Liza Lambert

The new Blackberry Bold 2 is not a revolutionary update to the original Bold 9000, but the new model improves on the original with significant refinements that will make T-Mobile BlackBerry users very happy, especially since it’s the first Blackberry to support their 3G network. What is really nice about the Bold this time around is that both AT&T and T-Mobile are getting it at the same time, there are no exclusives. Thank goodness! We’re so sick of carriers getting exclusives over one another, and if AT&T got one more great smartphone exclusive we just couldn’t bare it.

The Bold 9700 has a slimmed down size and formfactor compared to the original. The Bold 9700 measures 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches in comparison to the original Bold’s 4.5 x 2.6 x 0.6-inch measurements. During its time off, the device has also dropped .5 ounces and weighs 4.3 ounces compared to the Bold 9000’s 4.8 ounces. The build quality of the Bold 9700 feels very good. Its new form-factor also seems more slick and refined, and even less masculine. The infamous leather finish on the back of the Bold is still there and is still a really nice touch.

Gone is the trackball from the original Bold 9000, in its place is a new optical trackpad which was first used on T-Mobile’s Curve 8520. The optical trackpad took some getting used too; especially after having been accustomed to using the the trackball on my Curve 8900 but I really – really like it. It makes operating the device and menus much less strenuous. You really reap the benefits of the optical trackpad when viewing web sites, since its now much easier to move around in all different directions without tediously rolling a trackball under your thumb. The trackball was also notorious for breaking, so now there is one less hardware issue to worry about.

The device has a 480 x 360 resolution compared to the Bold’s original 2.6″ 480×320 resolution. Overall, the Bold 9700’s display is excellent, and very colorful, making video playback very pleasant as well as viewing photos.

Like the previous Bold, the 9700 is a decent multimedia machine. Videos playback nicely and audio sounds good on the 3.5mm headphone jack. The device supports MP3, WMA, AAC, And OGG music files, as well as MP4, DIVX and WMV file support to 640×480 in resolution.

Summary

There is a 2GB microSD card included to get you started on saving docs. Unfortunately even the mobile version of YouTube doesn’t work to well with the BlackBerry’s browser even when connected via Wi-Fi. If you’re looking for video entertainment on the go, the PrimeTime2Go video app for $9.99 a month will give you access to many popular TV shows like Heroes and CSI, but only over Wi-Fi. There are also other great apps like Slacker which works great for with the BlackBerry when you want to listen to music on the go.