One month with the Bold

Well, one month ago, I got the newest ‘berry and after making sure that UPS would keep it at the depot so I could pick it up in the morning before I came into work, I posted a quick “first impression”. Now one month later it seems right to update the impression into a review of the pros and cons of the device.

First the cons:

1. The convienience key that is det by default to voice dialling is way too sensiitive
2. If you get trapped in Voice Dialing, you may have to do a hard reset to get the device running again
3. On occasion, the device will seemingly run out of memory and you’ll get the “Propeller of Pain”, requiring another hard reset (pull the battery while the device is powered on fyi)
4. There is a relatively small attachment size limit (about 2mb) for emailing, making it difficult to send videos longer than 30 seconds over email

The pros:

1. Fast, fast, fast – browser is fast, bluetooth is fast, email is fast, OS (save the PoP) is fast
2. Great screen and speakers, making it a handy little piece of kit to show off some videos or songs for the family
3. Captures video
4. Decent size overall
5. Speedy keyboard
6. Good battery life (I can get 2 days of my mid level use – 30 messages in/20 out, 20 min gaming, 20 min calling 20 min browsing – with one charge, though I haven’t left it overnight and now the battery seems to have been well conditioned so I’m getting better times)
7. OTA installs for a decent number of apps
8. System wide copy/paste
9. GPS is fast and accurate

So with these two quickly done lists, I think I have made the right choice over the iPhone – though I wish I had a nickle for everyone who says… Blackberry? I thought you would be an iPhone guy! I was originally worried that I would not have very many apps to choose from, but it seems that with the arrival of the Curve just over a year ago, the development community for the BB OS has started to grow quite a bit and I have a number of free apps that have made my device suit just about all my needs. And that last point seems to be what differentiates the ‘berry and the iPhone for me. The ‘berry is a true communication tool – you can find me on just about any Messenger (other than AIM, which seems to be network restricted) and over Mail and Facebook with ease and I can contact others the same way. Of the iPhone users that I know, most are using their device for games and surfing, even though the device is also capable of the same connectivity that the ‘berry is.

Incase you are wondering, here are the apps that I have installed (all free):

• Facebook
• Windows Messenger
• Google Messenger
• GPSed (GPS app)
• Google Maps (w/ streetview)
• Weathereye
• Opera Mini (barely used now)
• Twitterberry (largely as a backup to Ping.fm and slandr on the borwser)
• gMail (to tidy up the mail box)
• Jotspot (mo-blogging)
• Flickr
• Google Sync
• VNC