RIM’s first attempt at an all-in-one phone, the Blackberry Bold comes with a handsome set of features that prominently signals the company’s departure from its strictly business offerings. While it doesn’t sport the same sleek modern styling as the Storm, it successfully merges business function with capable multimedia enjoyment.
Calls and Messaging
As a Blackberry device, the Bold performs up to expectations when it comes to messaging. Email setup (up to 10 addresses) remains a breeze using the Blackberry Internet Service. SMS, MMS and IM all work very effectively, with the keyboard being as easy as possible to type in. I’d go so far as to suggest, in fact, that the keyboard works better than many wider side-sliding QWERTY units available. Calls are as good as we’ve heard from a Blackberry, with no sharp tones or hisses whatsoever.
Display and UI
At 2.6 inches, the Bold manages to fit in a generous 480 x 320 resolution, which renders beautifully despite being limited to 65,000 colors. Visibility is gorgeous under every imaginable lighting condition. As always, the UI breezes through swiftly, with nary a single lag.
Camera
The camera shutter works without delay, although picture quality – same as most phone cameras - won’t dare come close to a separate digicam anytime soon.
Multimedia
You can tell that Blackberry paid attention to media playback, with the Bold performing up to desirable standards. Music playback offers impressive sound quality while video (DivX and XviD included) performed similarly well. There is a 640 pixel limit on the videos, though – anything beyond that gets an error. The onboard stereo speakers rank among the best I’ve heard on a phone and that’s a tall feat.
Web
Page loads are fast via 3G, although the browser doesn’t handle quite as well as what we’ve seen on other smartphones (some badly-designed pages turn up with overlapping layers). Despite the downside, you can’t help but appreciate the speedy rendering of even the most complicated sites – it’s very impressive.
Verdict
With the App World now up and running, the Blackberry Bold is a really attractive handset to get. If you want a formal-looking all-in-one smartphone with more traditional controls and great multimedia features, it makes a very compelling case.
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