October 20, 2011 at 20:13BlackBerry Bold 9900 - the last hero?
Fresh BlackBerry 9900, in the common people of "Dakota", is the pinnacle of the telephone industry of the Canadian company RIM. The best design among all BlackBerry smartphones. The best ergonomics. The best keyboard. The best operating system is BlackBerry OS 7. But, unfortunately, this may not be enough to withstand smartphones on iOS, Android and WindowsPhone. Turn on analytics mode: this is definitely not enough.
Sorry that there is no 720p - we can’t find the source :(
RIM has big problems, this is a well-known fact. The company repeats Nokia's path: not responding to trends in time, now it is desperately trying to offer something to surprise the market. Remember how John started Handsome, a dancer, a hero of musicals - he exploited one image and achieved perfection in it, but at some point the audience simply got tired of musicals, and Travolta was not needed. but will RIM be the new director of chic Nye recently introduced BBX platform, which will soon transplanted not only tablets, but also smartphones? We are all for it. Not would have been too late.
What can I say a lot? You can just watch and admire. The classic, iconic form factor is now supported by luxury materials: a lot of metal (edging and stainless steel end buttons), carbon lid, velvety plastic. There was no more beautiful QWERTY smartphone. He, in addition, is also the thinnest (10.5 mm) in the entire history of smartphone manufacturing at RIM, although this is not felt - the metal frame seems too massive.
RIM supported the trend to increase the size of smartphones while reducing thickness. The device has become larger and wider, as they say, “more boastful”, and at the same time it is perfectly balanced. It lies well in the hand, it is convenient to operate with both one and two hands, and it weighs less than you expect. It is very pleasing that the BlackBerry 9900 is so durable and monolithic, the assembly is phenomenal, in the best traditions. Management is as convenient as possible, with end hot keys that can be reassigned to other functions. It is convenient to “hang up” the launch of the tweeter client on the photo button on the right side. Above it are the volume keys, and between them the Mute button, it pauses the player. For some reason, another button escaped from the left side, now there are only deeply recessed microUSB connectors and audio jacks. Despite the touch screen, they decided to leave the trackpad, although the need for it is clearly less. Now the trackpad also shines, as in Nokia QWERTY smartphones.
I am a fan of QWERTY-keyboards located under the screen, and have not missed any of these devices that went on the Russian market. Responsibly declare: I have not seen a better keyboard. Before that, I considered the model keyboard of the BlackBerry 9700 model (for two years it was my "main" phone), but the Bold 9900 has a wider platform and the buttons are even more convenient. The keys are firmly beveled, pressed easily, with a small stroke and a pleasant click sound - everything is as it should! The color scheme is inverse: all letters and symbols on the buttons are white, including the receive and end keys.
Yes, it is touch! How much time did RIM take to get it right ... Everyone remembers the failed Torch? The physical size (2.8 ”versus 2.44”) and resolution increased (640x480 versus 480x360). Bright, clear, contrasting, capacitive, with excellent viewing angles and two-finger “clickability”. Indispensable for surfing.
No matter how hard they try to give a good face at RIM while promoting the “revolutionism” of the new platform, you cannot fool buyers. The new OS was even assigned an index of 7, although, by and large, there are few changes, the system should be called BlackBerry OS 6.1. No matter how brilliant the construct may be, it is not interesting without a modern shell and a large amount of software, and nothing essentially new has appeared here. Although they could do everything, they did it at RIM. Desktops are now “flicked” with a finger, as in Android and iOS, the gadget has become even faster, the menu just flies.
The entire new line of BlackBerry 7-based smartphones is the Qualcomm Scorpion MSM 8655 processor with a clock frequency of 1.2 GHz on the Snapdragon chipset. Why not dual core? Firstly, BlackBerry OS is not necessary in principle, and secondly, the battery life is not reduced. A lot of new features are “tied” to hardware graphics acceleration (in RIM it was called Liquid Graphics) and the Adreno 205 GPU processor. This is necessary to support 3D-graphics, HD-video and a host of other functions, such as browsing. This is generally the main block of innovations: the browser received hardware acceleration, runs on the WebKit engine with the fastest JavaScript JIT (Just in time) compiler. But with all this, there is no joy from surfing, and it's not even the lack of support for Flash. Thanks to Apple, people are more likely to use their smartphone to surf the Internet than to make calls, and the BlackBerry 9900 still has too many trade-offs in the browser. Like Nokia on Symbian, by the way. The letters are small and it’s difficult to read sites, everything is not very scalable, sites are not loaded as fast as competitors, and so on. RAM increased to 768 MB, but there were never any problems with it on RIM devices, 512 MB in the BlackBerry 9700 was enough for the eyes. The new platform also supports the high-speed HSPA protocol (up to 14.4 Mbps), which makes us neither hot nor cold. By the way, the Bold 9900 has a twin brother 9930, the only difference is in the radio part, it works in CDMA networks. but there were never any problems with it on RIM devices, 512 MB in the BlackBerry 9700 was enough for the eyes. The new platform also supports the high-speed HSPA protocol (up to 14.4 Mbps), which makes us neither hot nor cold. By the way, the Bold 9900 has a twin brother 9930, the only difference is in the radio part, it works in CDMA networks. but there were never any problems with it on RIM devices, 512 MB in the BlackBerry 9700 was enough for the eyes. The new platform also supports the high-speed HSPA protocol (up to 14.4 Mbps), which makes us neither hot nor cold. By the way, the Bold 9900 has a twin brother 9930, the only difference is in the radio part, it works in CDMA networks.
Nevertheless, RIM does not capture multimedia functions in any way, in such a QWERTY format this is impossible, and by this indicator, of course, it loses to iOS and Android. You can watch videos and photos ... But the screen is still small, and there is not much proper software. Although the audio chip is worth mentioning separately: the quality of the music is very decent, you can listen to the tracks in big good headphones as well. The local App World loses significantly in the number of applications to the Apple App Store, but the point here is not so much in the amount of software as in their appearance and usability. Everything looks too archaic and outdated - for young people who are accustomed to apple-oriented interfaces, it's like MS-DOS. After all, there are those who remember these five letters, right? :) Once RIM built its empire around the text: these are letters, BB-messenger, chats and SMS, and getting away from this past is not so simple. Plus, there are a lot of unobvious, but very useful features that speed up text input and work in general, you just need to know them. For example, a dot can be set by double-clicking on the space, and if you press the spacebar while typing an email address, the @ sign is automatically put, there are a lot of such combinations and hot keys. Writing letters and chatting with BlackBerry is much easier and faster than on touch devices, but this trend has gone away, remaining relevant only among the audience of business people that RIM was originally aimed at.
It’s worth looking at the lid if only because on the lid itself, from the inside around the perimeter, there is a frame with an NFC antenna, a very original solution. Unfortunately, replacing the microSD is not "hot", you still have to remove the battery - everything is too tight.
There is no hot spot function (it may appear in new firmware), but for the first time, the new-fangled NFC wireless protocol is supported, designed, for example, to pay for the metro. In Russia, however, it is still useless, and it can now be used exclusively for Bluetooth pairing with the Playbook tablet.
BlackBerry in antiphase to the market all reduces battery capacity. You might think that Canadians are just mocking. Like, you and your android phones live for half a day, and we, while improving the screen and processor, can afford to reduce the battery capacity. Everything turned out to be more prosaic: the engineers could not compact a 1500 mAh battery into such a thin case, so here it is more modest at 1230 mAh. However, this did not affect the operating time very much: if the Blakcberry 9700 sits down in 2-3 days, this one, when working actively, requires an outlet in 1.5-2 days. This figure is still unattainable for competitors.
Good: finally, BlackBerry smartphones shoot 720p HD video, the picture is very decent. The bad: for some reason, the photo module lost autofocus, which is a big minus for a business solution - how to photograph business cards and checks? It seems that EDOF technology - an increased depth of field, should have solved this drawback. But ... does not solve. Obviously the autofocus was removed again to reduce the thickness, but this, of course, is complete nonsense. In all other smartphones on the BlackBerry 7 (Torch 9810, 9850 and 9860), autofocus remained.
This item is rarely found in phone reviews, but in the case of the BlackBerry it certainly needs to be added. Only with these devices do you understand how pure and high-quality the interlocutor’s voice can be in dynamics: you can hear perfectly, and everyone can hear you so well that you regularly ask where you are calling from. Here on this parameter with the iPhone just can not be compared.
Finnish QWERTY-smartphone Nokia E6 is a very formal competitor, it loses to Canadian on almost all fronts. E6, although in itself a rather successful product, is still not so thoroughbred, not so smart, not so functional. True, the cost will be clearly cheaper.
Designers, engineers and marketers at BlackBerry did everything they could, the BlackBerry 9900 is the best product, and it’s not clear what else can be changed in the new version, unless you tune the camera. Those who are familiar with BlackBerry do not need to explain anything, they know why they need this smartphone, they were waiting for just that: a touch screen, QWERTY-keyboard, chic design and generally the best product in their league. But beginners can be scared off by an outdated OS and a small amount of software. After all, the next flagship will probably be released on the BBX platform, and who wants to be the last hero?
OS: BlackBerry OS
Processor: Qualcomm Scorpion MSM 8655, 1.2 GHz
Video: Adreno 205
RAM: 768 GB
Main memory: 8 GB
Screen: 2.8 ", 640x480
Communications: 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0, NFC
Connectors: USB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio jacks
Cameras: 5 megapixels
Navigation: GPS, GPS GPS
: 1230 mAh
Dimensions: 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm
Weight: 130 grams
Price: from 25000 rub.
Sorry that there is no 720p - we can’t find the source :(
RIM has big problems, this is a well-known fact. The company repeats Nokia's path: not responding to trends in time, now it is desperately trying to offer something to surprise the market. Remember how John started Handsome, a dancer, a hero of musicals - he exploited one image and achieved perfection in it, but at some point the audience simply got tired of musicals, and Travolta was not needed. but will RIM be the new director of chic Nye recently introduced BBX platform, which will soon transplanted not only tablets, but also smartphones? We are all for it. Not would have been too late.
Design
What can I say a lot? You can just watch and admire. The classic, iconic form factor is now supported by luxury materials: a lot of metal (edging and stainless steel end buttons), carbon lid, velvety plastic. There was no more beautiful QWERTY smartphone. He, in addition, is also the thinnest (10.5 mm) in the entire history of smartphone manufacturing at RIM, although this is not felt - the metal frame seems too massive.
Ergonomics
RIM supported the trend to increase the size of smartphones while reducing thickness. The device has become larger and wider, as they say, “more boastful”, and at the same time it is perfectly balanced. It lies well in the hand, it is convenient to operate with both one and two hands, and it weighs less than you expect. It is very pleasing that the BlackBerry 9900 is so durable and monolithic, the assembly is phenomenal, in the best traditions. Management is as convenient as possible, with end hot keys that can be reassigned to other functions. It is convenient to “hang up” the launch of the tweeter client on the photo button on the right side. Above it are the volume keys, and between them the Mute button, it pauses the player. For some reason, another button escaped from the left side, now there are only deeply recessed microUSB connectors and audio jacks. Despite the touch screen, they decided to leave the trackpad, although the need for it is clearly less. Now the trackpad also shines, as in Nokia QWERTY smartphones.
Keyboard
I am a fan of QWERTY-keyboards located under the screen, and have not missed any of these devices that went on the Russian market. Responsibly declare: I have not seen a better keyboard. Before that, I considered the model keyboard of the BlackBerry 9700 model (for two years it was my "main" phone), but the Bold 9900 has a wider platform and the buttons are even more convenient. The keys are firmly beveled, pressed easily, with a small stroke and a pleasant click sound - everything is as it should! The color scheme is inverse: all letters and symbols on the buttons are white, including the receive and end keys.
Display
Yes, it is touch! How much time did RIM take to get it right ... Everyone remembers the failed Torch? The physical size (2.8 ”versus 2.44”) and resolution increased (640x480 versus 480x360). Bright, clear, contrasting, capacitive, with excellent viewing angles and two-finger “clickability”. Indispensable for surfing.
Filling
No matter how hard they try to give a good face at RIM while promoting the “revolutionism” of the new platform, you cannot fool buyers. The new OS was even assigned an index of 7, although, by and large, there are few changes, the system should be called BlackBerry OS 6.1. No matter how brilliant the construct may be, it is not interesting without a modern shell and a large amount of software, and nothing essentially new has appeared here. Although they could do everything, they did it at RIM. Desktops are now “flicked” with a finger, as in Android and iOS, the gadget has become even faster, the menu just flies.
The entire new line of BlackBerry 7-based smartphones is the Qualcomm Scorpion MSM 8655 processor with a clock frequency of 1.2 GHz on the Snapdragon chipset. Why not dual core? Firstly, BlackBerry OS is not necessary in principle, and secondly, the battery life is not reduced. A lot of new features are “tied” to hardware graphics acceleration (in RIM it was called Liquid Graphics) and the Adreno 205 GPU processor. This is necessary to support 3D-graphics, HD-video and a host of other functions, such as browsing. This is generally the main block of innovations: the browser received hardware acceleration, runs on the WebKit engine with the fastest JavaScript JIT (Just in time) compiler. But with all this, there is no joy from surfing, and it's not even the lack of support for Flash. Thanks to Apple, people are more likely to use their smartphone to surf the Internet than to make calls, and the BlackBerry 9900 still has too many trade-offs in the browser. Like Nokia on Symbian, by the way. The letters are small and it’s difficult to read sites, everything is not very scalable, sites are not loaded as fast as competitors, and so on. RAM increased to 768 MB, but there were never any problems with it on RIM devices, 512 MB in the BlackBerry 9700 was enough for the eyes. The new platform also supports the high-speed HSPA protocol (up to 14.4 Mbps), which makes us neither hot nor cold. By the way, the Bold 9900 has a twin brother 9930, the only difference is in the radio part, it works in CDMA networks. but there were never any problems with it on RIM devices, 512 MB in the BlackBerry 9700 was enough for the eyes. The new platform also supports the high-speed HSPA protocol (up to 14.4 Mbps), which makes us neither hot nor cold. By the way, the Bold 9900 has a twin brother 9930, the only difference is in the radio part, it works in CDMA networks. but there were never any problems with it on RIM devices, 512 MB in the BlackBerry 9700 was enough for the eyes. The new platform also supports the high-speed HSPA protocol (up to 14.4 Mbps), which makes us neither hot nor cold. By the way, the Bold 9900 has a twin brother 9930, the only difference is in the radio part, it works in CDMA networks.
Multimedia vs Text
Nevertheless, RIM does not capture multimedia functions in any way, in such a QWERTY format this is impossible, and by this indicator, of course, it loses to iOS and Android. You can watch videos and photos ... But the screen is still small, and there is not much proper software. Although the audio chip is worth mentioning separately: the quality of the music is very decent, you can listen to the tracks in big good headphones as well. The local App World loses significantly in the number of applications to the Apple App Store, but the point here is not so much in the amount of software as in their appearance and usability. Everything looks too archaic and outdated - for young people who are accustomed to apple-oriented interfaces, it's like MS-DOS. After all, there are those who remember these five letters, right? :) Once RIM built its empire around the text: these are letters, BB-messenger, chats and SMS, and getting away from this past is not so simple. Plus, there are a lot of unobvious, but very useful features that speed up text input and work in general, you just need to know them. For example, a dot can be set by double-clicking on the space, and if you press the spacebar while typing an email address, the @ sign is automatically put, there are a lot of such combinations and hot keys. Writing letters and chatting with BlackBerry is much easier and faster than on touch devices, but this trend has gone away, remaining relevant only among the audience of business people that RIM was originally aimed at.
From the inside
It’s worth looking at the lid if only because on the lid itself, from the inside around the perimeter, there is a frame with an NFC antenna, a very original solution. Unfortunately, replacing the microSD is not "hot", you still have to remove the battery - everything is too tight.
Chips
There is no hot spot function (it may appear in new firmware), but for the first time, the new-fangled NFC wireless protocol is supported, designed, for example, to pay for the metro. In Russia, however, it is still useless, and it can now be used exclusively for Bluetooth pairing with the Playbook tablet.
Battery
BlackBerry in antiphase to the market all reduces battery capacity. You might think that Canadians are just mocking. Like, you and your android phones live for half a day, and we, while improving the screen and processor, can afford to reduce the battery capacity. Everything turned out to be more prosaic: the engineers could not compact a 1500 mAh battery into such a thin case, so here it is more modest at 1230 mAh. However, this did not affect the operating time very much: if the Blakcberry 9700 sits down in 2-3 days, this one, when working actively, requires an outlet in 1.5-2 days. This figure is still unattainable for competitors.
Camera
Good: finally, BlackBerry smartphones shoot 720p HD video, the picture is very decent. The bad: for some reason, the photo module lost autofocus, which is a big minus for a business solution - how to photograph business cards and checks? It seems that EDOF technology - an increased depth of field, should have solved this drawback. But ... does not solve. Obviously the autofocus was removed again to reduce the thickness, but this, of course, is complete nonsense. In all other smartphones on the BlackBerry 7 (Torch 9810, 9850 and 9860), autofocus remained.
Connection quality
This item is rarely found in phone reviews, but in the case of the BlackBerry it certainly needs to be added. Only with these devices do you understand how pure and high-quality the interlocutor’s voice can be in dynamics: you can hear perfectly, and everyone can hear you so well that you regularly ask where you are calling from. Here on this parameter with the iPhone just can not be compared.
Competitor
Finnish QWERTY-smartphone Nokia E6 is a very formal competitor, it loses to Canadian on almost all fronts. E6, although in itself a rather successful product, is still not so thoroughbred, not so smart, not so functional. True, the cost will be clearly cheaper.
Summary
Designers, engineers and marketers at BlackBerry did everything they could, the BlackBerry 9900 is the best product, and it’s not clear what else can be changed in the new version, unless you tune the camera. Those who are familiar with BlackBerry do not need to explain anything, they know why they need this smartphone, they were waiting for just that: a touch screen, QWERTY-keyboard, chic design and generally the best product in their league. But beginners can be scared off by an outdated OS and a small amount of software. After all, the next flagship will probably be released on the BBX platform, and who wants to be the last hero?
TTX
OS: BlackBerry OS
Processor: Qualcomm Scorpion MSM 8655, 1.2 GHz
Video: Adreno 205
RAM: 768 GB
Main memory: 8 GB
Screen: 2.8 ", 640x480
Communications: 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0, NFC
Connectors: USB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio jacks
Cameras: 5 megapixels
Navigation: GPS, GPS GPS
: 1230 mAh
Dimensions: 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm
Weight: 130 grams
Price: from 25000 rub.
