Hardware & Design
The BlackBerry Bold 9930 is a traditional Blackberry style with a sleek and professional look. It comes with a 2.8 inch touchscreen display which is a first for this form factor. Below the screen there is a physical QWERTY keyboard that Blackberry is famous for, physical buttons from send, end/power, blackberry menu and back with an optical track pad. On the sides you have volume buttons, convenience keys, micros USB port and a 3.5 mm headphone port which can be tricky if your headphones jack doesn’t fit flush into it. If it doesn’t fit in all the way it will flicker the headphones off and one. On the top there is a lock button that will turn the screen on and off.
The camera is 5 mega-pixels, with flash and 720p HD recording. The images are good and stand up to most cameras today.
Internally there a 1.2 GHz processor, 8 GB of internal storage with 6.5 GB available, micro SD card slot is available and supports up to 32 GB of storage. 3G global roaming, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, NFC support rounds up the specs in a very solid device. Although wider and longer than the older Bold, the “brushed stainless steel” design” definitely makes it seem more sleek. This also results in a wider, easier to use keyboard.
Software & Usability
The Blackberry 7 OS, with highly improved graphics and processing speed. It’s not a revolutionary change but it’s a welcome upgrade to give the OS a more modern feel. While the touchscreen is a nice addition and very responsive you can easily forget that its there as the OS isn’t geared for touch screen input from the ground up. The web browser now has multiple window options, for multi-tasking. The NFC (near field communication) capability brings it up to date for the “tapping” and “bumping” exchange of information with other capable devices and browser applications. Convenience wise, its compatibility with Blackberry Desktop Manager insures less start-up time. Call quality is good with clear voices on each end and battery life is good with getting through a full day without needed to charge.
Overall
This is the Blackberry that die-hard blackberry user have waited for. It keeps the familiar operating system but is now more media friendly. It’s not going to win over too many new users especially with its $299 price tag which is the same price as a lot of 4G LTE phones on Verizon’s network now. If your hardcore “crackberry user” then this is the Bold you have waited to upgrade to.
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