My Blackberry Bold 9900 Mini-Review

[vro25]

I just picked up a 9900 and thought I'd share my thoughts. This is by no means an extensive review and I'm not digging deep into the OS or any specs (which you can find elsewhere) - this is basically my first thoughts as a former BB and current Andriod user.


My Blackberry Bold 9900 Mini-Review

I ditched my BlackBerry 9700 a long time ago. The keyboard was nice, but I had moved on from only using a phone for calls, email and BBM. I wanted a faster phone, a good camera, pinch to zoom - I wanted apps. Also, I was annoyed at myself because I kept hitting the on screen OK button in a vain attempt to make it go away. Well if nothing else, I no longer feel like an idiot for touching the screen to push a button!

The thing is, that's not all there is to like about the Bold 9900 - not by a long shot.

Hardware
As soon as you take the 9900 out of the box you realize this isn't your same old BlackBerry. The phone just feels great. As odd as it sounds, the only phone I've held that's comparable to it is the iPhone 4 - in a solid, tight fitting, expert craftsmanship sort of way. The Bold paradoxically feels solid yet light - it is well balanced and has a tapered rubbery back that anyone who's ever had a phone fly out of their hand would certainly appreciate. All the different materials on the Bold feel high end and merge seamlessly into each other and makes for a creak-free experience.

Keyboard
As soon as you come to terms with this fine piece of Waterloo engineering, the next thing you want to do is test the keyboard - and you will not be disappointed. This is easily the best hardware keyboard of any phone I have ever used. The big, soft and squishy keys make a light "pop" when hit - it's nice and a stark contrast to the audible "click" I quickly turn off on my Andorid/iPhone. Keyboard feels large and most closely resembles the keyboard of the old Bold 9000, but way better. I can't overstate just how terrific the keyboard feels - I find it eerily similar to the keyboard on the new MacBook Air - weird. As strange as it sounds, the keyboard on RIM first touch screen Bold is easily it's best feature.

Screen
The screen is bright, crisp and sharp - very similar to the Bold 97xx - but a bit bigger. The big change of course is the introduction of a touch screen on RIM's iconic Bold. As I've been using touch screen phones exclusively for the last few years (with the exception of my brief 9700 phase) so the touch screen on the Bold doesn't feel new as much as it feels it like an old friend. The screen is responsive and behaves as you would expect - pinch to zoom (where supported), effortlessly scrolling up and down through lists button taps - it's all good. BB OS 6.1 ..er.. BB OS 7 can be used with or without the touch screen and I'm sure many experienced BB users will find themselves falling back to their old touchpad habits before realizing the oh yeah, I can touch the screen. Again, the most accurate description of the new touch screen functionality is that it works as you would expect and it never gets in the way.

OS
Honestly, I can't really tell the difference between OS 7 on the Bold 9900 and OS 6 on the Curve 9300. What I can't understand is why downloads are still so slow. When downloading an app from BB App World (there is not wifi hotspot functionality) I was getting about 200Kbps when downloading over wifi - when it wasn't stopping with an hourglass every 10 seconds. It literally took minutes to download a 2MB BBM update. That said, all the good things are still there too - email, BBM, good Facebook integration - and they all work well with the touch screen. I've only played with it for about an hour so I'm sure I'll have more to say later.

Wrap Up
I really like the Bold 9900. While I still think RIM has a lot of work to do on the OS side, the new Bold is a beautiful piece of hardware with a responsive touch screen and a head-of-the-class proper RIM keyboard, what's not to love? As far as the hardware is concerned, it's the best of both worlds. While the 9900 is occasionally let down by it's software - for keyboard die hards (and some reluctant iPhone/Android converts) - this is the BlackBerry of your dreams.

[Supa_Fly]

Good review.

To highlight something everyone complains about ...

What I can't understand is why downloads are still so slow. When downloading an app from BB App World (there is not wifi hotspot functionality) I was getting about 200Kbps when downloading over wifi - when it wasn't stopping with an hourglass every 10 seconds. It literally took minutes to download a 2MB BBM update

Once you understand the nature of MIDP2.1/CLDC1.1 and its security implementations at the core of the kernel/Virtual Machine ~ you'll understand the following 2 things:
1. downloads of large size means the JVM will do a check in chunks of kilobytes, sort of a checksum of sorts. Cisco corporate phones upon new implementations of configuration profiles or updates assigned do the very same thing. Part of the security means it validates the code of the file during downstream, not after.
NOTE: this is NOT the limitation to ALL JVMs but its highly common.

2. RIM's choice of QNX is very similar but it can check while continuing the downstream without any pauses.

PS: I'm almost 100% certain this is something RIM, CISCO and Sun Microsystems ~ now Oracle; implemented and maintain. However QNX should change all of this.

Good review.

[Cisco KId]

Good review.

To highlight something everyone complains about ...


Once you understand the nature of MIDP2.1/CLDC1.1 and its security implementations at the core of the kernel/Virtual Machine ~ you'll understand the following 2 things:
1. downloads of large size means the JVM will do a check in chunks of kilobytes, sort of a checksum of sorts. Cisco corporate phones upon new implementations of configuration profiles or updates assigned do the very same thing. Part of the security means it validates the code of the file during downstream, not after.
NOTE: this is NOT the limitation to ALL JVMs but its highly common.

2. RIM's choice of QNX is very similar but it can check while continuing the downstream without any pauses.

PS: I'm almost 100% certain this is something RIM, CISCO and Sun Microsystems ~ now Oracle; implemented and maintain. However QNX should change all of this.

Good review.

Agree to above, decent mini review. I will be getting my 9900 today after using my Bold near 3 yrs. I will be leaving Rogers as the provider for nearly 10 yrs for my cell usage and switching to Virgin/Bell, hardware less and plan better plus a $75 GC to boot getting the phone at Costco. I am looking forward to the phone

[jontymisra]

Skimmed over the review - well written though. Picked mine up today. Love the speed of the device!

[Cisco KId]

Skimmed over the review - well written though. Picked mine up today. Love the speed of the device!

your signature makes me laff hard, is that for real? what for?

[Supa_Fly]

your signature makes me laff hard, is that for real? what for?

If you mean all his phones - he's for real!

Jonty ... is it worth its retail price? will you be switching to iPhone 4 again soon? I'm on the fence but got an itch.

[Cisco KId]

I am waiting for Wireless Etc in Costco location here in BC to get their Bold 9900's I am porting over to Virgin from rogers after 10-12yrs , they can not match the deal.

[CaptainScarlet]

This is the best BB made .,beautiful and with the best of two worlds.



Who are the carriers for ths phone?

[TWX]

I'm buying this tonight through Verizon. Should be available online @ midnight or 1:00am.

[motorcycle mama]

Typically, new devices are available on Verizon's website at 12 midnight Pacific time.

[Supa_Fly]

Some new findings:

Browser - by far in the industry the best layout & most useful for bookmarking - allows you now to MOVE your bookmarks but it reacts like how BB6 moves icons. No longer do you need to EDIT the bookmark the scroll to the folder and open to change the folder; just highlight bookmark, menu MOVE, place done.

FEEDS still doesn't work on WLAN without a SIM card or with the mobile network turned off. If you've previously received SB's then it most likely will work. (PS: Yes wlan SB's are shipped as standard OS builds). You cannot even ADD a feed with the mobile radio off (very annoying).

Navigation has no faults - incredible!

If you WIPE the device (applicable to all carrier firmwares), your built-in search engines are LOST. For the longest time I had no idea WHY crackberry/bgr posted the way to edit the search fields, now I know

After getting used to the TouchScreen or TrackPad - both work incredibly well, it was just ME adjusting from aggressive scrolling - this is by far an incredible job RIM ... bravo!

HTML Emails seem to load much better than before. Browser seems more stable, the reason for this, and if you tell a site to render full - the browser remembers this setting.

PS: I thought that BB Protect or BB Balance would ship with the Bold 9900 by default?!

Personal Opinion: I love the bold 9900 it is The Predator!

EDIT: The torch light is INCREDIBLY BLINDING!! Yowzers! Morse code during camping is calling.

[DennyCrane]

Wirelessly posted (WhiteBerry Bold 9780: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

^Hows the battery life?

[Supa_Fly]

Wirelessly posted (WhiteBerry Bold 9780: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

^Hows the battery life?

I cannot give an honest opinion on this as of yet. Originally I wanted to sell you this badboy for $300 but today I had to give it another chance - downloaded iOSBeta6 for IP4 yet it won't install; I am registered as a dev and its listed on the site so tough muffins Apple. I think I'll keep this and get you another (BNIB in 1 week).

For the full 2days I've used it:
1 charge cycle, full 24hrs out of the box
10mins call
WLAN on both business days - busiest of the week Monday & Tuesday.
Emails 200 receive, about 60-75 replied each day, 100 of those emails are in tickets (HTML) for deskside support so I open the browser
Browser loads HTML sites, assign tickets to myself, re-assign, or resolve quickly. Sync Tasks, Calendar appointments, Notes changes to Outlook 2010.
I'm constantly unlocking and accessing the device, BBM (work), SMS (about 40 per day: family/friends).
I constantly go in & out of signal between the 3 floors at work due to stairs - no holster use (not a fan of this holster that ships: 9780 had the best).
All the while I was using the touchscreen MORE for Emails, Browsing from links, checking Calendar - TouchScreen Bold where have you been all my life!??
Twitter feeds: BlackBerryHelp, Blackberry, BGR, MobileSyrup, arstechnica, ING, and I cannot recall the other one. the first 4 tweeted like every hour this week until after 6pm EST.

this gets about 5 days less (total standby than the 9700/9780 would).
I'm guessing the full 24hrs with 4hrs of heavy HTML4/5Browsing (about 30min of video), 1-2hrs of continues call talk time, WLAN on the entire time - so calls gets network and data is WLAN (except for Feeds). Yes you'll have to top up even if its just for 4hrs sleep time - I did NOT set auto off/on on the 9900 during this time yet I would advise doing so - at least for the first charge cycles.

(I'm wary of using USB data cable charging on the USB 3.0 ports my work laptop has; I'll let someone else be the guinea pig).

be advised I was on BES & BIS during this time; on Friday/Saturday next week this will be the BIS BB, until we get our first 9900 shipments in the coming weeks: Users are always first along with upper management.

PS: I thought I was a fan of the 9780 and didn't want the 9900 but when you first hold it and daily after you become addicted for more reasons other than the screen!

[etechreviews]

I impressed your review, can you tell what is the release date and price tag.

[WirelessInsider]

The BlackBerry 9900 (as well as the 9360 and 9860) have already launched here in Canada and in the US.

There is a temporary promotion by some carriers (e.g. Telus) that reduce this phone to $100 on a new 3-year contract. Outright purchase is $630 sooo yeah, you need to make sure this is the right option for you. I sleep with mine... <3


BTW, nice review vro25!