The Bold 9700 as a phone

As an always-connected smartphone, the Bold can't afford to fail when it comes to calls. Conversations are clear and crisp for both parties, and there's no need to rely on the handsfree kit.

Staying connected to 3G/3G+ networks isn't a problem, and WiFi is also available when you're in an area covered by a hotspot.

It's also worth mentioning the contact handling, which is as powerful as ever. Once you've installed the Facebook app, you can sync your contacts with your Facebook friends, even including photos.

And naturally, the Bold also works as a modem.

Start up times are a lot faster

The biggest surprise on the 9700 definitely comes when you first switch it on.  If you take the battery out of an existing BlackBerry and then start it up, you'll see how long it takes and realise that when you turn it off normally, it's only really hibernating.  There's none of that here though, and RIM's efforts ridicule Nokia by destroying the record startup time of 10 seconds that the Swedish manufacturer's Symbian-based phones boast.  

But what you do realise with this version of the Bold (the 9700) is that it's much easier to hold than the last one (the 9000).

And it's easier to see why: the sides of the phone are no longer made of silver- and chrome-plated plastic, but with the same soft rubber seen on the Curve 8520, meaning the phone certainly won't slip from your hands.  Looking around the outside of the phone, there are actually a lot of little details that have been imported from the Curve.  Indeed, the 9700 looks more like it has been styled as a larger 8520 than a new 9000 (keep up!), and we think it's a good combination of form and function: the new 9700 has a better grip, is smaller and makes for a more refined, luxurious gadget with a more classy look.

The physical buttons are as we'd expect: digital camera and volume on the right, shortcuts and voice commands on the left.  At the top, a feature borrowed from the 9520 (the Storm 2, remember?), the chrome-plated lock is replaced by a soft plastic strip that also allows you to silence the phone, making it easier to use.  It's a shame, however, that the Curve's multimedia controls haven't also made the transition.  Does RIM think that business people never listen to music?

The only traces of leather are found on the back

BlackBerry OS 5.0: nearly there ...

On the Bold 9700, BlackBerry OS reaches version 5.0, a major update that doesn't actually have that much of an effect on the software interface.  Apart from some light retouching of the icons and menus to make them look more modern, there aren't really many changes.  The text-based menus are a little more spaced out, but as a result, less info fits on one screen.  The whole thing is still very responsive, and has nothing to blush about compared to the biggest players. 

Nevertheless, we were still a little disappointed by the vast empty expanse of the home screen.  The top displays a transparent panel with information like the current time, your signal strength and the number of new messages, while at the bottom there's a row of icons representing the first set of options from the menu.  But apart from that, all that's on show in between is your background.  It's a shame, as we would have liked to be able to add widgets with weather, RSS feeds, or stock updates.  No doubt the AppWorld marketplace will allow this one day, but HTC has already developed features like this and it would be wise for RIM to follow suit.

The interface hasn't seen much of an update

As ever with a BlackBerry, you can do a lot to customise this phone--take a look at the settings page for defining ringer profiles and you'll see that it's not the simplest menu in the world--and if you're used to another mobile OS, it can almost be too much.  To avoid any errors, we suggest you adopt the principle of ignoring any settings you haven't heard of, as you probably won't need them: there's less that can go wrong that way. 

The screen: 480 x 360 gorgeous pixels!

RIM has already proved that it knows a good screen, with the first Bold a particular success.  The success is repeated here, and although the screen is physically no bigger, it has a higher resolution as well as better brightness and contrast.  The only thing that's missing is a matte screen of the kind found on professional netbooks.  With one of those, we'd have everything we want.

A little keyboard that gets it just right

The biggest worry for heavy mail users will undoubtedly be the keyboard: because the 9700 has been slimmed down, the amount of room for typing is also reduced.  Fortunately, though, the buttons are as well-spaced and defined as ever, so it'll only take an experienced BlackBerry user a few minutes to get the hang of it, and not much longer than that for a newcomer.  The trackpad, which did put off fans of BlackBerry's trackpoint scrolling ball, is actually a great success.  Moving the cursor around the screen is impressively easy but doesn't suffer from any of the problems of the moving part (dirt, slipping, etc.). 

It seems that one of the biggest updates in BlackBerry OS 5.0 is the web browser.  Although its interface remains unchanged, the same isn't true of the rendering.  On the Bold 9000, the menus at the top of DigitalVersus wouldn't display, replaced by blue links dotted across the page.  There's no such problem on the 9700, although there's unfortunately no support for Flash, and we're hoping a version of Opera or Firefox Mobile in the AppWorld before too long.