Alright, so here's the story: as reported in previous posts, I had been using an iPhone with Skype and thus paying diddly-squat for service. I liked it, and it worked for me since I have wifi wherever I go. Then, after using it for a very short while, the wifi broke leaving me out in the cold. Why did the wifi break? Don't know. I speculate that it's because iPhones are pieces of trash and, like most things made nowadays, aren't made to last for more than the attention span of an eight year old. Anyway, it broke, and was therefore basically bricked for me. I tried restoration, updating, blah blah, and multiple times, but it never worked for more than a minute or so at a stretch.

You can see what the thing looks like, and I'll just say that I find the Bold to be very, very handsome and comfortable. I like the physical design better than my iPhone. The operating system (5.+) is also attractive, although the video doesn't really show it off.

The hardware is also mentioned in the video. As compared to the iPhone 3G, the processor speed is comparable, the amount of app flash memory is double (256 as compared to 128 on the 3G), and the flash storage for data/video/whatever is potentially more. My 3G had an 8gb capacity, and the Bold 9700 actually uses a removable microSD card, so you can have as much as you want to pay for. The Bold came with a 2gb card when I bought it, and I then upgraded to a 16gb for $30 bucks or so. I like both the removable storage, and the larger amount of app memory. The Bold has a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash, as compared to the 3 megapixel camera of the iPhone 3G. Both can do video, although the 3G required jailbreaking for that.

The interface of the Bold is much different from what I was used to with the iPhone. I could've gone with something like the Blackberry Storm, which uses a touch screen, but I though I'd try a change of pace. So, the two biggest things? Trackpad and QWERTY keypad. After having used the thing for several weeks now, I must say that I like having a distinct keypad, and, while I wouldn't say I prefer a trackpad to a touchscreen, it is a VERY usable interface. These things, I would imagine, are always going to come down to personal preference.

Enough of hardware. How is the software? One of the things that sold me was how attractive I thought the OS was. It's easy to use, and with some customization, you can make the homescreen very pretty. I also originally thought that a plus for getting something like a Blackberry is that maybe the thing would be more stable than iPhone OS. No bugs, lockups, or other irritants. WRONG. Whatever. I had nothing to base that on anyway, but I've had numerous problems that says Blackberry is no better than iPhone in how much it locks, glitches, etc.

What about what comes on the phone out of the box? iPhone definitely wins on this one. A new iPhone has minimal stuff on it, and you make it your own. My Bold came with all kinds of stupid applications that I spent a week clearing out. Facebook standard? Twitter? Forget that. One of the things that really annoyed me was that a lot of the stuff that comes by default doesn't show up under the menu-based application removal option. The only reason I could come up with for this is that many of these applications are nothing but launchers; they are easily hidden from view via the menu, but there's nothing there for you to uninstall. For those of us OCD types, just knowing that garbage is in there somewhere, even if it doesn't take up any space to speak of annoys us. Anyway, most of the unwanted applications on there I had to clean out. BIG minus on that one. The only saving grace might be the inclusion of office software (word, ppt, spreadsheet), which is nice. You have to pay for that on an iPhone.

So how about adding apps? There's no Apple app store, obviously, but there is a Blackberry app store that has most of the things I liked to use (although it pales in comparison to what is available on an iPhone). The biggest one is Pandora. Must-have. A plus for the Blackberry is that things like Pandora can run in the background with no trouble, no jailbreaking, or any of that nonsense. Some of the other apps I've found useful include: Poynt, an all-in-one map/movie time/directions/directory-type thing that's great; something called Bones in Motion, which tracks my runs and logs distances and such for me but is the most hideously ugly app I've ever seen; I've been trying something called Viigo, which is an RSS aggregator. I've got some other miscellany like weather, Evernote, dictionary, eBay, Google, and whatnot. These are all free apps, and there are paid apps available too. I just haven't tried any of them.

One terrible, terrible thing is that, in stark contrast to the iPhone, which you have to jailbreak to background 3rd party apps, the Bold backgrounds WAAAAAYYYYY too much. If you aren't careful, you can wind up with twenty stupid ass things running in the background. The OS doesn't make it simple for you to close down things when you're done, and this is, I think, the biggest error RIM has made with the Bold 9700. It's so bad that I've bogged the phone down to the point of almost locking myself out. You've got to be real careful. I get very tired of navigating a menu to hit "close" and "close" and "close" fifty thousand times just to get something to go away.

The browsing experience on the Bold was an important question for me, and brings up another example of the Bold being loaded with inexplicable stuff when you get it. It came with two separate browsers, one apparently from RIM and the other from AT&T. I don't know what the difference is, but neither one of them is all that flattering. I've been using Opera Mobile, which I like except for a distasteful choppiness to the navigation. I think the Blackberry supports some flash, but I only really care about YouTube, and that works okay, although there are differences I've noticed between the three browsers. I've also noticed that some of them don't seem to work when I'm on wifi; they just keep on using 3G. As compared to the iPhone, I would say that the browsing experience just isn't nearly as satisfying, and that's due in part to the confusion of figuring out what browser does what best.

The single biggest plus for the Blackberry Bold, for me, is that connecting it to my computer is easy. Once hooked up via a microUSB, it automatically asks you if you want it to enter a mass storage mode. Ubuntu then detects it with no problems, and any file transfer is just a matter of drag and drop. Take that, iPhone. I'm watching movies (.avi created with AcidRip), listening to my CDs, and loving every bit of it. My microSD card also gives me plenty of space.

There are a few other details, such as the GPS which I can say works (although the AT&T maps aren't that good; Google maps is way better). The phone per se I don't have anything to say on, save that the phone makes and receives calls in a way that has yet to bother me. The amazing battery life mentioned in the video I haven't really noticed since I use Pandora pretty heavily and don't really use the standby mode very much. I still charge it nightly just like my iPhone.

To wrap this up, I like the phone but not as much as I'd hoped. The frequent problems when I'm listening to music where it locks up, the garbage apps, and the overkill on backgrounding things are all pretty big minuses. I'm blase about the browsing experience. The big plus is how well it works with my laptop, and the subsequent media-related benefits I'm reaping. The screen, while obviously smaller than what you get with an iPhone, is still pretty great. I watch movies on it without trouble. I'd say it's a push for me on apps, since I'm not a big user. I miss having Dropbox on my phone, although that is supposed to be resolved for Blackberry and Android users this summer. On the other hand, I like how the phone integrates with my Gmail account and pushes incoming email, but that's not a big leap from what I had on my crippled iPhone.

If you're somebody who's looking to choose between the big three, that is Android, iPhone, and Blackberry, I think the field is still pretty wide open. I haven't had much experience with Android, but the people I know who use it say it's the best. The people I know who use iPhone say it's the best. And people love their Crackberry. Having tested both the iPhone 3G and Blackberry Bold 9700, I give the edge to the Bold even if only because the iPhone broke down for no apparent reason and I'm a grudge holder. On the other hand, when I first got my iPhone, it was like a revelation; I don't feel that way about the Bold 9700, even though they more-or-less mash up in functionality. I think RIM could do better with the same hardware and a couple of tweaks to the OS. The potential is there, but I'm not a complete convert just yet.

I hope to put up a review of the HTC Evo 4G soon, if I can convince my brother to write up his opinion on it. Stay tooned.

My first reaction was to go buy a 3rd gen iPod touch, but that would've meant spending $300 only to listen to my wife continue to complain about my novel solution to the outrageous service packages AT&T sells. So, like an idiot I went and paid for a phone and an outrageous service package from AT&T. She's happy, and I'm reviewing a new phone.

Said phone is the Blackberry Bold 9700. Here's an overview:

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License and is derived from Blackberry Bold 9700 Review.