Blackberry Bold 9900 – Initial impressions

Today our group member Suvo shared his initial impressions about Blackberry Bold 9900 after 12 hours of use. After his permission I am sharing his email here.

OK .. so almost 12 hours gone by with my BB 9900 .. Below are my initial observations..

Build is absolutely fantastic – I think, every where this has been highlighted. I have never seen a blackberry built so well and that too such light weight… It fits in your palm really well, giving you a wonderful grip. The metallic band on the side gives a super professional look.

However if folks here have fascination on the form factor of Galaxy S2, iphone should wait for Torch 9860 .. This is bold after all…

Keyboard – This is the darling delight. The keys are silk smooth, unlike the 9780 keyboard which was tight in the beginning and only after usage it used to get smooth … The keyboard spread out gives me an amazing typing speed.. Thoroughly enjoying the same…

Audio - Lot of friends here have asked me about the audio.. Well the speakerphone is better than iPhone 4 in my opinion.. Internal music quality as you hear in headphones not par with iPhone music manipulations…
Audio speakers are much much louder than Bold 9780. Small example, a ringtone set at volume 8 in 9780 is at par with the same set at volume 6 in 9900…

Screen resolution - Good , crisp and bright.. additional backlight around the trackpad is also very very nice…

Camera - Disappointing.. Bold 9780 used to take better pictures with Auto Focus. This one does not have AF but has Image Stabilization.. not sure whether I am getting any advantage either.. Has built in Scene modes.. but am not sure, why AF got eliminated. I have not taken many pictures though and will not take either on Bold.. So neglecting for now… Not a setback for me in usability, but definitely from a possession perspective..

Overall performance - Very snappy .. Credit goes to the 1.2 GHz processor.. at least you will feel the difference in speed.. touch is very responsive and you will understand that a 1.2 GHz processor is working behind .. smooth touches…good scrolling …

Browser - Has more functionalities than OS6 on account of additional touch.. but whether the browsing speed has improved because of browser enhancements or the processor working behind is too early to tell.. Pinch to zoom works fine absolutely .. but i have seen slight checkerboards while pinch to zoom… overall not at all hampering usability..

Software – This is nothing but refined OS6, with icon improvements. People who are already in OS6 would take few minutes to get at ease…

Software is buggy … it does not freezes or hangs, but I have faced two random reboots in last 20 hours… One while i was in BBM and another while I was composing an email .. both the time after reboot i checked event logs and i could see JVM errors… planning to upgrade the Vodafone DE OS today night…

As per PMan’s thoughts, I think this is a software problem and will get rectified over a period of time…

The inbuilt OS of Redington is 261 and application memory left is 190 MB .. Now this is slightly a matter of concern??? Well I see there are lots of languages installed in the OS and all Asian languages.. Am planning to uninstall all those and see how much i gain … If I get to 220, I should be fine hovering around 180 free space after my installations.. Well i dont any install 100 apps, I install only those which i use.. So lets see..

Even in a 768 MB available App memory, getting 190 MB free for your apps, only indicates that touch screen software is taking a lot of space… and also additional is the NFC drivers… Some of the apps which comes pre-installed are

Facebook, twitter, bb maps, docs to go premium, bb protect, yahoo msngr, gtalk, msn mngr, smart tags

Packaging - RIM has done a cost cutting here. All folks here will know that RIM used to give various PIN connectors inside retail boxes (UK, US, INDIA), I found them always handy on my overseas travel. This time they just gave the India PIN … But then there also they have curtailed cost. There is USB charger and not separate wall charger… The data cable goes to the charging plug through USB port and phone gets charged. This results in less clutter – so some people may find it good …..So you have the data cable and wall USB plug unit (India Pins) and that’s all …
Yes, the charging port is at the left side. Single convenience key on the right – defaulted to camera…
LED indicator is like TORCH

What else … You wanna know???

How I am feeling —- Do we have any heaven more than the 7th level??? Does it compare with SGS2 and iPhone .. Well I don’t compare apples and oranges.., they are two genetically different fruits so don’t ask me that question….

You can contact Suvo  at suvo.bhattacharya at gmail.com

Blackberry Bold 9900 price in India only Rs. 31,290

Today a leading Mobile Dealer MaheshTelecom revealed that they will be selling Blackberry Bold 9900 for Rs. 31,290. Now this is a big surprise as earlier BGR had reported a price of Rs. 34,000.

If you have any new tips about the price or availability, please let us know in comments or  send us a tweet mentioning #BBIndia.

Contact Details –

Latest Blackberry Devices

RIM has finally announced a few highly anticipated BlackBerry 7 smartphones! They’ve made the Torch 9810, Torch 9850 and Torch 9860 official. According to RIM, more than 225 carriers are completing certification programs for the new devices.

Here’s some info:

BlackBerry Bold 9900 Series: The Bold 9900 and 9930 are the thinnest BlackBerry smartphones ever, and the first Bold devices to combine the iconic BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard with a brilliant touch display, as well as the first BlackBerry smartphones to include built-in support for NFC.

BlackBerry Torch 9810: The faster and more fluid new BlackBerry Torch 9810 builds on the popular design of the BlackBerry Torch 9800, featuring a large 3.2”, high resolution touch display and a distinctive BlackBerry slide-out keyboard.

BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860: The new all-touch BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 features a 3.7” display, the largest ever on a BlackBerry smartphone, making it fully optimized for displaying photos, videos, and powerful gaming experiences.

Source : http://blackberryrocks.com/2011/08/03/rim-introduces-blackberry-7-smartphones-bold-9900-9930-torch-9810-9850-9860/

BBIndia Updates

Friends,

After a very long time I finally decided to share some updates with you. Our old members may remember my monthly update email. Here are some recent updates about BBIndia.

• Today BBIndia.net forum has reached 10,000 posts.
• Our Facebook Fan Page also reached 800 Fans today.
• Currently Forum has 1490+ members which will cross 1500 mark soon( probably tomorrow).
• Twitter account is having 630+ followers as on date.
• Google Group has 580+ members.
• We are also starting advertising on BBIndia forum which is currently having approx 45,000 page views per month. We are selling the top banner space for only Rs. 1000 per month for our members. This will help us to organize some events/give away for our contributing members in future.
• If anyone is interested to join our forum as Moderator, please write to me.

Looking forward for your valuable suggestions and feedback.

Thanks,
Sachin Jain

BBIndia Live Discussions

Friends,

We know how much you love to interact with fellow BBIndians on twitter and other social network websites. Therefore we are planning to launch BBIndia Live Discussions on twitter.

Twitter Discussions are a wonderful way for people to connect and discuss topics of choice. Twitter users tweet with a specified Hashtag (#) for the party. For BBIndia Live Discussions Hashtag will be #BBIndia

You can use your twitter client to search for the hashtag (#BBIndia) and join in the conversation or try these Tools/websites for a much easier twitter discussion -

• Tweetdeck
• Tweetgrid.com
• Tweetchat.com

Please share what will be the best time to have this discussion on a daily basis? Morning or evening?

And how much time ( 30 mins/60 mins) is sufficient?

How soon we can start this?

Also if you want to become a moderator for these discussions, let me know.

How Twitter Discussions Work:

By tweeting with the same hashtag, or # sign followed by a key word, all tweets following the same topic are searchable. All tweets using this hashtag can then be located via search and appear in conversation format, much like chat rooms of the past.

How to Participate:

1. Open a Twitter Account: In order to participate you must have a Twitter account to contribute your “tweets” or posts of 140 characters or less.

2. Choose a Twitter Platform: The best platforms to use during a discussion are TweetChat (www.tweetchat.com

) or TweetGrid (www.tweetgrid.com

). If you are new to Twitter, TweetChat is your best bet. Log on with your Twitter ID and password and when prompted to join a room, type in the party’s hashtag. By using these platforms there is no need to manually type in the hashtag keyword at the end of each tweet. Tweetchat will take care of that for you! You are also able to change the update speed and reply to other participants.

3. Tweet! You’ll most likely be asked at the beginning of the event to follow and keep an eye on the panelists or experts for the night. Feel free to ask them direct questions by tweeting with their “@”.

For example, if you’d like to speak to me you would tweet:

@jains99 what do you think about the latest Bold 9900? #BBIndia

It is also perfectly fine to jump into other conversations and reply to others’ questions.