The Blackberry Bold 9700 is the Bold 2 – an upgrade of the original flagship phone that was so successful in 2008.

There’s been a huge slimlining operation here where the device is almost 1mm thinner and 16grams lighter. What we first noticed though was that it looks almost identical to the Curve but for a trackpad instead of a trackball – if you have any mates with a Curve you might well end up getting your phones mixed up in the pub if you get this!

What the Curve owner might get green-eyed about is the quality HVGA resolution on the Bold’s modest 2.4″ screen that is the best screen we’ve seen on a Blackberry. And it was no surprise to find it had outstanding light-sensing that will detect whether you’re in a light or dark environment and adjust the screen brightness accordingly.

The trackpad is painfully easy to use and we preferred this to the Curve’s trackball as it required less thumb-action when navigating (not though the trackball was in anyway difficult, but this was even easier). Navigation was also made simpler by an intuitive interface where just pressing the Blackberry button wiill take you from your desktop homepage – with links to your favourite icons – to a full menu of a table of tiles (or icons) iPhone-style and selecting your choice via the optical trackpad. Needless to say, if you ever see a Cuve you’ll find the exact same user set-up on that. Of course, if you can’t find what you want, there is a search function that allows users to search their whole phone – handy, eh?

The most impressive aspects of the new Bold is its massive 1Gb memory and 624Mhz processor (that betters the iPhone 3GS). The speed particularly is very noticable and makes this the most powerful Blackberry on the market. The battery life doesn’t suffer though and this Bold can last up to a whole day under ordinary use and without PUSH email on it’ll last even longer.

Though the Blackberry App world isn’t all that busy yet, but the Bold has some very good built-in applications such as Office applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) and Blackberry Maps (which isn’t as good-looking as Google Maps but how attractive do you want a map to look?).

Blackberry aren’t very original but why should they be? What they do they do extremely well. They are, bar none, the best in the market for Business mobiles and for anyone who just wants a plain great phone you couldn’t go wrong with a Blackberry. Though I would say, if you get bored easily, the Bold lacks in innovation – this is, just as it says on the tin, another Blackberry Bold, albeit slightly updated. It will serve you very well, but it won’t turn many heads.

QUICK FEATURES
Display: 2.44″ LCD screen
Weight: 122 grams
Dimensions: 109 x 60 x 14 mm
Battery life: 504 hours (standby)

Camera: 3.2 megapixel (autofocus, LED flash)
Video: Video Recording
Music player: MP3 / WMA / MIDI / AMR-NB / AAC / AAC+ / eAAC+
Ringtones: MP3 / Polyphonic

Operating System:
Memory: 1GB Storage (MicroSD card slot – up to 16GB)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0 / USB / 3.5mm stereo headset port
Internet: WLAN / 3.6mbps HSDPA / RIM wireless modem / GRPS / EDGE

RRP: £369.99
Released: November 2009

 ★★★★☆ 

SEE ALL DETAILS ON BLACKBERRY BOLD 9700 – FROM £35 PER MONTH

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