Many of you haven't had a Bold for as long as I have. I managed to get mine a little before everyone else, and have had 2 solid months with this thing strapped to my hip. I'll go through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the amazing in the next few paragraphs. Join me.
I have had my share of Blackberries over the years. I started with the ol 7290, up to the Pearl, Curve 8330, 8900, Storm, Storm2, Bold 9700, Torch, Bold 9780.... and now the behemoth 9900. (To be fair, I have also had the Palm Treo (WM5!!) HTC Touch, iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4, HTC Sensation, and toyed with a Samsung Galaxy S II).
The weeks before the 9900 was in my hands were painful weeks. I had my 9800 sitting in a drawer with a fried radio, and my 9780 was driving me nuts. I needed something new from RIM or I was going to go batshit. I activated my iPhone4 out of spite, and like a sign from the RIM gods, the 9900 was in my hands a little over 10 days later.
This phone is a monster. If you read my pre-release review, you'll know where I'm going with this.
It's hands down the most beautiful and well built piece of smartphone hardware I have had the privilege to hold. Its heavy but not heavy, solid but not sterile, and functional in all aspects of its design. The screen resolution is a ball-hair shy of retina class, and the human eye would be hard pressed to know the difference. The keyboard is classic RIM. It just works, and it works better than any QWERTY I have used on any smartphone including my past RIM devices. It feels like a Flagship device should. Holding it next to a 97XX class device is like putting a Bentley next to a Honda Accord - Sure the Accord works like a champ and will last forever, but it's not a Bentley.
OS7 is a fresh take on the classic BBOS. It will be nothing for past BB users to pick it up and feel like they are somewhere familiar. It's fast as all hell, responds instantly to taps and commands, and I have yet to see that god-damned spinning clock except very briefly when an app is installed or the OS is just starting up. Bringing me to my next point, no more 10 min boots a-la Storm era phones. 45-60 seconds from power on and you are up and running.
The browser loads pages fast and accurately, and full-whack (non mobile) webpages are no longer the bane of many a smartphone users. HTML5 works like a charm, and you'd almost (almost) think that there was flash player loaded (It's not, as many people mistake. HTML5 pretty much gives you the flash experience without the Adobe program requirements). Connecting to WIFI takes mere seconds, and BIS loads up just seconds later, waiting is a thing of the past.
Bluetooth and Bridge are stable and nimble in this device. I quickly bridged to the PlayBook and kept it there all day without fail, however there are still some notification bugs with BBM and Email on the PlayBook (Nothing earth shattering or even important, just a minor hiccup). Bridge speed is not greatly improved even with the "4G" capability of the 9900, as it is choked by the limits of Bluetooth, but in a pinch the bridge will work as it should (when not in a wifi area).
Battery thus far has been fairly good to me. I can get through a day of heavy use and not worry. I do wish they kept the larger 97XX battery - but understand that it was changed to thin out the design of the phone. It charges just as fast as the 97XX series devices, and it pretty much sucks the power directly from the Sun if you plug it into a Playbook charger(Not even kidding. I'm talking inside an hour from 5% to 100%).
The camera.. it's.. there. It's not the greatest, it's not the worst. Does it get the job done? Most of the time. Closeup(macro)? No. Not really. Scenes and general pictures? Sure. It's not a professional camera, so I don't (and never have) expect professional results. A little improvement would have been nice (maybe some auto focus), but there isn't much I can do about that now. Video (at 720p) in good lighting rocks. The sound and picture quality is outstanding given the shi......er questionable quality of the still camera.
Call quality is outstanding, and reception is never an issue unless you are 4 floors underground betting on Russian Roulette (or underground parking for the less adventurous).
Overall thoughts....... BEST BLACKBERRY EVER. Can't say enough about this phone. RIM turned up the heat on this one, and it came out a winner on all fronts. If they keep this up, we will see RIM once again dominating the universe with its Berries.
ASG
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