BlackBerry Bold 9900 Pro Reviews

Without a doubt, the Blackberry Bold 9900 is the king of text communications, but this won’t make it the king of smartphones as computing has moved well beyond the “productivity” aspect of people’s lives. The Bold 9900 is a great phone IF your live gravitates around communication, but there’s better choices out there for gaming and entertainment.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is an attractive device with some strong features. The touch screen adds usability, and Near Field Communications might find something to do in the future so it’s nice to see it here.

Research In Motion did a very good job with the BlackBerry Bold 9900. It is not radically new by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a significant upgrade compared to what preceded it. The hardware is probably the best ever designed by RIM, and offers a perfect combination of controls, materials, and quality manufacture. I can't state strongly enough how fantastic the QWERTY keyboard is. BlackBerry 7 may be more polished than previous versions of RIM's operating system but it is still too menu driven and reliant on layer after layer of folders and sub-folders. Messaging, social networking, and calling functions are top notch, and the Bold 9900 is a capable media device, too. Thankfully, the 9900 improves on the 9930 with better signal, voice, and web performance. To me, the slight trade-off in battery life is worth it. Is the 9900 a good smartphone? Yes. Is it one of the best to come from Research In Motion? Yes. Is it worth picking over an Android smartphone or the iPhone? That's a tough call. Obviously the 9900's claim to fame is its outstanding keyboard, and that's the feature I'd hinge my decision on. Bottom line, if you absolutely must have a great, physical QWERTY keyboard and need the added security features of a BlackBerry, you can't go wrong with the Bold 9900.

The Bold 9900 is a very fast, very capable BlackBerry, but it’s essentially still the same device that RIM has been selling for years, with a few improvements to keep it up to date. If you like BlackBerry handsets, you’ll love it, but it’s unlikely to win over many new fans.

More screen resolution and power than BlackBerry owners know what to do with? Certainly not. It’s more than they’re used to though and that makes the Bold Touch 9900 a very attractive upgrade option. More touchscreen than the typical business user needs? Negative. Touchscreen and QWERTY work together, not against each other, in the BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900. And just to be clear – we’re not questioning the latest of the Bolds. We’re not playing down its role and potential. We’re simply looking for things that can threaten its relationship with the core user base. Frankly, we can’t find any. The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 is not without flaws and RIM are not in denial about the catching up they need to do. What makes it particularly hard is a conservative target audience that they need to be careful not to alienate.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is the thinnest BlackBerry ever released by RIM, which makes it very portable. It retains the physical QWERTY keyboard that BlackBerry fans and messaging fanatics love. Out is the primitive BlackBerry smartphone OS 6 in the Bold9780 and in is the new BlackBerry 7 OS. The new OS is a nice upgrade from BlackBerry 6, with a faster browser, enhanced universal search function with voice activated search and a more aesthetically pleasing user interface. Powering the BlackBerry 7 OS is the 1.2GHz processor, which makes for a smooth and fluid user experience. We also liked its touch screen which deliver great color clarity and depth. As expected, the battery life is excellent for a BlackBerry device, ranking among the top for smartphones.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is sleeker and faster than before, but otherwise it's still more of the same, instead of the revolution Research In Motion desperately needs.

All told then, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is just about the perfect upgrade for existing BlackBerry users, assuming you can live with the slight drop in battery life. The keyboard's excellent, the touchscreen's great, performance is stellar, and the new software adds plenty too. What's more the limitations won't feel as such if you're used to previous BlackBerrys. However, if you're looking at this phone as simply the best RIM currently has to compete with the iPhones and Androids of this world, then it doesn't quite stack up. Yes, a lot of its limitations are simply down to form factor but nonetheless the screen is small, the camera isn't up to snuff, and the selection of apps is woeful.

Excellent build quality and an updated software make the 9900 an extremely capable smartphone, but at a high price.

If you've been using a BlackBerry for one or more generations, the Bold 9900 and 9930 should almost automatically become your favorite BlackBerry of all time. In many senses, it's the culmination of everything RIM has done so far in a package that mostly pulls it off. There's an exceptional keyboard, a good touchscreen implementation, and long battery life. Moreover, it's finally up to par in performance and feels like it's getting the build quality RIM has owed for awhile.

While very elegant, the $299 BlackBerry Bold 9900 suffers from the same affliction as its Verizon cousin, the $249 Bold 9930. Both represent the ultimate in messaging devices, but the tiny displays and lackluster app selection leave us wanting more. For $100 less, the myTouch 4G Slide boasts a great keyboard, a superb 8-MP camera, true 4G data, and a much bigger 3.7-inch display. Of course, business users who don't want to kick the BlackBerry habit will find lots to like here, such as beefed up performance, a sexy design, and the Bugatti of mobile keyboards. So hopefully their IT departments can foot the bill.

Overall, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is a great phone, almost certainly the best that RIM has ever produced. Some BlackBerry traditionalists will be disappointed by the battery life, but the keyboard-plus-touch form factor and impressive speed both make this a winning package.

Just by looking at the handset, it embodies all the qualities you want with a premium smartphone – like its razor sharp looks, solid construction, and premium materials. However, we’re not fans of the $299.99 on-contract price that T-Mobile is asking for since its hardware specs and platform experience pale in comparison to some of its rivals. Unless you can find it priced considerably less through one of the many online discount retailers out there, we’d suggest investing your hard-earned money on something that’s going to be of more value – say like the HTC Sensation 4G.

BlackBerry enthusiasts will love the BlackBerry Bold 9900, but its high price tag will be a deterrent to many.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is a device that will appeal greatly to die hard BlackBerry fans, returning the Bold to a premium look and a size that makes a little more sense than the 9700 models. Business users will find themselves with a more interactive device and a better browsing experience, but outside of keyboard and email experience, consumers may find they get a lot more smartphone for their money elsewhere.

The Bold 9900 is certainly bold in its ambition. It may fail in some places, but in the most part, it really impresses. We can see this one shipping by the bucketload, especially compared to the keyboard-less Torch 9860, as it ticks all the normal boxes and adds in a premium chassis to boot.

I'm already a big fan of the Bold 9900. And it will probably be my next BlackBerry smartphone. Now, I anxiously await the BlackBerry Bold 9900 release.