BlackBerry Bold 9700 (T-Mobile)

RIM’s flagship Bold 9700 (a.k.a. Bold 2) follows in the footsteps of the original premium BlackBerry Bold on AT&T and features a slimmer design, better camera, and both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. Plus, unlike the AT&T version of this smart phone, the T-Mobile 9700 ($199 with two-year contract) lets you make unlimited calls over Wi-Fi. The browser leaves a lot to be desired, but if you want a powerful messaging device with a great keyboard, this is as good as it gets.

Design

The first Bold was powerful, but its design felt bloated, especially for those with smaller hands. The 9700 is significantly narrower and a bit shorter than the original, measuring 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches compared to the Bold 9000’s rather chunky 4.5 x 2.6 x 0.6-inch build. It’s also a much lighter 4.3 ounces, compared to 4.8 ounces. With a chrome border and a svelte polished black face with chrome accents, the Bold 9700 retains its predecessor’s executive-chic look and feel. We also like the soft-touch battery cover on the back, which is made to look like leather.

The Bold 9700’s 2.4-inch display is the same 480 x 360 resolution as the Tour, and is a slight improvement over the 480 x 320 resolution on the first Bold’s slightly larger 2.6-inch LCD. It also has the new optical trackpad, a feature RIM originally built into the Curve 8520 on T-Mobile. The trackpad is a major improvement over the former trackball technology; it allows for accurate scrolling and doesn’t get clogged with dust or grime. The optical pad is flanked to the left by the standard Berry and Send keys, and on the right are Return key and End keys.

The Bold 9700 mimics some of the design cues from the Tour, like the lock and silence soft buttons on the top surface. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left side of the phone, a microUSB charging port, and a quick launch button for voice dialing. On the right side of the Bold 9700 are two raised volume buttons and a camera quick launch button. All of these buttons are easy to find without looking.

Keyboard

The keyboard on the Bold 9700 is nearly identical to the Tour’s. That is to say it is smaller than the original Bold’s, but larger than the Curve’s. There are three rows separated by chrome frets. While the keys aren’t spaced as far apart as they are on the Curve, the raised edges make for fast and comfortable typing. Just keep in mind that the 9700’s narrower design means that the keys aren’t nearly as large as on the original; Bold 9000 owners on AT&T may want to think twice about upgrading, assuming they can live with the extra bulk.

User Interface and OS 5.0

The Bold 9700 runs the latest BlackBerry OS (version 5.0), which presents a clean but plain icon-based menu system. On the home screen you can switch around the top six icons that you want to access most often, but that’s about as deep as the customization goes, aside from changing the wallpaper. The main menu of applications looks sharp, and each icon glows a bit as you hover over it. Thanks to the 9700’s zippy 624-MHz processor, we didn’t experience much lag while moving around applications.

Some of the new features in OS 5.0 that consumers will appreciate include improved site rendering in the Web browser, speed improvements, and threaded SMS conversations. In the future this OS will support BlackBerry widgets. Corporate BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 users will notice the added ability to access remote files, flag e-mails, and manage folders. You can also forward appointments and view calendar attachments.