I bought my Blackberry Bold 9700 on February 26th 2010 and I have been thinking about writing a review as soon as I bought the phone. But I thought it was better to be patient, use the product and right now I think that I am in a good position to write a neutral review.
The product out of the box looks amazing. If you upgrading from Bold 9000, you would certainly feel that the design is sleeker and compact that Bold 9000. The resolution on the screen is amazing and it is a treat to watch HD Videos on Youtube if you have Wi-Fi network nearby.
The most important thing that we do with a Blackberry is message and that aspect certainly meets my expecatations. There is a problem with the SMS. At times it would take you to the last read SMS and then you have to manually select next item in order to get the unopened SMS. There are also some Javascript Errors which comes with the SMS but then that can be resolved with a hard reset. Syncing of contacts and messages with Outlook works fine and I have faced no issues till date.
Most of the applications work fine like Facebook, Twitter and all the phone enhancement tools. Even though we are in an EDGE Network a Blackberry Internet Service (Data Connection) is a must to harness the full powers of the phone.
The headset jack is 3.5 mm and the headsets are quite like the ones that company the Sony Walkmans. The audio quality is amazing. It is a delight listening to music. I have compared the results with iPod and Philips MP3 player that I have and the results are amazing and maybe at times if you are listening to rock music the results are better on Bold 9700.
I have also used the camera which is 3.2 MP, a certain upgrade from Bold 9000, which had a camera of 2.0 MP. The camera’s performance is up to the mark but nothing great. Actually I don’t believe in using a mobile phone for shooting great photos as it is a handy tool which should be used for emergencies. But Bold 9700 has a distinct disadvantage of shooting at night as the flash strength is not good enough. Shooting Videos is also not a very good experience in comparison to Nokia N97 or Nokia N900.
When I visited the US I have used the Blackberry Maps and they work fine on a 3G Network. Performance is excellent. However, in India where we are still using EDGE, the maximum we can use is Google Maps and the performace is just about okay. However, that is not a negative of the Bold 9700 and the fault is of our backward technology. I have only faced disappointment with the battery. Though they have given a 15 mAH battery but still I have to recharge the phone every three days even though when I am not watching videos, playing audios or even browsing. I also feel that paying Rs. 30000/- for this phone is a bit expensive. If it was Rs. 5000/- cheaper I would have considered it real value for money.
I hope this review is helpful and you can make an informed decision if you are planning to purchase this amazing phone.