, the EDGE speeds are still pretty good on the Bold.

***THE BOTTOM LINE***
I like the Bold. I like using it’s business tools to help me in school, and I like it’s media capabilities. The screen and stereo audio are a nice thing. I think RIM is doing a good job on their policy of “Blurring the line between work and play”. The device is easier to use than other phones I’ve had. I would recommend this phone to anyone looking for their first smartphone.

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. :-)

When the Bold and the 8800 are placed next to each other, what’s striking is the similarities between the 2. The exact same size, similar keyboard, buttons placement, including the now familiar trackball. Even the ports are more or less the same, the same weight. Mine came with its own holster but I could have used the 8800’s with the Bold.

Then, it’s the display. The Bold is what it says it is: bright, clear, vivid. You see it and you now know that it’s an evolutionary step up on the ladder. In addition, you get the camera that shoots both pictures and video and the ability to add more memory means that you scan store more video and more music if you want to use your Blackberry as an iPod lite. The operation seems to be a bit faster, the battery life is more or less the same, the quality of the speaker phone is better but, overall, it’s your familiar Blackberry, having learned a few new tricks and with a bright face.

I am happy with the Bold because I am happy with Blackberries in general. I like the unlimited email and Internet browsing plan, the ability to use Wi-Fi when available and the security it provides. My Blackberry is tied into my company’s email environment and it is now very much an extension of my office while I’m away. The Bold, with its high resolution screen and the same solid, functional build is a good tool, now with more ‘fun’ stuff (camera, video playing) added to it.