BlackBerry Bold 9650 smartphone

I just recently purchased a LG Cosmos phone. I love the phone and now I'm looking to upgrade. I have phone envy. My friend has the Blackberry 9650 SmartPhone. He raves about the phone. I decided I had to check it out. Here's what I found...

Core Features:

• Blackberry 5.0 Desktop Software
• Integrated Phone, Email, Browser, Calendar, Address Book, & Organizer
• BlackBerry Enterprise & Internet Services that allow email interfaces including Blackberry to Blackberry email communications
• HiRes HVGS Display 2.45" color TFT LCD Display
• QUERTY Keyboard w/trackpad
• 3.2 MP Camera w/flash, auto focus and video capture
• Media Player - video, music, games
• Hands free speaker phone, Bluetooth & Push to talk
  
• 802.11 B/G Wi-Fi Capable
• VZ Navigator, Skype, VCAST capable
  

Configuration

The Blackberry Bold 9650 Smartphone is an all purpose business communication tool. From what I can tell, though it does have utilities and capabilities for media and entertainment, it's chief purpose is a business communications. The desktop software, connectivity tools, navigation interface (QUERTY Keyboard and trackpad) all work to quickly and efficiently communicate.

It appears that Blackberry users can quickly adapt to most all the features and navigate the desktop in short order. For us newbies, the desktop looks to be fairly intuitive. That probably means if you haven't had a Blackberry you will take a couple of days to familiarize yourself with the major features you need to use your primary modes of communications.

For many of the functions and applications that will make this device a virtual appendage to your body, it will likely take some investigation or assistance from a knowledgeable user. Fear not, the numbers of applications and feature set for this device is rich and well established. This means there is probably a tool for you and it probably works well.

Sound - I saw only 2 complaints about the phone sound quality. Out of 160 reviews, that suggest that maybe it was a operator issue or something that needs to be addressed via a return of the product. As far as the media player, only raves reviews.

Media - With a 3.2MPix camera that includes both video and flash, the unit is a capable media capture unit for even the casual user.

Pro's:

WiFi- This seems to be a big winner with lots of folks. Mostly people who are using their phones for Business will find this tool quite useful when you need access to data and don't want to use data package. In other words, if you use WiFi while at home or in the office there are no additional charges!

Instant Messaging - This feature includes Email, Push Email, SMS, MMS, IM. This host of messaging tools allows users to quick connect via keyed messaging without making a call. Sometimes all you want to do is just send a note. Almost anyone's favorite method is available on this unit.

Operating System - The BlackBerry 5.0 Operating System, includes familiar pc utilities like an HTML browser, Map & Navigation utilities, Media Player to play WMA/MP3/MP4/WMV files , document reader and editor for documents like word, excel, etc.

Memory & Expansion Slot - The unit comes standard with 512MB of application memory. That's pretty large in this marketplace. That means lots of apps. Unit includes 2GB microSD card with expansion support for up to 16GB. That's hours of music, lots of data and documents.

Cons:

Battery Life - This was a big deal but it is with most smart phones. They do more than place calls and text. There is heavy duty computing going on and it uses both CPU and Memory to run the operating system. That uses power.

It was however pretty universal that battery life was noticeably less than sufficient for many users. One page I saw had 160 reviews and 57 mentioned needing a better battery. In looking at the specs for the battery the 9650 comes standard with a 1400 mAHR battery. For comparison, my Cosmos has a 950mAHR battery. I am not a heavy Internet or text user so I get about 2-3 days out of my battery. My wife gets about a day and she's a much heavier user. I suspect that if we switched to the 9650, we'd be upgrading the battery. If you are a heavy phone user, you may want to consider this issue as well.

Key Size - The next biggest issue that came up was the size of the keys. People complained that they were smaller than their previous Blackberries. Most did admit that they just needed to get used to the smaller keys so it was almost an irritation more than a complaint. It was mentioned on 19 of 160 reviews.

Operating System - Again, this was a small minority but it did come up in 12 or 160 reviews. Probably just a small minority of users who prefer the Microsoft interface or some other OS. I don't see this as a big hurdle for me because I'd be a new user...whichever OS it had.

Charging Jack Placement - This might be the biggest surprise. Not because it showed up but the number of times 9/160. I can understand people not liking the operating system but complaining about where the charger plugs in is another thing. Again, I take this as more of an annoyance than a problem per se.

Conclusions:

I am a interested in this unit for business and sales reasons. This would seem a perfect fit for me. I suspect I wouldn't use many of the media/game features but I could see where it may be useful to have them available to some. I will probably take heed of the battery issue and upgrade my battery. So if you are looking for a terrific business tool, then it appears the Blackberry Bold 9650 SmartPhone might be good for the both of us!