I received one of these devices about a month ago as part of AppSwing’s membership of the BlackBerry Alliance program. This allowed us to check that our software was going to be compatible with the new device (it is) and to develop new services for it. Unfortunately as we are under a NDA I haven’t been able to talk about it until today when the device was officially launched.
The unit itself has been known as a number of different things before launch including the 9000 and Meteor (which I much prefer to Bold) and is physically larger than my current unit (the Curve). Most striking is the new user interface which I find very appealing. The screen shot shows the original theme before the latest version updates which is similar but in blue and the icons are more consistent.
Specifications have been covered ad nauseam elsewhere but I was particularly pleased to see the inclusion of both wifi and GPS along with, for the first time, 3G. Having both wifi and 3g will really allow some good performance when downloading web based applications. I have, however, had a few problems with the device spontaneously resetting for no apparent reason which is not good. This was happening on an almost hourly basis on the original build but is better with the latest version. Hopefully by the time of its launch RIM will have ironed out these kinks.
I remember when I got my first BlackBerry, probably some four years ago, that I felt pretty self conscious holding such a large device to my ear when everyone else had a “candybar” phone. These days everyone has a phone the size of a brick and having one is a status symbol (á la the iPhone). The Bold is certainly a cool device to be seen with.