BlackBerry has given its ageing Bold, traditionally favoured by corporate warriors, a much-needed upgrade. And judging by the spec, it appears to have played a blinder…
The Bold 9900 is billed as ‘the thinnest BlackBerry yet’ and totes a plush new aluminium spaceframe. It’s the first to run the BlackBerry 7 OS and the first to enjoy BB’s new ultra-responsive, 2.8-inch, 60fps Liquid Graphics touchscreen – a potential rival to Apple’s mighty Retina display.
Underneath the hood, you get a 1.2GHz processor, a 5-meg camera that captures 720p HD video and the all-important NFC capability, which promises the potential to turn your mobile into a credit card/travel card/boarding pass/etc.
FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW BLACKBERRY BOLD:
1. DESIGN: BlackBerry are rightly proud of what they call their ’Professional grade tool’ – or, what the rest of us call ’a phone’. It has a swish alumnium bezel and a glassy-smooth back (covering the removeable battery). It really looks a million miles away from the old model, which is a good thing. What’s the point of having a new phone if nobody notices?
2. BLACKBERRY 7 OS: The big news is that BB 7 offers a super-slick new broswer, with pages loading 1.6x faster than BB 6 OS and some buttery-smooth zooming. It also now features voice-activated search, so that you can bark orders to your phones whilst your hands are, say, wrapped around a Double Whopper.
3. SCREEN: The new Liquid Graphics screen promises ‘instant response’ – more on this later.
4. AUGMENTED REALITY: The Wikitude app will be available with BlackBerry 7, and promises 150,000 points of interest and 700 content worlds.
5. BLACKBERRY BALANCE: This new feature keeps your personal and business life separate and prevents users being hauled over the coals for ‘inappropriate use’ of a company phone. For example, if you open a corporate email, then try to copy and paste the contents into a Facebook post, it will warn you of the potential can of worms about to be opened. What’s more, if you lose the phone, your IT department will be able to wipe the phone’s memory instantly. That said, you can still have a unified calendar and inbox.
Naturally pricing has not been announced, but it’s expected to launch in late summer.
‘When you get your hands on it, you’re not going to wanna put it down’ drawled a RIM spokesman. Well, we’re about to to exactly that, so stay tuned for more details….
