WILLIE STYLEZ TECH REVIEW => BlackBerry Bold 9650 - Hands-on with Verizon's BB6 Qwerty by RIM

So What Does STYLEZ Think?

 

Recently I changed jobs and as part of my new job I am on call 24/7 for support. Thanks to that job specification, I got some new toys... I mean work peripherals that will assist me in my ... job...yeah! LOL! Anyway, I chose to get a Verizon BlackBerry Bold 9650 by RIM back at the beginning of August. It sports a 2.8" screen, optical trackball, and BlackBerry OS v6 (BB6).

And well, I’ve had the Bold 9650 for about two weeks and it was finally activated on BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server, used for company email) about 4 days ago. So far, kinda good. It’s a good phone, don’t get me wrong, but some things that I find troublesome or don't like are:

1. Keys are just too small for large hands, I find myself using my nails more than anything to type
2. The keyboard layout is classic BB, but some special characters are oddly placed or only accessible from the SYM key’s submenu! Namely the Ampersand (&)! I use ampersands quite often to sub for “and” but having to press SYM and then finding it on the keymap really sucks. And I swear the changed the placement of @, ! and ?
3. Screen size is horribly small for some apps. Just big enough for others … if you have extremely good vision! I luckily have a great vision, but I still find myself wishing I had about 0.3-0.5 inches more screen!
4. The key lock (upper right hand corner of phone) is terrible. It locks the phone but sliding the phone out of the stock belt case immediately unlocks it! So just trying to pull it out the case I misdial about 5 or 6 people! Or even when I’m holding it in my hand it has a nasty habit of coming unlocked from the slightest of touches on the lock button
5. BB6 software is smooth until it freezes! Which is A LOT! It’s not really glitchy or suffering from crashes, it’s just constantly skipping and/or freezing!
6. Facebook app (v.2, the phone only comes w/ v.1.x) is always having a weird issue with phantom notifications
7. As always with BB’s, the menu’s and options are MASSIVE, you can get lost trying to find the right option you’re looking for!

Some of the things I like about the phone include:

1. It’s very light and thinner than my last BB. Does it count that my last BB was that Nextel BB  I had at PFI 7 years ago!? LOL!
2. Outside of its size and odd special key layout, It’s nice having a physical keyboard
3. The app offering for BB’s is not at Android numbers of course, but it’s got more than the HP TouchPad, so it’s a nice selection. My faves are Twitter, Facebook, Cisco Webex, GetGlue, Expensify and BBM.
4. Camera takes good pictures. At full size they are even better (see below)
5. 
   Notification system is pretty nice. I can’t remember what the old BB4 or BB5 system was like but the current system is pretty good
6. Multitasking is pretty good, no glitches, crashes, etc. (just that nasty freeze occassionaly)

With that said, I am not 100% happy with this phone, so I am switching over to one of the new touchscreen plus Qwerty BB7 phones (Bold 9930 or Torch 9810). So another review will be coming to you soon!

That is what Stylez thinks, tell me what you think in the comments!

 

Posted via email from Ask Willie Stylez - The Posts