When comparing the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 with its predecessors, we noticed how much this model was improved in terms of processor, operating system, security, camera and many more specifications. For years Blackberry has been among the top-notch smartphones and the one we’re reviewing today is one of the most appealing out there. We gave it a try for a few days. Here is what we found when we’ve performed the test for this review. Superb sharpness
One of the most important things to consider when buying a phone is its exterior, after which we take into account overall performance. As far as design goes, the BlackBerry 9900 is a bit similar to other models manufactured by the same team. But, compared to them, this one is broader and larger with its 115mm x 66mm x 10.5mm. The 130g it ships with don’t make it one of the lightest ones today, but it’s still lighter than many others.The front is made of a high-gloss TFT capacitive touchscreen offering 640 x 480 pixels and 16 million colors. The sharpness it delivered was superb; text looked very good, the black text on white background was gorgeous and whites were truly whites.
Good viewing angles
We loved how responsive the touchscreen was when we tested the product for this review; when we didn’t want to use it, we just pressed the also responsive trackpad and everything worked swell. We didn’t have problems when looking at the display in direct sunlight; viewing angles were good. A brushed metal border surrounds the display and the back is made of glass and matte plastic. What we especially liked about the design was the ease with which we opened the cover on the rear so as to throw the SIM and memory cards inside. On the right of the device we saw volume, pause media and camera shortcut buttons; the ports and one headphone slot are placed on the left. The lock key sits comfortably on top of the smartphone.OS 7 Operating system
Regarding processor matters, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is preinstalled with a 1.2GHz one which includes 768MB of RAM. In the internal memory department, there are 8GB and microSD cards that can extend that up to 32GB. Storage is 512MB. As for operating system, the Bold 9900 comes with the latest OS 7, which isn’t that big of a deal; navigation was its strong point, because it was fast and slick, although not 100% of the time. We also had some issues with finger tracking.The 5-megapixel camera of BlackBerry 9900 did a pretty fine job thanks to its geo-tagging, LED flash, face detection and many other options. It also made it possible to shoot videos, which looked decent.
Audio quality provided by Bold 9900 was very good, as was that of the speakerphone.
The battery of this device doesn’t have a long life; we had to charge it every night, which was quite a disappointment.
Low battery life
The applications stored on this smartphone are Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, the usual calendar / contacts / e-mail and so on, but there is no eBay, Kindle, Skype and many others. In terms of browser, things look much better; pages loaded really fast and we were given the possibility to double tap zoom and pinch zoom when online. Another advantage of the improved web browser: we could open multiple tabs when surfing the Internet and leave them open.Audio quality provided by Bold 9900 was very good, as was that of the speakerphone.
The battery of this device doesn’t have a long life; we had to charge it every night, which was quite a disappointment.
Test and review conclusions
It is safe to assume that the latest BlackBerry Bold 9900 is a smartphone you can lean on. The test and review conclusion is simple. Its general performance is good, the touchscreen is a joy and call quality is great.Technical specifications and features
| Phone type | Smartphone |
| Data Transfer | 2G – EDGE , 2G – GPRS , 3G – HSDPA |
| Operating frequencies | GSM 1800, GSM 1900, GSM 850, GSM 900, UMTS 1700, UMTS 2100, UMTS 900 |
| Screen Size | 2.8 inches |
| Touchscreen | yes |
| Screen | 24-bit color display touch screen resolution 640 x 480 pixels – 287 dpi |
| Messaging | E-mail, MMS, SMS |
| Color Display | yes |
| RAM Size | 768 MB |
| ROM size | 8 GB |
| Memory | 768 MB |
| Expandable memory | yes |
| Type flash memory | microSD (micro Secure Digital) |
| Resolution | 5 Megapixels |
| Photo Mode | yes |
| Flash / Torch | yes |
| MP3 Player | yes |
| HD Video | yes |
| Video player | yes |
| Supported video formats | 3GP, ASF, AVI, H.263, M4V, MPEG4, WMV |
| Format (s) supported audio | ASF, FLAC, MIDI, OGG Vorbis, WAV, AAC, eAAC +, AMR, M4A, MP3, MP4, WMA |
| Polyphonic Ringtone | yes |
| GPS | yes |
| Standard (s) wireless network | B Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b), Wi-Fi G (IEEE 802.11b), Wi-Fi N 300 Mbps (IEEE 802.11n) |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 2.1 |
| Connector (s) available (s) | 1x Headphone (3.5mm Female), micro-USB |
| Full keyboard | yes |
| Operating System | BlackBerry OS 7 |
| Processor | QC 8655 1.2 GHz |
| Talk | 6.5 Hour (s) |
| Standby | 307 Time (s) |
| Battery capacity | 1230 mAh |
| Width | 66 mm |
| Height | 115 mm |
| Thickness | 10.5 mm |
| Weight | 130 g |
| SAR | 1.11 W / kg |