BlackBerry Bold: The Good, The Bold, and The Beautiful!

Ever since I started using the Torch I don’t seem to be capable of taking my hands off of it, never felt this connectivity before, emails, tweets, facebook notifications, all web in the palm of my hand! 2 weeks ago I had the chance to try the new Bold 9780, and I’ve got to say, I’m a big BlackBerry fan now.

Both the Torch and the Bold were among the early devices to run on the new BlackBerry OS 6, the latest operating system from RIM that offers full social media capabilities with built-in applications for major social networks like facebook, twitter and YouTube.

In a nutshell, the Bold 9780 is old school in a new interface! Keyboard lovers can enjoy the new OS while using the traditional keyboard.

With its new operating system, BlackBerry has brought a new user experience with a faster and more dynamic menu, and a cooler design that left me using the Bold as if it was a touch screen phone!

The main menu can be browsed in different ways, you can easily flip between different tabs that either host all apps and functions on the device or the most frequent used ones, or even better your favorites, in addition to your downloads and media. Light is perhaps the best word to describe the menu, browsing through the menu is really fast and easy, with a transparent and funky design, especially with the cool icons that are surrounded with a light beam.

The Bold 9780 weights 122 g with the battery, that is 39 grams less than the Torch, which is few millimeters larger than the Bold, dimensions of the Torch while closed are 111mm x 62mm x 14.6mm (LxWxD), while with the Bold it’s 109mm x 60mm x 14.1mm. When comparing the Bold to the iPhone 4 and Nokia N8, the Bold is a bit lighter but thicker, the iPhone 4 weights 137g while the N8 weights 135g, and for the depth, 14.1mm in the Bold compared to 9.3mm for the iPhone and 12.9mm for the N8.

Adding email accounts on a Blackberry is very easy, all is needed is entering the email address and password and the phone will do the rest, the Bold supports various email services including Gmail, outlook, Yahoo, POP3 and IMAP4. Personally I host my jazarah.net email on Google Apps, and adding it couldn’t be any easier.

In this day and age we breathe and live social, quite a significant part of our lives has migrated to the virtual world, leaving us with a crucial need for daily doses of what’s happening with our friends and contact, Social Feeds is an app in the new BlackBerry OS that collects updates from your instant messaging and social networks, including facebook, twitter, Google Talk, BB Messenger and more, this way your phone will keep you updated.

In addition to the Social Feeds, the Bold comes with built-in apps for facebook, twitter, mySpace and YouTube, you can enjoy these social networks on the go as it offers almost every single feature you might need on these networks; adding friends, retweets, comments, uploads… etc. LinkedIn is also an important social network that can be added to your Bold via a free downloadable app.

I love having notifications on my screen from twitter and facebook whenever I’ve been mentioned in a tweet or tagged in a photo, or received an email or a BB message. Moreover, having all facebook events and birthdays integrated in my calendar is really amazing.

The Bold comes with a 5 megapixel camera, with a range of cool features from flash to auto focus, to face detection and image stabilization, to a variety of scene modes, zoom and video recording.

At the end the Bold line from BlackBerry is really great, but for a person like me who has been using touch screen mobile phones for more than a year, the Torch sounds like a better option, but if you enjoy using the physical keyboard, Bold is the right choice for you.

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