9900 User Review

So I noticed there aren't many reviews out there for the new BlackBerry Bold. I've always been keen on device reviews for reasons unbeknownst to me - I watch every review I can possibly find even though most of them say the same thing.

I got the idea to ask actual users as opposed to official tech blog sites and such because I think it could potentially yield some interesting results. I'm going to offer some guidelines to user reviews, but nobody is obligated to follow them. I am also going to make it a poll because one thing that I've been missing in reviews is a "bottom line" kind of scoring guide like "this device gets a 7 out of 10," kind of deal (plus polls are a great way to gauge immediate results).

Here are my offered guidelines that are by no means asked to be followed, just suggestions:

Build Quality: How does it feel in your hand? Does it feel cheap when you click some of the buttons? Is the BlackBerry button transparent to where you can actually see the clicking mechanism outline behind it (in the dark)? Are the clicking noises "fulfilling"? Rate it 1-10.

Connectivity: How 'fast' is it? Is the coverage seemingly better or worse than previous installments of the Bold? Have you experienced anything that you could possibly consider 4G speeds? How is the call quality? Rate it 1-10.

Specs: Is the 1.2GHz processor amazing? Is it lagging behind the competition? How well do the 768MBs of RAM fare? Are you seeing any spinning clocks? Has anything lagged on you? Have you had good experiences with Wikitude and/or NFC? Rate it 1-10.

BlackBerry 7: Is BlackBerry 7 a breath of life into the 'dated' BlackBerry OS? Is it simply a cheap rehash of outdated BlackBerry software? Is Liquid Graphics awesome? Do you absolutely love it? Is it nothing special? Rate it 1-10.

Camera/Video: Alright, we know it doesn't have auto-focus, but: Does it deliver great quality? Is it a big improvement from other BlackBerry devices? Is it a step backwards? Do the options for specific types of shots, I.E. "close up" help a lot? Is the HD recording phenomenal? Rate it 1-10.

Battery Life: How long is the phone lasting? What OSs worked great and which ones sucked the battery dry? Rate it 1-10.

Overall: Is this the best BlackBerry to date? Are there major issues that need to be worked out? Did RIM nail it? Did RIM fail? Did RIM squander their chances with one mistake? Rate it 1-10 (poll question).


Now again, these are all just suggestions for a review; if you want to do a user review you can make up your own and share it or follow my outline or borrow one or two from it, I don't care! Either way, let's hear what the 9900 users have to say about their phone.

I'll post when I get mine on Wednesday :D

There are at least 3 excellent (professional) reviews posted on the web about the 9900:

Review: Rogers BlackBerry Bold 9900 | MobileSyrup.com

Blackberry Bold 9900 review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Mobile phones

BlackBerry Bold 9900 review

They seem pretty consistent with each other, it's a great device :)

I love typing and browsing on this thing!! Awesome!

Coming from a Tour, this phone is like Wow!

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is an awesome phone. Just showed it to some colleagues, friends, and executives here at work and looks like we'll be tossing out our Curves for many Bold 9900s.

I have HUGE gripes coming off from the BB 9000, 9700, 9800;
-There is absolutely NO keyboard hotkeys in the browser.
-I thought there was a way to change the theme so that it would be similar to BB OS5-6? (Read it in a CrackBerry post) I have no use for the panels as I have everything organized so that I do not have to scroll up or down along my home menu, but even when I get rid of the ones that I don't want, "All" remains. I KNOW that is ALL of my home menu!!
-As well, the panel / touch sensitivity is not the same as the torch where you could touch anywhere to swipe up the panel. It's very specific as it doesn't understand the finger gestures as well as even the first Torch. So if you pull up from the panel's tab, and then press the back button to minimize, it will only minimize half way because as you had swiped up earlier, it has re-set it's default position to show the top two rows, and I would have to re-re-set it so that it minimizes to only show the single top row.
-The Music app does not return to where you were before; ie if you search for an artist or song name, and you choose a song to play, pressing the back button, or in my case the convenience button to get back from anywhere, even from within the Music app, to the Music app, it would take you back to where you'd normally start! It doesn't bring you back to the search results!!
-On the Loud profile, any alerts or ringtones are played loudly both on the phone and the inserted IN EAR headphones at loud volume, despite the media volume being less than half way down!

If someone could lead me to a post where it'll show me how to use the Bold properly, or if there are work arounds, that would be greatly appreciated. Maybe something like that dark, minimalistic Reverie D theme that was available when OS5-6 came out?

Edit; sometimes the touchscreen gets in the way from scrolling up or down with the trackpad, and swiping up or down to go through a page of text sometimes really bogs/slows down.

Seriously.. there aren't any keyboard shortcuts in the browser? This doesn't sound like RIM at all, call my crazy but going to the 9900 makes me nervous based off the browser alone. I've grown to love the OS5 browser..

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I have keyboard shortcuts in my browser, have you turned them on in the browser options?

Thanks aj9604, I guess I just need to try the phone myself and not keep listening to people.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I voted 10... It's a bit of a no-brainer, considering my device history: 8220 >>> 8900 = 9530 >> 9550 > 9700 > 9800 >>> 9900. So if my 8220 would have been rated 1, the 9900 has 9 >'s leading up to it, which puts it at 10! Got to love science.

Originally Posted by SleepiTyme

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is an awesome phone. Just showed it to some colleagues, friends, and executives here at work and looks like we'll be tossing out our Curves for many Bold 9900s.

I have HUGE gripes coming off from the BB 9000, 9700, 9800;
-There is absolutely NO keyboard hotkeys in the browser.
-I thought there was a way to change the theme so that it would be similar to BB OS5-6? (Read it in a CrackBerry post) I have no use for the panels as I have everything organized so that I do not have to scroll up or down along my home menu, but even when I get rid of the ones that I don't want, "All" remains. I KNOW that is ALL of my home menu!!
-As well, the panel / touch sensitivity is not the same as the torch where you could touch anywhere to swipe up the panel. It's very specific as it doesn't understand the finger gestures as well as even the first Torch. So if you pull up from the panel's tab, and then press the back button to minimize, it will only minimize half way because as you had swiped up earlier, it has re-set it's default position to show the top two rows, and I would have to re-re-set it so that it minimizes to only show the single top row.
-The Music app does not return to where you were before; ie if you search for an artist or song name, and you choose a song to play, pressing the back button, or in my case the convenience button to get back from anywhere, even from within the Music app, to the Music app, it would take you back to where you'd normally start! It doesn't bring you back to the search results!!
-On the Loud profile, any alerts or ringtones are played loudly both on the phone and the inserted IN EAR headphones at loud volume, despite the media volume being less than half way down!

If someone could lead me to a post where it'll show me how to use the Bold properly, or if there are work arounds, that would be greatly appreciated. Maybe something like that dark, minimalistic Reverie D theme that was available when OS5-6 came out?

Edit; sometimes the touchscreen gets in the way from scrolling up or down with the trackpad, and swiping up or down to go through a page of text sometimes really bogs/slows down.

1) As has already been pointed out above, the browser does have keyboard shortcuts in the options.

2) Disabling the panels is the 'feature' to make it more like OS5, but, yes, the 'All' label still remains. Not a big deal (in my opinion) to get rid of the useless panels. That being said, having a touch interface and being able to swipe from panel to panel more effectively than with the trackpad actually makes them use useful. I had 'Media' and 'Favorites' enabled. Swipe left for one, or right for the other. Simple.

3) You can set the sensitivity of the touchscreen in the options. I think the options are a little less than the Torch but still there.

4) No comment. Think that is how it was in OS6... Music player isn't really that great of a feature in BB's so not surprised it doesn't remember where you were.

5) It's the 'Loud' setting. What did you expect? But seriously, you set the volume in the profile settings and they have nothing to do with the volume settings on your media playback. That's the whole point to profile settings. You set them once and they keep consistent.

Not that anyone cares, and not to start a fight :D, but I voted '7'... (-1 for the camera [yes, I'm one of those people :rolleyes:], -1 because I think the touchscreen and trackpad are a bit too close together [my thumb always seem to hit the screen when I want to use the trackpad or vice-versa and with browsing, that means the screen goes down and then up], and -1 for the OS in general [yes, it is better, but the hardware advancement shows BB's could do more]).

Still, amazing screen, keyboard and build quality. Top notch. Shame I'm not going to keep it but I realized as much as I love the keyboard, I spend more time browsing on my BB than typing and really need the screen real estate. Just don't know if I will go with the 9810 or the 9850. :confused:

If they could find a way to do a new type of slider with that type of keyboard, hardware, and fit and finish... :eek: The Torch 3 of my dreams....

EDIT: Maybe '7' is too harsh... I'll change to 8.5 by changing all the "-1's" to just "-.5"

Best BB browser ever, ever! lightning sweet!

Originally Posted by dalton4L

So I noticed there aren't many reviews out there for the new BlackBerry Bold. I've always been keen on device reviews for reasons unbeknownst to me - I watch every review I can possibly find even though most of them say the same thing.

Ok I'm not an expert by any means - I don't even like the idea of using BBSAK so I wait for my DM to do stuff for me. I'm just a happy BlackBerry owner for the most part.

Build Quality: Looks good to me, feels solid, keyboard is nice to type
on.

Connectivity: not lightening fast but faster than my 9700 OS 6.0.0.615. The call quality was pretty good but I really think it was better on my 9700 to be honest.

Specs: not all that qualified to comment, but yes I've had the spinning clock and a couple of times it has frozen so I shut the phone off. Started to get a sinking feeling.

BB 7.0 : I was impressed when I downloaded 6.0.0.615 onto my 9700 so I really expected more from the OS 7 than I've seen so far.

Camera: It's okay but if I really want a nice picture I'll use my trusty Cannon.

Battery life: Better today than the last couple of days (I've had it for 5 days now)

Overall impressions: Best BlackBerry ever? Well it is the newest right? and it has the greatest keyboard yet on a BlackBerry. I do think that with future OS 7 upgrades and some compatible themes and apps this will be one heck of nice smartphone. Grade: 7.5 to 8.0

Originally Posted by BGK

BB 7.0 : I was impressed when I downloaded 6.0.0.615 onto my 9700 so I really expected more from the OS 7 than I've seen so far

I'm not sure if everyone realizes this, but you know the whole "liquid graphics" and how everything works faster? That's OS7. Sure the hardware is upgraded, but if the software wasn't upgraded to take advantage of the hardware, you wouldn't even notice it was there. (i.e. You can't put OS6 on your 9930 and expect it to run like OS7)