Regular readers will know I’d been debating what new phone I would get this year. For a while there, the Blackberry Storm really caught my eye, until it was announced as a Vodafone exclusive. And from the initial reviews floating around, its looking like I may have dodged a bullet on that one.
Instead, I went for the more traditional style Blackberry, the new Blackberry Bold. And I must admit, after some initial connection hassles between the shop and the network, once the device sprung to life, it quickly became apparent why they’ve got the nickname crackberries.
Setting up email was an absolute doddle. I simply got a message saying my Blackberry account was active and prompting me to add in my email details. I gave it my address and password, and it figured out everything else. 20 minutes later and new emails to that address were getting pushed out to the device. Simple and how it should be.
I’ve also added various apps to the Blackberry. Google sync for my contacts and calendar, Windows Live Messenger, Facebook. All of which work great, with new Facebook alerts or Windows Live messages causing the red light to flash just like emails or texts. Brilliant.
The other device functions are great as well. Having not had a 3G device before, its a revelation as to how fast it is, and its great fun using the builtin GPS with Google maps. As someone who’s not completely sold on the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard as well, I must admit to being very happy with the Bold’s full qwerty keyboard. Typing on it is very natural, and while it means the device is a bit wide, I’m glad I went for it for the slightly larger keyboard and screen.
All in all, the Blackberry Bold is definitely a device I’d heartily recommend to anyone interested in a smartphone. Its only real failing for me is that the 2 megapixel camera’s a downgrade from my previous 3.2 (not to mention my previous one had a nice picture stability function which compensated nicely for my shakey hands).
Comments