BlackBerry 9900 Bold Touch review and specs

September 12, 2011

On 7 September 2011, Vodacom and Research in Motion (RIM) announced the launch of the latest BlackBerry smartphone in South Africa – the BlackBerry 9900 Bold Touch.  BlackBerry has upped their game in their struggle to compete with devices running iOS and Android with the Bold Touch 9900. The Bold Touch 9900 features a brand new operating system, faster speeds and a high resolution touch-screen making the device one of the best in the BlackBerry warehouse.

Size

The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 is a superb piece of engineering and without a doubt the best-looking BlackBerry ever released. With dimensions of 115 x 66 x 10.5mm and 130g and a weight of 130g, the Bold Touch 9900 is the thinnest BlackBerry to date.

Design

The BlackBerry Touch is black with an aluminium bezel. A solid strip of the brushed metal encircles the perimemter of the front half of the phone adding a pleasing aesthetic touch. 

HD video-recording

The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 is one of the first RIM devices to come with HD video recording. It is capable of shooting videos at 30fps (frames per second) and the LED can be used to enhance video lighting.

Keypad 

The BlackBerry 9900 Bold Touch features the original BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard. However, its structure is wider than that of the 9700 and 9780 with slightly larger keys on the keyboard. The keys also feature a slightly raised and curved design with chrome bars dividing the rows of buttons. These welcome improvements make for greater speed and ease while typing. The 9900 Bold Touch also has a touch screen.

Camera and video 

The BlackBerry Touch features a 5mp camera with an LED flash. Camera features include an image stabiliser, face detection, digital zoom and GEO tagging. It also boasts an impressive 720p HD video recorder (1280x720). 

Battery life 

The battery yields 307 hours in standby, 6.5 hours talk time, and 50 hours music playback. Intense use will require charging on a daily basis, which seems to be the norm with smartphones.

Display 

The 9900 Bold Touch sports a 2.8-inch, 640 x 480 resolution capacitive touch display with a pixel density of 285ppi. This results in a crisp, vibrant resolution useful for viewing fine text and webpages. The screen is impressively bright enough to remain visible in direct sunlight. 

Software 

The newest member of the BlackBerry family sports the latest BlackBerry OS 7, and is the first of RIM’s new BlackBerry 7 OS devices to launch locally. The Touch is one of the most powerful phones RIM has produced, boasting a 1.2GHz Qualcomm 8655 processor, 768MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage with a microSD slot that supports up to 32GB of external storage.

View the BlackBerry Bold Touch review below.

Verdict

The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 feels like the beginning of an evolution for BlackBerry. Existing BlackBerry users wanting to upgrade from an older BlackBerry device will definitely appreciate the Bold Touch 9900’s large touchscreen, pumped up processor and the redesigned BlackBerry OS v7.

BlackBerry 9900 Bold Touch deals and specials

updated by Naman Singh

www.dionysuscellular.co.za

BlackBerry 9900 Bold Touch