Review: BlackBerry Bold 9700

The original BlackBerry Bold got heads turning thanks to its snazzy looks and superbly ergonomic keyboard. The new Bold 9700 builds on that success, helping to further consolidate Research In Motion’s place in the pockets of consumers as well as business people.

The new Bold is smaller and lighter than its predecessor 109mm x 60mm x 14.1mm and 122g (as opposed to 114mm x 66mm x 15mm and 136g) and while it still feels a little bulky we reckon RIM couldn’t go much further without compromising the usability of the superb mini keyboard.

While it is a little smaller than on the original Bold we still think the keyboard rocks. We’d go as far as to say the Qwerty keyboard on the Bold 9700 is one of the best mini keyboards we’ve ever seen. The keys are relatively large and very nicely shaped so that the tactile feel is great. They depress well too, giving off the teeniest of clicks.

The familiar line of shortcut keys sits between screen and keyboard – Call, End, Menu and Back. In the centre, though, the Bold’s mini trackwheel has disappeared, to be replaced by the optical trackpad that RIM currently favours.

We miss the good looks of the trackball, but the mini trackpad is efficient and responsive – for the most part. We did find it took a little while to work accurately with it in the Web browser.

The screen measures 2.4-inches across diagonal corners and it sports 480 x 360 pixels. It really is very clear and sharp and while it is obviously small compared to the likes of the screen on, say, an iPhone, it does a very good job.

The sliver and black chassis is very much in the BlackBerry mode, though the faux leather on the backplate looks a little out of place to us. It is, however, arguably the only trademark ‘Bold’ feature on a handset that could easily sit in the Curve range.

Side buttons and connectors sit on a rubberised panel and the buttons are also rubberised which helps with grip. They include a pair of convenience keys on the left and right edges which you can assign to whatever apps you want, a microUSB connector on the left edge for mains power and PC connection, volume rocker on the right and 3.5mm headset jack, rather unfortunately located on the left edge.

That jack is awkwardly located and we found it jarred in our pocket, but it can’t go on the top edge as this is neatly curved and houses mute and lock buttons.

The core BlackBerry services are all here. Strong mobile email support with up to ten POP accounts catered for is of course at the core. But with support for the likes of FaceBook and Twitter available for download via the app store you can kit the device out for your more social-media aware functions easily enough.

The camera is a bit low on raw power at 3.2 megapixels but it is easy to shoot photos and emailing and MMSing are both enabled as soon as you’ve captured a shot. There is a flash but the camera feature are a little behind the times. You can use black and white or sepia effects, but there’s no macro mode, face detection or panorama mode, for example. You can, though, use the built in GPS to geotag images.

As well as GPS the Bold 9700 sports Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, of course. It is an HSDPA device with Quad-band GSM under its belt too. There’s a microSD memory card slot under the backplate. You don’t need to remove the battery to get to it, but we found it mighty fiddly to get cards in and out. A 2GB card came with our SIM free device.

In truth the Bold 9700 does little that last year’s model couldn’t do just as well, and is a sign of how difficult it is becoming to differentiate between the various top-end handsets. Still, it would be foolish for a company to not play to its strengths, and the result is certainly the best BlackBerry to date.

Price: £380 SIM-free
Web: www.blackberry.com

Essential verdict
Performance: 9/10
Design: 8/10
Features: 8/10
Value for Money: 8/10
Overall score: 9/10

Written by Sandra Vogel. Originally published in Smartphone Essentials magazine.

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