Smartphones and Cell Phones

Matthew Miller

Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

By Matthew Miller | August 2, 2011, 4:30pm PDT

Summary: T-Mobile flyers reveal the new BB Bold may be priced at a whopping $349.99 before a $50 mail-in rebate and that is with a 2-year contract.

We have been waiting to see RIM release the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and I was seriously considering the device to go along with my PlayBook, but if the pricing shown in this leaked T-Mobile document is true then it looks like I am not going to be joining the BlackBerry community anytime soon. $349.99 before the $50 mail-in rebate (can’t these things just die?) with a 2-year contract is crazy pricing on a phone that runs a slightly modified version of an old OS and IMHO cannot compete with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices.

When a consumer can pick up the latest and greatest smartphones at their carrier store for $199 I don’t know why they would even consider the Bold 9900 at $100 more. I wonder if RIM is giving up on consumer market with the Bold 9900 so they can price some of their other upcoming BB OS 7 devices down in the $199 or less range. I know the initial cost of a smartphone is not the defining cost and has little effect on the contract cost that we pay here in the US, but it is a mental thing and does offer a comparison point with other smartphones. If it does launch at $199 with a contract and in the $400 off contract price, then I still may consider one.

I have used BlackBerry devices on and off over the years and do appreciate the long battery life and good hardware quality, but I am an Exchange and Gmail user and BlackBerry does neither of these very well unless you have a BES. Small companies where people bring iPhones and Android devices, like the one I work at, do not support a BES since there are not enough users and I’ll be sticking with these other platforms for now.

If this price is real, does it change your BlackBerry Bold 9900 purchase decision?

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Smart Phone, RIM BlackBerry, BlackBerry Bold, Mobile Operating Systems, Handhelds, Smart Phones, Hardware, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Matthew Miller

Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

rhonin Updated - 2nd Aug

OUCH!!!
Agree - these "mail in rebate" things need to just... go... away...

While it may not be too much for the phone itself, it does price itself out of the market. May as well bury it now.

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Blackberry 9900

powerphrase@... 2nd Aug

What you trying to do? did you get the price form RIMM? I do not understand your motive? some where you saw the price $349 and that is the perfect opportunity for you to Bash RIMM and saying how inferior 9900 compare to other products before you even use it. If you don't want to Buy 9900 don't buy it who cares. 65 million plus Blackberry fan will buy Blackberry 9900. Best Smartphone of 2011

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Blackberry 9900

powerphrase@... 2nd Aug

Thanks for deleting My message because I disagree what you said . Considering it is a spam. If I don't say what you want to hear it is a spam.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

jimcmf 2nd Aug

@powerphrase@... Agreed! This phone has NFC, and it cost a few $$ to put this together. $300.00 is like 3 dinners out with the girlfriend. And he is complaining about a phone that has a 1.5 year warranty, and will last him 2 or 3 years minimum.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

Badgered 3rd Aug

@jimcmf $300.00 is like 3 dinners out with the girlfriend

That makes absolutely no difference. The only thing you need to compare this phone to is it's competition. At $300+, RIM is shooting itself in the foot.

I know that as soon as my contract is up, I will be replacing my BB, and not with another BB.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

NateHoy 3rd Aug

@jimcmf

True, but look at it from a corporate purchasing perspective. My employer has been on Blackberry for 3 years now, and it's been the only phone they've supported for all that time. We've got well over 100 of the little buggers around here.

RIM hasn't made any real improvements in the phones in that time, at least not the ones affordable enough for the front-line crowd like myself. My 9300 is pretty much the same as my old 8310. Sure, there's more memory, but I still have to be VERY careful how many apps I can have. It's got a 3G radio and Wifi which are both welcome improvements. The replacement of the rollerball with the touchpad was nice. But the same 2.5" screen, the same battery, the same OS with a few minor refinements. Yawn. And the removal(!) of the LED flash for the camera would be a really stupid move if the camera wasn't so pathetically useless to start with (I do miss using it as a flashlight).

But many of us still love the little darlins even though they are a tad overpriced and looking a little long in the tooth.

Finally, to our squeals of delight, RIM announces brandy-new phones. At $350. For a device with specs that don't even come close to $100-200 top-shelf Androids.

All of us Blackberry lovers in the company made an impressive collective "THUD" noise when our respective jaws hit our respective desks. $350? For a BOLD? And you didn't even throw in a decent camera? And you reduced the battery capacity? What the hell, RIM?

Blackberry has not priced themselves out of the consumer range. They've priced themselves out of the CORPORATE range, especially for front-line employees.

Word just came down that BES will not be renewed, and we'll all be going to Android or iPhone by the end of the year.

I'll miss you, RIM!

But I'll be consoled with my new 4.3-inch screen, my new dual-core processor, a multi-day battery, and my new 8 megapixel camera.

So maybe not that much.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

dacommish 2nd Aug

I am a BB fan but there is now way I am going shell out over 199.00 for the 9900. I have a Bold 9700 and it suits me fine.

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Nope

mas90guru 2nd Aug

If this does debut at $349 it will be the fastest price reduction in the history of RIM. With a survey just out saying 67% of current BB users are switching as soon as humanly possible I'm wondering if RIM really meant to say that they'll PAY US $349...

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

jimcmf 2nd Aug

@mas90guru I saw one of those Androids at Rogers for $549 off contract, and $249 on 3 year ... the phone has been out for sometime. So $349 (less $50) is not that bad.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

Badgered 3rd Aug

@jimcmf I saw one of those Androids at Rogers for $549 off contract, and $249 on 3 year ... the phone has been out for sometime.

Ya know what the BB, and that Android you saw have in common? I won't be buying either of them.

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W to the TF

sevanuik 2nd Aug

"...but I am an Exchange and Gmail user and BlackBerry does neither of these very well unless you have a BES"
Uh, pretty sure you can set up Gmail as an Exchange account, btw. If I had a penny everytime a new droid/iphone/palm user tells me "But my email worked fine on my Blackberry?!" I'd own zdnet. This tells me you know very little about the difference between push and pull email (or imap vs. pop). As an example, feel free to test: Set up yahoo mail on a 'berry. Now have your pc/mac running yahoo messenger or a mail browser plugin. I think you'll find it delivers an email to the 'berry device before it does to your personal computer.

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Contributr

It's not just about email though

palmsolo (aka Matthew Miller) 2nd Aug

@sevanuik I use Exchange for contacts and calendar syncing too and the only way to do that with a BB is through a cable connection or 3rd party software that I have yet to find reliable and well integrated. We all have different needs and for mine a BB just doesn't fit.

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Sync?

dfilteau 3rd Aug

@palmsolo (aka Matthew Miller)

Hi there, I use Google Sync on my BB 8830 to keep contacts and calendars synced OTA. I also had my corporate (Exchange) email and two POP accounts on the same BB so there shouldn't be a problem.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

marc.paradise@... 3rd Aug

@palmsolo (aka Matthew Miller)
I'm actually wondering what leads you to think GMail support isn't very good? Is it something you've tried recently? For the last couple of years BB GMail integration is actually pretty tight. Real-time message notifications, inbox sync, read/unread sync, automatic contact and calendar sync.
I'm not sure about Exchange without BES though, I haven't tried it.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

jimcmf 2nd Aug

@sevanuik Absolutely. It's on my berry right away. It may take 3 or 4 minutes to hit my pute.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

jmiller1978 3rd Aug

@sevanuik

"setup a Gmail account as an Exchange account"

I hope you misspoke or you have no idea what you're talking about. In order to do that, Gmail would have to support ActivSync which it clearly doesn't unless they've incorporated some half-ass, reverse-engineered, open source version of it.

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Gmail Does Activesync

murving 3rd Aug

@jmiller1978 Gmail does support Exchange Activesync. I have been using it for over 6 months. Here is the link:

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

ChevyAdmin 3rd Aug

@jmiller1978

Actually it does use ActiveSync, see this; http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/ . But, it doesn't appear to support Push for Blackberry, works fine on my Windows Phone 7 device.

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Perhaps...

Pete "athynz" Athens 3rd Aug

@sevanuik but here's something that confirms my own decision to ditch my work Blackberry for an Android or WP7 device. I'm currently testing a new piece of software for a work order system on my iPhone (which will also work similarly with Android and WP7 but since I don't own either one I'm using my iPhone as a test bed) and it uses email to send the work orders and this software as a means to collect and manipulate the work orders. So I enabled my exchange account on my iPhone. And a funny thing happened... my iPhone will get my exchange emails about a minute or so before my Blackberry. I've had it set up this way for about 3 weeks and this has been the case every single time... then again we are too small of a company to make effective use of BES so that may be part of the issue.

I admit I am a bit puzzled as to the claim that Blackberry does not do Gmail well... I gave it a try when I first got my Blackberry Curve and Gmail (as well as Yahoo) work really well on it.

I do like my Blackberry but with all of the things that my iPhone can do, all the things that Android and WP7 can do that Blackberry cannot and so far has not (decent browser, fast starting times, speed) I'm definitely not interested in a BB device that is even MORE than the highest priced iPhone, Android, or WP7 device out there that does far less.

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What's the question again??

Leroy Farted 2nd Aug

You say the the BBOS is a "slightly modified version of an old OS and IMHO cannot compete with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices...". Seriously? Cannot compete? Blackberry has competed with iOS and iphone 3 with HALF the processor speed and did just fine. Now that they are upping the ante with the 1.2 gigahertz processor to compete head to head, the memory optimized BB should be cream of the crop, even with it's smaller screen. I don't have a problem with the BBOS now, I do wish it would load web faster, but that's not the OS, it's the processor. I sacrifice the web for the sake of the hardware and keyboard.
But to answer your question, I do think the price is a bit much, but I will probably buy it anyway. I'll just skip a few trips to Starbucks to make up for it.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

jimcmf 2nd Aug

@Leroy Farted Couldn't agree with you more. People will pay $30 for a bucket of KFC chicken, but complain about spending an extra $50 for a phone.

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It's not really a question but I have some for you

Pete "athynz" Athens 3rd Aug

@Leroy Farted Blackberry has competed with iOS and iphone 3 with HALF the processor speed and did just fine.

So why is it that Blackberry is steadily loosing market share to iPhone and Android and has been since the introduction of these devices? Why are so many current Blackberry users (including myself) saying they are jumping ship to iPhone or Android?

You love blackberry, that's great. I used to. I find that the entire experience is lacking - I hope that RIM is able to begin to recover the lost market share with BB OS7 but I doubt it.

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BES can be free

John Hanks 3rd Aug

You do understand that BES is Free for Small business, right?

I use Mdaemon, which includes BES free, but there is also BES Express or something that is free to tack onto Exchange.

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RE: Is the BlackBerry Bold 9900 priced out of the consumer range at $349.99?

jolynuk 9th Aug

Honestly, how can you hold an entire debate around a completely speculative article? Do any of these tech websites actually report any information of substance? What a load of crap journalism.

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BB 9900 in Canada

Ulysses21 11th Aug

Its 169.99 here when you sign a three years contract. Pathetic. Blackberry 9900 shouldn't cost a lot when you sign a contract. These telecom companies are the one who will sabotage RIM.

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