RIM Blackberry 9700 Review 4.5/5

Price: £36 a month for 18 months.

RIM's new take on the flagship model of powerhouse Blackberry's, the 9700 or Bold 2 as it’s more affectionately known. Upgraded from the original 9000/Bold slight changes have been made including a more slim line profile and faster processor for better functionality.

The Design

Brilliantly suited if you’re the kind of business man who enjoys a spot of pocket hockey, the design while remaining slender at times may cause social embarrassment due to the horizontal burgeoning of your pocket. The ergonomic feel of the phone more than makes up for the slightly small keyboard even in the worst of conditions, allowing you to easily navigate the QWERTY keyboard and reel off emails to all and sundry. The addition of a miniature touchpad as apposed to the tracker ball which like Marmite you either loved or despised allows the user to easily navigate lists and pages.

The Screen


Crystal clear and with a deep spectrum of 65,000 colours, even dogs could appreciate the effort gone into the quality of the screen. What the Bold 2's screen lacks though is size. Although brilliant for media capture e.g. pictures/video the screen could do with a larger playing field especially regarding web browsing, the continuous scrolling while viewing web content soon becomes a problem.

The Software


The phones shipped software comes in the form of Blackberry OS 5.0, still very attractive and easy to use I can understand RIM's desire to hang onto this firmware even if it is getting slightly creaky with a penchant for Warfarin. The phone initially provides two themes one seemingly based on Blackpool pleasure beach the other slightly more reserved but thankfully others can be downloaded. There is also an abundance of built in software such as Blackberry maps, Browser and Blackberry messenger which is always good for a lengthy harangue with a friend or colleague at 3 in the morning.

The Phone

The phone as a whole provides a brilliant support package for any business professional or self obsessed adolescent. The ability to access a range of email accounts including Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo on the fly give it a real edge along with built in GPS, Wi-Fi and downloadable apps such as the addition of mobile Facebook or Windows Live Messenger. Personally I have found the ability to edit word documents and excel files and then attach them to emails very helpful.

Where the phone stumbles is in some of the major foundation blocks of basic phone function. RIM's insistence on letting the user only know when the SMS or MMS arrived rather than sent is quite problematic, along with ability for the phone to tell you messages have/haven't been sent yet they have/haven't. There also appears to be bi-polar issues with the built in aerial as you can at one second be at full bar and the next SOS mode.

The Camera

I have found the 3.15 megapixel camera to be excellent for on the spot photography or video recording, while I wouldn’t use it to film the next Police Academy it has some great features such as autofocus and image stabilization and can support up to 2048x1536 pixel resolutions.

The Battery

So far I have not experienced any problem with the battery especially with the 408 hour standby time although leaving Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and your GSM connection can leave it quickly shaking in a corner looking for its next fix of plug socket time.

----

Overall I personally love this phone, like a love blind teenager I can see through the inevitable flaws and faults and absolutely adore its ability to act as a mobile internet and email access platform however I believe major improvement could be made regarding SMS and Calls leaving it slightly under classed by a 3310 in basic telephone function yet the best on the market if like me you enjoy receiving sub-continent spam during those long summer afternoons.