- This unlocked cell phone is compatible with GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile. Not all carrier features may be supported. It will not work with CDMA carriers like Verizon Wireless, Alltel and Sprint.
- Quad-band GSM cell phone compatible with 850/900/1800/1900 frequencies and US/International 3G compatibility via 800/850/1900/2100/ 1700/2100 MHz, UMTS/HSDPA plus GPRS/EDGE capabilities
- Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g); 3.2-megapixel camera/camcorder; Bluetooth stereo music; microSD memory expansion to 32 GB; access to personal and corporate email
- Access all your email and messaging as well as social networking sites; full QWERTY keyboard with touch-sensitive optical trackpad
- Up to 6 hours of talk time, up to 360 hours (15 days) of standby time
Amazon.com Product Description
This premium device gives me the cutting edge technology to keep me productive in work and life when I am away from my computer without trading off style. The BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone has a large, hi-resolution screen that displays over 65,000 colors; creating a vivid viewing experience for all your photos, videos, files and websites. Access what’s important with trackpad navigation based on how laptops are designed. Glide your finger over the trackpad to scroll through menus and icons. A slight press and click lets you select an item to navigate where you want to go. Enjoy music, videos, photos and documents in great color and sound. Easily sync data and audio files from your desktop to the BlackBerry Bold 9700, and get up to 35 hours of music playback time. Enhance the 256 MB of on-board flash memory by easily inserting a microSD card. Create extra room for emails, messages, apps, multimedia files, documents and all the other important things that you want to take with you. Along with a 3.2 MP camera, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone features video camera functionality. Record and view videos on the hi-res screen, and share them through email, text messages or social networking sites.Hi-speed 3G network connectivity lets you browse the web or view email attachments faster. While Wi-Fi support enables your BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone to access available hotspots.
What’s in the Box?
- Charger
- Battery
- CD
- manual
- Earpiece
- Pouch
- USB cable
- 2 GB memory card
Alright, let me just say off the bat that as a former Bold 9000 user, I’ve been looking forward to the new Bold 2 for months since pictures were leaked on the internet. Since I get my phones through my company, I’ve had the phone since Nov. 18, when it was released on AT&T’s network for Premier people. Unfortunately, my friend decided that after playing around with my phone, they wanted one, so I bought them an unlocked one.
The new Bold 9700 is a sleek phone – no doubt about it. RIM apparently has decided, though, to somewhat standardize their phones’ look, a direction that bothers me to a great extent. One of the things I loved about the Bold was that it was different – you saw any other phone, and then you saw the Bold – and you thought “Wow, that phone IS bold!!” Size I couldn’t care less about – as long as it looked good, and worked awesomely, what else matters? And the Bold 9000 fit those well. So when I got the new 9700, and I compared it to my coworker’s Tour (for Verizon), I was quite surprised at how similar they were. It’s actually somewhat hard to tell them apart (the 9700 is a bit smaller, and also has the trackpad). Just an observation….
Alright – to the review:
Pros:
Trackpad – this is definitely a most welcome upgrade. RIM outdid themselves on this part – I thought the trackball was good, this trackpad is great! The older Bold’s trackball was great, as long as you kept dirt and dust out of it. Which turned out to be somewhat difficult, since there was a depression surrounding the trackball, and so if too much dust or dirt got in, the ball needed to be replaced. Also, if you used it too much, the ball would lose its grip, and become less responsive, also – once again – needing to be replaced. Both those problems are now gone with this new trackpad. For former trackball users, it may take a little use to get to know it, but once you do, trust me – you’ll never go back.
Speaker – the speakers on the Bold are nothing less than stunning. My friend has an IPhone, and my speakers for playing music and speakerphone blow his out of this century. Not only can they get very loud, but they also are quite clear and crisp, for the volume you can put them to. And, if that wasn’t good enough, RIM includes AudioBoost – for when you hook your Bold up to your car or stereo system, which bumps the output sound even higher. Excellent….
OS – the new BlackBerry 5 OS, which comes preloaded on the phone, is a major improvement over the 4.6 version in most other phones. It’s snappier, and quite more responsive.
Camera – RIM upgraded the camera from a 2 MP in the older Bold to a 3.2 MP in the Bold 9700. The pictures that the phone takes are quite good, even in poor light conditions. Of course, if you try to take pictures in the club with it – prepare to be somewhat disappointed. Ha. But for regular, everyday camera uses, that “quick shot”, the Bold 9700 actually takes decent pictures. Nice for when you forget to bring that digital camera with you.
There’s a couple other pros I can think of, but they’re more along the lines of business users, or based on networks (you could get 3G speeds on AT&T’s network since the first Bold – T-Mobile just got their first 3G BlackBerry with this phone). If you’re interested in them, drop me a comment, and I’ll get back to you.
Now, for the cons:
Battery – battery life is still somewhat bad, although it definitely is an improvement over the older Bold. I normally use Pandora – an App that plays Internet Radio, trust me, this should be one of the first apps you download, it’s free – the other is Google Maps, also free – anyway, back to the review, so I normally use Pandora, and I can get about 6 hours out of the battery, with small breaks in-between receiving phone calls. So, in normal use, you could probably get about a day out of the battery, which isn’t terrible, but also is somewhat worse than comparable phones out there.
Hardware – this is probably my biggest negative I had. Normally, when they say upgrade, you would think they would put better hardware in the thing, right?? Well, think again. With the exception of the upgraded camera and trackpad, there is NO difference in hardware between this and the older Bold.
Zero.
Nada.
I would’ve liked some upgraded hardware in the phone. But again – this is just my thing. You may not care.
My last negative is more hit and miss – some people have been reporting that BlackBerry Maps – the app that RIM ships with the phone for navigation, doesn’t work on the 9700. Myself included. This appears to be at random, but it just irks me. It may be dependent on the network you’re on. Fortunately, there’s a workaround – get Google Maps.
So – overall, the phone is a nice update. It works, takes nice pictures, looks sleek, and can be used as your new boombox when you want to blast “What is Love?” by Haddaway. (Kidding on the last one) I would completely recommend this phone, even with some of its faults, since they don’t really take away from the experience with the phone.
I’ll update this review from time to time, as I continue to use this, so if there’s any questions, please feel free to ask.
Rating: 4 / 5
I have been using this phone for about a week now. And while this device beats previous bold 9000 in many aspects there is still much to be improved. So let me first say things that I do like about the phone. Of course the greatest improvement was the addition of the trackpad, at first it was kind of unusual to navigate with it but I got accustomed to it very quickly. Second thing is the screen resolution, it was improved from the old bold by 480×360 vs 480×320 pixels. The screen is really crisp and bright and sunlight legibility is very decent. The camera also experienced an improvement and while I was taking pictures outside on a bright day and later comparing them to the previous bold, there is a very noticeable change, pictures look somewhat close to my wife’s 10 megapixel canon camera. I was also surprised by the improved quality of the videos this device shoots. Much better and less pixelated than the original bold! Now for the things that I don’t like or wished to be improved. Despite of the fact that everyone raves about “amazing” battery life on this device, I must say I am disappointed. At best, the battery lasts me a day and a half but not two day as many reviewers say. Perhaps I do extensive web browsing and chatting via instant messaging. I usually like to read various blogs and news on opera mini 5 browser and I noticed that this application along with IM+ drains battery like crazy! Of course at least now I don’t have to carry a spare battery with me like it was with the previous bold since I am sure this one will last me for the full day. But most often I still have to charge it every night. Which is kind of a disappointment and not what I expected after reading various reviews. Now about the browser: It sucks…. It simply sucks so much that any other smartphone’s browser will put it to shame. But another annoying problem now that I noticed is that I can’t get to mobile version of citibank online at all! No matter how I would reconfigure the browser… So it means no banking online for me as I used to do on my previous bold. Very annoying… The browser is still slow as hell and only the fact that I have opera on this phone doesn’t make it a deal breaker. I must say though that I am running a latest .405 version of the software and perhaps the issue with banking online maybe be fixed in later versions. Which I again, doubt very much. Now another disappointment is the absence of many supported languages. For example there is no Russian support whatsoever. But than again, it may be released in the later versions. I hope so. And now last but not least is the speaker quality. In the first day of use I noticed that the speaker has been downgraded. Instead of the three speakers which previous bold had, this device has only one and when you bring the volume all the way up you can hear a rattling noise. Not a very nice experience… Overall I like the device especially it’s size, I was skeptical about it as I liked the bold 9000 big screen. But this one seems to be slim and looks more eye appealing. Also I like the battery cover design, you can not accidentally open it and whole device seems sturdy and has a look of a professional tool. Hopefully with next updates there will be support for more languages. But as of now I am giving it only 3 stars.
UPDATE:
Couple of weeks ago I noticed that phone would randomly delete data, but today was the worst: In the morning I discovered that all my contacts were completely wiped out!!! by itself! And when I tried to restore them from the backup file it would not do that saying that the file is read only. I tried this file in my old curve 8310 and it worked flawlessly. So I suspect that there are serious bugs in the OS 5.0 and AT&T is not coming up with any updates as of yet. In a mean time I am lowering score for this phone because I am very disappointed by the poor implementation
Rating: 2 / 5
WAIT for the BOLD 3 or better yet… try DROID.
Pros:
Good Size.
BB Desktop Manager Plays very well with Outlook.
Great Screen.
Some applications are available for download.
Fast processor.
Email Integration.
Messaging App.
Cons:
Build Quality: Trackpad is VERY soft and gets very scratched up very easily (when the rest of the materials around it do not) and visible (and annoying) signs of wear and tear after 2 months (seriously… I bought this the day it came out on AT&T). The plastic used to build the battery door is too soft. After one month of use the fit in the door has become compromised. It doesn’t fall off or anything, but there is a noticeable lag in the fit of the battery door. After it snaps into place it still “wiggles” a good bit back and forth. Yes, it doesn’t impair the functionality of the phone, but I am annoyed that I paid so much for inferior quality materials.
Personally, I think this keyboard is TERRIBLE. The keys are too cramped. I hate how num lock and caps lock requires two buttons to activate. I prefer the simple “keep this button pressed longer to activate caps lock” approach.
Documentation: BB SUCKS at documentation. The learning curve for getting the most out of your BB is difficult indeed and they have no logical order or meaningful narrative for you to use to get your head around this thing. This thing could be almost as useful as the iPhone if only I had 240 hours to spare to get used to all of the poor interfaces.
Poor Organization: Some apps go to apps folder. Some apps go to apps folder. WTF??? What is the difference? Why put this level of abstraction in front of the user?
Can’t delete third party apps: why can’t I delete facebook? Who the h*ll are they? This is my phone??!!
Lack Of User Customization : The keyboard has backlighting that you cannot control as much as you would like. For example: BB measures the ambient light and decides if the backlight should be turned off or on. You cannot control the threshold at which this takes place (without a third party app that you have to pay for). If you are sitting in a conference wathcing a pitch and the lights are turned down you will experience my frustration. Again… WTF??? Why can’t I just turn this switch off???
Lack Of A Simple (and effective) Keyboard Lock Protocol.
It bothers me. I turn this off and it’s difficult to keep it turned off. Any slight pressure on the end/power key turns it right back on. WTF!!! This is the only phone that has a problem staying turned off!
This phone is the reason I’m going to give windows mobile one more chance… or maybe even the iPhone.
Summary: There are some good ideas in here but inferior materials and a disjointed GUI will leave you feeling “taken advantage of.” Once it’s free (with subsidy) it would be worth a shot… maybe. Till then, best avoid this one.
Rating: 2 / 5
I am on a long-term assignment away from home, so for Christmas I sent my wife the latest Blackberry that just came out, the Blackberry Bold 9700 (Unlocked). Being out of the country, I haven’t seen it, or used it, but I can offer a “thumbs-up” from her point of view. Every time I talk to her she brags about it and keeps telling me “You have to get one, you have to get one!”
Rating: 5 / 5
Excellent phone. A fusion of my old 8900 and a Bold 9000!
Pros:
Size (Almost as small as the 8900)
Fast 3G phone
Voice quality
Classy design (a beauty!)
Fast and responsive OS
More internal memory for programs
Battery life is WoW!!! (incredible! best in a blackberry!)
Screen is awsome! (colors and res)
Camera is excellent (although no improvement here from 8900, but big improvement from BOLD 9000)
Cons:
Keyboard take some time to get use to. But once you get use to the keyboard you’ll feel right at home
Rating: 5 / 5