BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9930 hands-on!

By on May 2, 2011 at 9:46 AM
mobile May 2, 2011

We’re here in Orlando at RIM’s BlackBerry World developer event and have scored some more hands-on time with the recently announced BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930… and we’re pretty impressed with what we see so far. The Bold 9900 felt light in the hand, but definitely had a premium feel thanks to its thin form factor and metal accents around the body — it’s also the thinnest BlackBerry to date. The new BlackBerry 7 operating system was very snappy and we didn’t experience any lag when bouncing around the new OS, likely thanks to the 1.2GHz processor under its hood. The keyboard reminds us a lot of the original BlackBerry Bold 9000, and the form factor is more akin to that phone than the handset it is replacing, the 9700. The industrial design of the phone is solid, but we do wish RIM would venture away from a form factor that’s feeling pretty stale. We’ll need to spend more time with BlackBerry 7, but superficially it looks nearly identical to BlackBerry 6 — which could be a positive or negative depending on your viewpoint. We’re excited to see what RIM does with the built-in NFC technology, and the faster processor should definitely open the flood gates to more robust applications in the future. We’ve assembled a gallery of photos for your scrutiny. Have a look and let us know what you think of RIM’s latest creation.

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  • adtm71

    Nicely done, RIM. Stick to what you do best: smart phones with great battery life; great keyboards; great communications capabilities. Leave the games and stupid apps for the iPhone children. Most of those apps are better for iPads anyway. Nice looking device, this 9900.

  • Goswamiatanu

    Don’t think the form factor is stalee. In fact thia is what differntiates a BB from has beens and that big useless glass slab from Cupoertino.

  • Anonymous

    I’m going from a Windows 7 Samsung focus to a Torch (wanted to learn how to use the OS to gain more knowledge for it) and it honestly feels like I went back 5 years in time with a smartphone. Now to be fair the Windows phone came out around 5-6 months after the torch did but compared to the iPhone 3GS and 4 it’s slow, clunky, not very responsive and the screen resolution is terrible. Everything about it just seems outdated. I don’t mean to slam Blackberries so much, but RIM really needs to step up their game if they want to appeal to the masses vs just the BB business customers and BBM lovers. The Pearl was a step in the right direction back in 2006 but they need to see some serious dramatic improvements to their OS to gain market share.

  • Dan

    How is the form factor “stale” in anyway? Good post, but it was ruined by such a stupid comment. Would you like for the keyboard to be placed above the screen to mix things up? Call out RIM’s issues, fine, but the classic Bold/Curve form factor is not one of them. Jesus.

  • Jake

    Stale form factor? Um, not really. Duality for duality’s sake is stupidity.

  • Nickharris007

    i just switched out my samsung epic 4g for a blackberry style. i was completely over the android thing….i was sick of the appalling battery life, the touchscreen that sometimes responded to my touch, sometimes not, the freezing up, crashing, rebooting, hard resets…the really flat keyboard that made touchtyping all but impossible, the landscape form factor…the lackluster calendar, the general, all round juvenile feel to the whole device. dont get me wrong, the first two weeks i had it i was in love….soooo many crazy apps, brilliant camera and video, amazing screen. but once you settle into it, its a pain to use, day to day. its menus are not intuitive, its not that fast once you get more than a few apps under the belt, and the much lauded 4g……where is it???

    i swapped it out for a blackberry flip, and i am so glad to be back with a bberry again! simple, reliable solid performer. it gets the job done! it doesnt run out of battery, intuitive to use, tough, proper calendar, sensible apps, not silly apps for children….i will always have a blackberry, im sorry i ever left them for an android in the first place….blackberry, do you forgive me?

  • Anonymous

    Either getting this or the iPhone 5 this summer!

    Anyone have any idea which one I should get?
    Don’t go fanboy because I see Pros and Cons in both.

    I like BBM and the keyboard / touch screen for BB. But few apps is a downside.
    I love iOS and FaceTime and many apps is also a plus. Just no keyboard is bad.

    Please give me your thoughts!

    • http://caspan.com Caspan

      Well question really is what do you need? What are you looking for in a device? Do you just need something reliable to get email and social media? Or do you love having a swiss army knife at your hand. IPod has tons of just little games and applications that some people just love, some people can’t put their phone down. If you are like me and just use it to stay connected plus have a few trinkits and games to keep you entertained when bored BlackBerry is what you want. Everyone talks smack about the other. Both of them work each have their strong points and each has their down fall. iPod is more for utilities and just cannot be bet all the little thing and apps and accessories. On the other hand the BlackBerry cannot be beat for its design to be connected and messaging a priority and a dedicated network operations center to back it up!

      Each device strays into the other category but they are both strong in what they do best. BlackBerry messaging, iPhone apps.

      Hope this helps!

      • Anonymous

        Thank you, yeah I was leaning towards the iPhone just it is so hard to type on my iPod Touch… I know I will get used to it, but really if I can get BBM and a great keyboard there are still games that I can get.

        Still undecided but now I am 50/50 between both. If I see a lot of apps coming in BB.7 then I will get the blackberry

        Also does anyone know about Android Apps on Blackberry? Will that be on BB.7 or QNX?

      • http://caspan.com Caspan

        I have not heard any thing about Android apps on the BlackBerry phone yet but I can’t imagine they would not do this. As far as I can tell QNX uses the same virtual machine as Android does which makes this possible. I have not heard if QNX on the BlackBerry will carry Dalvik Java but people assume it will.

        BlackBerry 7 is still just a revision on the former existing OS and not the awaited for QNX. So I would assume and most people would probably agree if the BlackBerry gets Android apps it will be with QNX not BlackBerry 7. But again RIM could pull a rabbit out of their hat, there has to be some reason they are going to BlackBerry 7 instead of calling it BlackBerry 6.1 if it is only a few new features why change an entire OS version. People are still speculating why they are changing it a full version.

      • http://caspan.com Caspan

        I have not heard any thing about Android apps on the BlackBerry phone yet but I can’t imagine they would not do this. As far as I can tell QNX uses the same virtual machine as Android does which makes this possible. I have not heard if QNX on the BlackBerry will carry Dalvik Java but people assume it will.

        BlackBerry 7 is still just a revision on the former existing OS and not the awaited for QNX. So I would assume and most people would probably agree if the BlackBerry gets Android apps it will be with QNX not BlackBerry 7. But again RIM could pull a rabbit out of their hat, there has to be some reason they are going to BlackBerry 7 instead of calling it BlackBerry 6.1 if it is only a few new features why change an entire OS version. People are still speculating why they are changing it a full version.

      • Anonymous

        alright thanks you are a nice help!

        But BB.7 adds touch screen commands… so it must mean BB.6 is for non-touch and BB.7 is for touch.. which makes me think they will add more games for BB.7 (i hope)

      • http://caspan.com Caspan

        Good thinking but the Torch is 6.0 so it throw that theory out :) I think developers might not be spending to much time on a dead OS. Since they announced that soon QNX will be on the phone no massive investment would be put into the old system they would wait for the new one. So in my opinion there will still be a few new items but not until QNX comes out will you see a huge change.

      • Anonymous

        Do you think the Bold Touch 9900 / 9930 will adopt QNX when it is released?

      • http://caspan.com Caspan

        There has been no mention yet but by the sounds of the specs it will have ample enough horse power and memory to run QNX.

  • JTor.ch9700

    I don’t know what the complaints about the 9700 are…I’ve had no problems with my 9700 as a matter of fact I have never really had any BIG problems with any of my Berrys…Everybody wants to compare Berrys to the iPhone…its NOT and iPhone…if that’s what you’re looking for then go buy one…this 9900 is def a game changer this coming from someone who has had every major BB since the original Pearl and the form factor is beautiful there is nothing stale about it…yes, we all wish we had the perfect phone that will pour us out a drink and help us take over the world bt that’s unrealistic…RIM is doing a great job and if you haven’t noticed RIM releases a wide selection of BlackBerrys so that you can pick the right blackberry for you….Apple still has 1 iPhone with 8 different refreshes…

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