The BlackBerry Bold is the best BlackBerry yet, although its size and weight mean that its for serious users only. If you’re a serious user, you’ll love the full keypad, outstanding email support, high-res display with user-selectable fonts, 3G HSDPA, 1GB of built-in memory, WiFi, satnav and many other features.

At last – A 3G BlackBerry! Whilst BlackBerry is the undisputed king of mobile email, the lack of 3G in its devices was beginning to look very obvious. Enter the BlackBerry Bold, with full support for HSDPA-enabled 3G, making fast data transfer a reality. No more waiting while email attachments are sent!

The BlackBerry 9000 Bold takes the best of everything that BlackBerry has previously produced, and adds in 3G. It’s also the biggest and heaviest BlackBerry, so is suitable only for heavy duty users. Weighing 136g, it’s very slightly heavier and thicker than the BlackBerry 8820, which it replaces. In practice you can’t tell the difference in size between the two devices. Despite its size, it’s an attractive design, with its shiny black and silver finish, and some nice curves to (literally) take the edge off its bulk. The benefit of having such a large device is that there’s plenty of room for a full QWERTY keypad, so there are no compromises here when it comes to the ease of text entry. The keypad combined with the trackball together provide the best UI that we’ve seen for serious emailers and texters. We’re also delighted to see that BlackBerry have increased the resolution of the display from 240 x 320 pixels on previous models to 480 x 320 pixels on the Bold. With a 65,000 colour transmissive TFT LCD and user-selectable font sizes, this gives the Bold one of the best displays available, with only the iPhone offering a higher resolution.


The advanced phone features include a speakerphone and conference calling. With voice activated dialing and a Bluetooth headset, it’s capable of fully handsfree operation.

Email is BlackBerry’s forte, and the Bold fully supports all email standards:
• Push email (messages are delivered automatically to your smartphone and you can be notified as soon as they arrive)
• Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange

• Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM® Lotus® Domino®
• Works with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Novell® GroupWise®
• Integrates with an existing enterprise email account
• Integrates with existing personal email account
• Integrates with optional new device account
• Web-Based Email Access (AOL Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo! Mail)

You can view attachments in the following formats: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, WordPerfect, HTML, zip.) WordToGo and SlideshowToGo let you edit Word and PowerPoint files. Security is given full attention, with password protection and a keyboard lock, plus full support for encryption when using BlackBerry Enterprise Server to access data.

Features of the BlackBerry Bold include:
• 2 megapixel camera with LED flash and video recording
• LCD display: 480 x 320 pixels, 65,000 colours
• Media player (Supports MP3, WMA, MIDI, AMR-NB, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, 3GP formats plus partial DivX support)
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, instant messaging, push email with attachment viewer
• Built-in speakerphone
• Voice dialling
• Voice memo recorder
• MP3 ringtones / 32 voice polyphonic ringtones
• GPS with BlackBerry Maps
• Personal organiser functions
• Vibration alert
• Internet: Web browser, RSS feeds, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA (3.6 Mbps)
• Connectivity: WLAN, Bluetooth 2.0, USB, RIM wireless modem, 3.5mm stereo headset port
• Memory: 1GB on-board + 128 MByte flash memory plus microSD memory card slot
• Size: 114 x 66 x 15 mm
• Weight: 136g
• Quadband GSM (1900/1800/900/850 MHz) plus UMTS (2100/1900/850 MHz)
• Talktime: 5 hours

By: Mark Calander