Thread: BlackBerry Bold 9780

BlackBerry os 6 comes to Bold, with redeSigned icons and five home screens accessible via the strip at the bottom of the 3.2-inch screen. It lacks the level of customisation of Android but it's a step in the right direction. Social Feeds BlackBerry's version of Friend Stream, aggregates your Facebook, Twitter, AIM, BlackBerry Messenger and Coogle Talk accounts very well and the QWERTY keyboard makes typing updates a speedy task. Despite being powered by a 624MHz processor the Bold never feels slow, perhaps because the smaller screen and absence of touch interfacing lowers both expectations and power requirements.

The content-rich T3 loads creditably fast, but the p*inch, 480X360 screen is too small and too low-res for anything other than a quick YouTube view. The lack of a touchscreen also means the battery will last well in to its second day of use and once you become familiar with using the square, touch-sensitive trackpad, navigating pages is reasonably easy. The tabbed browser makes swapping between pages less of a chore than on the iPhone too. The five-megapixel camera produces washed out shots that are weak in detail.



Video is just 640480. In other multimedia news, you get a basic music player with surprisingly decent sound quality and 12 presets for headphones. However, the Bold does the old-skool basics of mobile phoning very well. Reception quality is good, messaging of all kinds, and particularly email, is excellent. The low cost and added social networking talents that come with OS 6 mean this will continue to find favour among young trendsetters as well as business users, even if some others find it all a bit old hat.