First three days with the Blackberry Bold
November 2 2008
As with any technology life-cycle, it's almost a given that my upgrade from Blackberry Pearl to BlackBerry Bold would be a significant improvement. The Bold is now the 11th "cell phone" I've owned in the last 16 years (if I am counting right), so it's a long long way from the bag phone or that first GE with 30 minutes' battery. Here's my observations from the first few days with the Bold:
- Gadget lust. I was surprised by this one -- I was at a homeowner's meeting yesterday morning, and one of my neighbors saw me take out the phone and got all excited and jumpy. "Is that a Bold?" he asked breathlessly. "How did you get one already?" It is certainly a cool looking device, and the display is especially wonderful. You can read the phone from quite a distance, with a very clear, sharp default font and what appears to be stronger backlight than the Pearl. In short, it almost feels easier to read the phone's display than this laptop computer.
- Battery life. Comments on my earlier post indicated that it was highly variable. I set up the phone to use my in-home wifi and left 3G intact. I got a good 36 hours of use out of the very first charge, and it was not entirely drained when I plugged in last night. I was certainly using a bunch of the features in that time, so that seems well within reason to me.
- Size. It's certainly bigger than the Pearl, and I don't yet have a protective case for the Bold, so I'm wearing it in the holster for right now. This is an untenable long-term position -- my wife/fashion police officer has banned the wearing of cell phones within 50 feet of this household. I'm just wondering what it will be like as a front pocket accessory...it is big. But, while it looks very big, size-wize it's hardly different from the Apple iPhone. As with other recent Blackberry devices, the holster has some nice features, in that the phone will come out of standby when you take it out of the holster, ready to use, and the ring tones etc. can be different. But I also find I cannot remove the phone from the holster without pressing the volume button, which shuts off the ring tone. Maybe that's "as-designed".
- Operating system. All familiar from the last 21 months of being a Blackberry user, but with some nice enhancements. The Pearl lumped your SMSs in the same "inbox" with your e-mail...the Bold separates them. The trackball is 100x more useful as it is a precise navigator rather than a four-direction type of tool (especially useful when browsing). The web browser is now about 90% of the way there -- full rich rendering, support for more embedded technologies. As if I needed a more pervasive way to be connected to the political blogs in the remaining 60 hours of this election cycle :)
- Adjustments. The main adjustments I'm having to make are to the full-sized keyboard (this is pretty easy) and to the lack of or changed keyboard shortcuts (this is not as easy). The trackball in my Pearl was often rendered useless by dirt/dust/finicky behavior, so I got very good at using the 8 and 2 keys to navigate. I haven't quite found the equivalents other than the spacebar on the Bold. I know -- RTFM. Also the Enterprise Activation is stuck at 99%, and has been for days -- no idea how to fix it and afraid to disturb it.
- 3G and wifi. The load time for web pages is significantly improved, though there is still an occasional annoying delay before a page starts loading (especially, for whatever reason, from the bookmarks). 3G is super-fast, seems faster on this phone than my wife's iPhone, and will make a big difference in the utility of this as a mobile device.
Bottom line initial routine use result: Success, and a hugely awesome wonderful upgrade for RIM. Something else for many Americans to look forward to on November 4!
Post a Comment
- 2
Kevin Pettitt http://www.lotusguru.com | 11/2/2008 12:00:36 PM
What happened to the Blackberry "Storm" - the one with the "clickable" touchscreen. I thought that was supposed to be coming iminently to a Verizon dealer near you, and I had even seen speculation on November 4th. That would seem a much better upgrade.
- 3
Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 11/2/2008 12:36:26 PM
Check out p and n for previous and next to thumb through your messages, u to only view unread messages.
- 4
Gavin Bollard http://dominogavin.blogspot.com/ | 11/2/2008 2:41:15 PM
Actually, I've noticed that the Battery life on the bold isn't quite as good as it was on the pearl.
I don't like my SMSes being outside of my inbox. Sometimes the phone makes a tone and I had to go hunting to work out which application got a message. Now I've rearranged everything so that my front six icons are Mail, Gmail, Address Book, Calendar, SMS and lock (this means that they all stay on the front screen).
The GPS is a vast improvement over the pearl - and I noticed that Google Maps on Blackberry now has the street view.
The Camera is awful - not really much good for anything. I did take a picture and upload it direct to facebook but the quality was not good.
The Multimedia is better and worse. Much better for listening to mixed songs but terrible for listening to AudioBooks where everything has to be played in strict order. I ended up having to load xPlayer back on to get them.
Overall though, now that I'm used to the phone, it's pretty good.
- 5
Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 11/2/2008 2:48:13 PM
Aaaargggh, this isn't fair. I want one. I'm going to have to drop slightly bigger hints to my RIM contacts.
Actually, I will have one temporarily, we're doing an event with RIM in London on 25th November and I'll have the use of one to set up beforehand and demo on the day. I should then give it back... but they'll have to catch me first.
- 6
Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 11/2/2008 2:49:17 PM
By the way, if anyone from RIM is reading this, my 8800 is so 2007 and it doesn't do any good for customers to see me with it ;o)
- 7
Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 11/2/2008 4:10:58 PM
@2 to each their own a bit... I haven't seen a Storm yet but I selected the Bold simply because I am not on Verizon (== exclusive provider for Storm). I'm pretty happy with this choice.
- 8
Eric Mack http://www.NotesOnProductivity.com | 11/2/2008 6:24:33 PM
We recently surveyed our eProductivity user base and found that > 50% of them used BB as their Mobile Notes platform. Then then led to the discovery of several 3rd party utilities that make managing tasks on BB easy. Anyway, I'm curious to know if you use your BB for task management when you are on the go..
Thanks for posting these updates. I'm in the queue for a BB Bold as a result.
Eric
- 9
Lincoln | 11/2/2008 6:54:19 PM
Hi Ed,
Just like to take this opportunity to say that I read your blog as often as I can and it is a great source of information for me as a Lotus Notes administrator. I am also the Blackberry administrator and think you should look into the activation being stuck on 99%. As the admin I usually get the client to restart the Blackberry (easiest way is to take the battery out) and complete a new activation. You will need to obtain a new enterprise activation password for this. Hope this helps and keep up the good fight.
- 10
Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 11/2/2008 8:51:58 PM
@8 No, but maybe an opportunity as I grow into managing my team's projects.
@9 I did end up taking the battery out earlier today and the activation issue seems to have cleared up. Everything is working so thankfully didn't need a new password.
What's interesting about the battery removal is that I did it because I mistakenly assumed that, like the Pearl, the slot for a MicroSD card was inside. It's not. In the Bold, it's a side slot more like how a digital camera works. No battery removal required. Very nice design.
- 11
Lewis Turek | 11/3/2008 1:56:35 AM
"The Pearl lumped your SMSs in the same "inbox" with your e-mail...the Bold separates them."
On the Pearl and Curve, from the Inbox...
Menu
Options
General Options
SMS and Email Inboxes: Separate
:-)
- 12
Scott Vrusho | 11/3/2008 7:57:53 AM
@11 - ...and if you don't see that choice on the Pearl, you just need to upgrade the device software.
- 13
Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 11/3/2008 2:33:44 PM
99% usually means you have a ton of contacts coming OTA. As mentioned, pop the battery and see if that works.
Don't forget the "t" and "b" shortcuts in the inbox. Ever wonder why you end up at the bottom of all your emails? You hit the "b" key.
Also, the Pearl could separate the SMS:
go to the mail, options, general options, SMS and email messages, change to "separate"
- 14
Tim Washer http://www.timwasher.com | 11/3/2008 3:56:15 PM
Ed - @adamclyde sent me this on the 8900: { Link } I think I'll go Bold. Thanks for the info. Next time you're in town, let's go back for some BBQ.
Congrats on the promotion, btw.
- 15
Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 11/3/2008 4:04:45 PM
@14 Tim, good to hear from you -- thanks! "Q" is definitely on my list when next visiting the HPN area -- look forward to seeing you there!
- 16
M Bonds | 11/24/2008 9:19:16 PM
I can't find the phone options. I love the Bold, but need to find the phone options. I go to options, but there are no general options....
Some AT&T stores seem to be selling them today and some tomorrow ... I can't find any pattern to it, but I found a store in Champaign, IL selling them today :-) I can not wait to move to the Bold ...