Image Gallery: First Impressions of the BlackBerry Bold
The BlackBerry Bold is the first BlackBerry with HSDPA support and also includes WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. It has a powerful 624MHz processor and comes with 1GB of on-board flash memory. The following gallery shows the hardware and some of the new screens you will see in BlackBerry OS 4.6.
The Guide is found under the top flap when you open up your box.
The Bold is found under a protective plastic shield and cardboard flap.
In the bottom you will find the travel charger, USB cable, stereo headset, very nice holster, CD with Desktop software, and another Getting Started pamphlet.
I made sure the battery had some charge and then turned on the Bold. It takes something like 3-4 minutes for the initial startup of the device and this clock icon appears.
The Bold still fits nicely in my hand, but it is a bit wide and not as sleek and sexy as some of these latest devices. It is definitely a masculine device.
When I plugged the device in to a PC or into the power source the clock appeared on the display. You can switch between analog or digital mode and also setup alarms using the Clock application.
There are four hardware buttons around the traditional trackball with the full QWERTY keyboard below that.
There are left and right shift keys and the buttons are well spaced and well sized. There is also great feedback as you press down on each button and the Bold keyboard is tough to beat.
You can see there is a right shift as well, along with a symbol key to access more characters.
You will find send and end buttons on the outer part of the front, with the back and menu buttons closer to the trackball.
The trackball is like the ones found on the Pearl and Curve devices and IMHO is one of the best navigation controls ever found on a mobile device.
The back looks pretty plain with just the camera up top. The back is also textured, as you will see closer in the next few photos.
The Bold comes with a 2 megapixel camera and flash that take decent photos. I think a 3.2 megapixel version should have been used and should be the new standard for cameras on these higher end mobile phones.
The cover feels like leather over plastic and may actually be leather, but I doubt it. It feels great in your hand and gives a professional look to an already solid device.
I was very pleased to see two standards used on the Bold with the 3.5mm headset jack and miniUSB connector for syncing and charging. Nothing makes me happier than seeing these two standard ports on mobile phones. Just above the 3.5mm headset jack is the left stereo speaker opening too.
There are customizable application launcher buttons on each side of the Bold and this one is found about halfway down the device. Below this button is the externally accessible microSD card slot. The cover flips open easily, yet seems to protect the card as well.
I am not sure what these two features are on each side of the bottom of the device, but they do not seem to perform any function.
The back cover release switch is found in the middle of the bottom with the microphone and another opening (I believe it may be a lanyard opening) found on either side.
Another one of those mysterious openings is at the bottom right with the second customizable application button above that.
The volume toggle switch is found on the upper right side with the right stereo speaker opening above that wrapping around from the back.
Here are three of the latest and greatest QWERTY devices, each running a different operating system.
The Bold is under the Treo Pro and E71 in this photo showing some size comparisons.
The Bold is noticeably wider than the Treo Pro and E71, but is actually a bit thinner than the Treo Pro. The E71 is the slimmest of them all.
Here is a shot of these same three devices from the right side.
The handset speaker is centered above the display with the indicator light positioned over to the upper right.
This is the display you will see when you first turn on your AT&T BlackBerry Bold. Other carriers throughout the world have it as well and may have other backgrounds.
I am a big fan of the Dodge Challenger and included an image of one on my standby screen.
When you press the left Menu key you will be taken to this display that shows everything loaded on your device. You can move the icons around and change the types of icons by changing your themes.
As you can see there is a LOT loaded on the device just as part of the operating system. The PR company that sent the review unit also loaded a few trial applications for evaluation.
With all of the improvements in the BlackBerry OS, I have to say the calendar is still a bit lame and needs some attention. The month view is pretty worthless and just shows you the days of the month without any details at all.
BB OS 4.6 offers a much improved media application that lets you manage and view your videos, photos, ringtones, music, and voice notes.
The music player is pretty basic, but meets my basic player needs.
There are several ringtones and other included alarm and notification sounds on the Bold.
Voice recording is a very handy utility to have while driving when a thought pops into your mind that you want to remember for the future.
AT&T loads up shortcuts to some of their services and as you can see there are several options in the Music folder. These are paid services that I personally do not use.
You can pay to listen to XM Radio on your Bold through an AT&T subscription.
AT&T includes several shortcuts in their Mall folder too so you can buy things from their stores.
The AT&T cellular video service option is also available on the Bold.
I use Google Reader quite a bit for reading content on the go and the new browser works well with the mobile version. The browser is much better than previous browsers, but still doesn't support flash.
You can control many of your camera settings with this utility.
Many applications are loaded into this folder by default, but you can always customize their location on the Bold.
Setup wizards can be found in the Setup folder.
You actually get some fun games on the Bold, including Texas Hold'Em and Klondike.
When you download applications from the web they appear in this folder by default. You can then move them around as you like. As you can see there were several applications included on this review device.
Handmark Express is a full featured application that requires you to pay a monthly service fee for many of the services.
I never tried Viigo before, but it also provides you with a lot of useful data and I understand it is currently available for free.
There are a few settings options found in this default folder.
The Bold and OS 4.6 are pretty polished, but then you select Options and are taken back to the 90s. It would be nice to see BlackBerry improve this interface as well.
You can view and edit documents (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) with the included applications from DataViz.
You can also upgrade to Documents To Go Premium for creating new documents and getting access to more functions like spell checking and word count.
A nice manager is available so you can manage all of those wireless radios.
Videos look fantastic on the Bold and I think I have found my new media player and ultimate converged device.
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