Techiebytes

After years of badmouthing the BlackBerry and singing the praises of Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry Bold has made me seriously reconsider my position.

Initially the Bold felt big when compared to my Moto Q9c. After doing some size comparisons I soon realized that the Bold was actually a tad smaller. While the overall size is close, the BlackBerry sports a larger screen and keyboard. The screen on the Bold is bright, vibrant and easy to read. The keyboard is well defined and comfortable to use. Combine this with excellent battery life, and the Bold is a better device hands down.

The software on the Bold is what you would expect. It has all the basics, GPS, browser, text, and photo software. I was impressed by the capabilities of the new media player and the ability to view HTML e-mail. I was less than impressed with the inability to open MS Office 2007 files. Alas, it’s a BlackBerry and if you look hard enough there is an add-on software package for almost any need.

In my office we utilize a BlackBerry Enterprise server so the groupware synchronization worked as expected. After some searching I was even able to get my Outlook rules to work properly with the device. The feature I most missed on the BlackBerry was the ability to flag messages for follow-up. I’ve come to live by this on WM6 and it’s my primary reason for staying with Windows Mobile.

Overall the BlackBerry Bold is a great piece of hardware: the design is solid and impressive, and if you’re a BlackBerry user the Bold is more of what you’ve come to expect. While it didn’t win me over, it was good enough to make me reconsider beating-up on BlackBerry users in the future.

Filed under: Technology Tagged: | BlackBerry Bold, Motorola Q9c, Windows Mobile