Last Updated November 9, 2008   Product Rating   Fantastic quality display 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS Support Sharp design and feel   Web browsing can be tough to navigate

AT&T has released their branded version of the popular Blackberry Bold 9000 by RIM. Canada's Rogers Wireless has had their Blackberry Bold out for a little while now and has gotten excellent reviews. The Bold is a smartphone with a lot of features for business people as well as media enthusiasts as well. After several months of delays from AT&T, the Blackberry Bold is now available in the United States.

In total, the Blackberry Bold measures about 4.5 x 2.5 x 0.5-inches and weighs a little under 5 ounces, which is perfect for your hand and your pocket. The sides of the device are lined with a metallic stripe, which makes it look very professional, along with a leathery textured back, which makes it very easy to handle. The 2.75-inch non-touch screen display is stunningly vibrant at 65,000 colors and 480x320-pixel resolution. We can say that it is the best looking screen we have ever seen, including better than the Apple iPhone 3G. As we mentioned, it is not a touch screen, but there's no need for on with the very functional navigational features. The Bold has a QWERTY keyboard that is similar to the Blackberry Curve, but even better. The buttons are nicely sized and spaced and will cause minimal errors when typing. Along the left side of the Bold, there's a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack, a mini USB port, a shortcut key, and a microSD expansion card slot. On the right, there's a volume 2-way nav switch and another shortcut key.

The BlackBerry Bold has a redesigned interface as well as a beautiful screen that makes everything, pictures and text, look crystal clear. A well-designed QWERTY keyboard also makes typing on the Bold a breeze.

Like we said earlier, the Blackberry Bold comes loaded with lots of features. The Bold is HSDPA-compatible and uses AT&T's speedy 3G network that will give you broadband speeds for Web surfing. It's also a world-band phone, meaning it is able to use the 850/1900/2100 HSDPA/UMTS bands in Europe and Asia as well. There's also a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, text/multimedia messaging, and integrated Wi-Fi (a/b/g) and GPS.

One note on GPS is that it is a hybrid GPS, meaning it uses both GPS sky satellites and cellular triangulation to pin point your location. AT&T has setup the Blackberry Bold to work with its AT&T Navigator, but you have to pay either $2.99 for one day's use, or $9.99 per month of unlimited usage. There is a free 30-day trial to check it out before you purchase it as well. If you don't want to pay for GPS navigation, you can still use free applications for turn-by-turn direction and location-based search, such as with Google Maps Mobile, but you'll have to use AT&T's software if you want voice-guided directions.

The Blackberry Bold 9000 comes with the brand new BlackBerry OS version 4.6, which has a whole new interface designed specially for the Bold as well as new functionality that adds to the Bold's usefulness. It has an attachment viewer for opening and editing Microsoft Office documents and you can view the standard file formats as well, including JPEG's and PDF's. The Bold can sync with a company's BlackBerry Enterprise server and it also supports Microsoft Exchange's "push" email server. You can also configure the Bold to work with POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts as well. The Bold's built-in Web browser is a little tough to navigate when it comes to viewing pages in their full HTML, but it's certainly better than past browser versions on the BlackBerry phones.

The Blackberry Bold supports the standard multimedia file formats, including MP3, WMA, and AAC music files and MPEG4, WMV, H.263, and DivX4 video formats. You can also put your iTunes library on your computer onto your Bold using RIM's BlackBerry Media Sync. The Bold also sports a 2-megapixel digital camera with flash and video recording.

The total onboard memory is 1GB and 128MB of flash memory, which is huge, and the microSD expansion slot allows for up to 16GB of additional memory. Performance of the Bold is very snappy and quick due to the 624MHz Intel CPU, which is a huge improvement over past BlackBerry models. There's a 1500mAh battery that is rated for a talk time of a little over 4 hours and about 10 days standby.

All in all, the new RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 is a fantastic smartphone that both business exec's and the average user will love. The 3G connectivity and Wi-Fi as well means that you'll be connected to the Internet wherever you go. The Bold's magnificent display is the best quality LCD we have seen on any cell phone to date. If you are a current AT&T customer looking to upgrade or are looking to get out of your current carrier, the BlackBerry Bold is the phone to get if you want excellent performance and a QWERTY keyboard.