BlackBerry Bold 9000 Review in Malaysia

I have been using BlackBerry Bold for several weeks. Read on for my review of BlackBerry Bold 9000.

First impression

When I first received the BlackBerry Bold, I was surprised by its size. It is wide, slim and light. My N-series phone immediately looks bulky beside BlackBerry Bold. I like the black and stylish look of BlackBerry Bold covered by silver border.

On the left side of BlackBerry Bold, there are: 3.5mm headset jack, mini USB port, and keypad lock button.

The mini USB port is used for data connection and battery charging. Very convenient. You can easily charge your BlackBerry Bold by connecting it to your computer.

On the right side of BlackBerry Bold there are volume control and camera button.

One major different between BlackBerry Bold and my N-series phone is SPEED. BlackBerry Bold is much faster on menu navigation, apps opening & running.. no waiting time at all!

BlackBerry Bold QWERTY keypad

The BlackBerry Bold QWERTY keypad looks very nice with white backlight for black keys. The keys might look small but, with the special curve edge design, I have no problem typing with my fat fingers. It only took me 1 day to type faster on BlackBerry Bold than numeric keypad phone.

BlackBerry Bold trackball

The navigation and clicking is done by the white trackball in the middle of BlackBerry Bold. It is sensitive enough to detect a small movement, especially useful when scrolling line-by-line on a web page. However, if your thumb is webby/oily, then the trackball might get stuck or does not move the on screen cursor.

BlackBerry Email

The email setup on BlackBerry is simple. It supports POP/IMAP but not real Push Email. BlackBerry Email has a very simple user interface but it supports HTML emails (images in email) and attachments viewing.

By default, BlackBerry Email does not load images in emails. You need to manually ask it to “Get images”. For IMAP email account, BlackBerry Email does not sync the email “read” status.

If you use BlackBerry to download the email BUT you read the email on desktop PC, BlackBerry Email will still has the email marked as Unread.

It is rather annoying. I have to manually mark every email as “Read” or I have a unread email counter at the top of the screen all the time, even I have checked them all on my desktop PC!

As you know, I am new to BlackBerry. Let me know if you have a solution about it.

BlackBerry Web Browser

BlackBerry has its own version of mobile web browser. The browser’s speed is so-so. Much slower if Javascript has been enabled. No tab browsing. No multiple windows. Does not support Flash, but can view Youtube video on media player.

BlackBerry Media Player

Blackberry media player and playing video in full screen (right).

BlackBerry media player can play most common video formats. The user interface is simple but video quality is high and smooth. Colors are great! Sound is stunning! The greatest mobile video playback experience I have had to date.

BlackBerry Documents To Go

The BlackBerry Bold comes with a useful office software named “Documents To Go“, which allows you to view and edit Microsoft Office files and email attachments (doc, xls, ppt).

I tried it. It does opens office document correctly. Viewing is ok but editing documents on the small display is a nightmare, especially on Excel worksheet.

BlackBerry Apps

While BlackBerry apps are not as many as iPhone app store, you can easily find the apps to get your jobs done. There is BlackBerry App World, but it is only available to users in US, Canada and UK.

The BlackBerry apps I installed are: Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, UberTwitter, Facebook, and Google Mobile App.

I am quite a social-media-guy, am I not? ;)

Blackberry OS support apps running in the background. But having too many background apps will drag down the BlackBerry Bold performance and get a spinning waiting cursor, everything halts for a few seconds.

BlackBerry Bold camera

The BlackBerry Bold’s 2.0 megapixel (1600×1200 pixel) camera is not good. It has no autofocus. Slight shaky hand will get you a blur image. The taken photo has very high noise level.

Check out the sample photos taken with BlackBerry Bold here:

BlackBerry Bold camera test shots: without flash (left) & with flash

BlackBerry Options

The user interface of BlackBerry settings (options) did surprise me. It is… text based! No graphic, no color!

Anyway, the options are clear and simple. But the over simplified text based menu could really scare off some users.

BlackBerry Bold Shining LED

There is a LED indicator light the top right corner of BlackBerry Bold to indicate the BlackBerry status. As far as I have surveyed, flashing red means “you got a new message”. flashing blue means bluetooth activated. flashing green means low battery.

The LED indicator light is useful that you don’t need to pick up your phone to check for new message received while you are away.

BlackBerry Bold battery life

According to BlackBerry Bold’s specs, the battery standby time is 13.5 Days (2 weeks!) and 4.5 hours talk time. That’s very good battery life for a mobile phone.

When the BlackBerry Bold is in standby mode, the display is turned off (not even a clock). That’s how it save more battery power and where the LED comes handy to indicate its status.

In real life test, I did web surfing, twittering, emailing on BlackBerry Bold for the whole day and only need to recharge at the next morning.

To further extend the battery life, you can turn off GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, and disable 3G (use EDGE). Also, set backlight level to lowest (it still quite bright).

BlackBerry Bold Specs

• CPU: 624 Mhz processor
• Memory: 1GB storage, 128 MB RAM
• Dimensions 114 x 66 x 14 mm
• Weight 133g
• Display: 480×320 pixels, 2.6 inch
• Camera: 2.0MP camera with flash, 3x digital zoom
• Battery: 4.5 hours talk time, 13.5 days standby time
• Ports: 3.5mm stereo headset jack, mini USB
• Card slot: microSD/microSDHC (up to 8GB)
• Connection: Bluetooth, Wifi
• Video format support: DivX, XviD, H.263, H.264, WMV3
• Audio format support: .3gp, MP3, WMA, MIDI, AMR-NB, AAC

My two cents

I have never used a BlackBerry smartphone before. It is not a fancy phone but it will get your jobs done.

It is a mobile office in your hand: make calls, read/send emails, web surfing, view/edit documents, etc. As well as some entertainments. Oh, GPS when you are lost, too!

I would consider BlackBerry Bold, if the email app can sync email status, a better web browser, and BlackBerry App World for Malaysians.

For Malaysians who are interested to get a BlackBerry, you can check out BlackBerry packages from Maxis.