Product Listing

BlackBerry Bold 9700 - Twice as Bold

By Seow Tein Hee - 16 Dec 2009

Design

Small but Bold

Some, like us, loved the overall design of the Bold 9000, with the right amount of girth, weight and usability of its QWERTY keyboard. So, when we laid our eyes on the Bold 9700, we were taken aback at how much smaller it looks compared to its predecessor. The new compact build is geared towards an audience that wished for a more space-saving device. However, we'd prefer the more solid build and larger dimensions of the Bold 9000.

Approximately around the same size as the recently launched BlackBerry Curve 8520, the Bold 9700 will no longer look out of place in daintier hands (unlike ours). A smaller screen, and a smaller keyboard, but the Bold 9700 retains the same thickness as the Bold 9000.

The Bold 9700 retains some of the things that were done right on the Bold 9000, such as the inclusion of the 3.5mm audio port. On other aspects, we also see a few updates, such as a higher screen resolution at 480 x 360 (Bold 9000 being on 480 x 320) and the switch from miniUSB to microUSB. But with the change in size, we also have the Bold 9700 seeing its screen being shrunk down to 2.44 inches from its original 2.6-inch size.

Screen resolution has been bumped up to 480 x 360 pixels, but we also see a screen size reduction to 2.44-inches.

In place of the mini-USB port that we are familiar with, the Bold 9700 now sports the standardized micro-USB ports for mobile devices.

Besides the size reduction, a few noticeable changes were spotted on the Bold 9700, most prominent being the absence of the familiar trackball. In its place, we have an optical trackpad that first saw the light of day on the Curve 8520. From our earlier experience with the 8520 Curve, we weren't exactly comfortable with how sensitive the trackpad was. We approached the Bold 9700 with as little skepticism as possible, but alas, it was once again proven that the trackball would have been the more accurate tool.

However, we've heard of Bold 9000 users having issues with the trackball after extensive usage. In retrospect, the switch to the optical trackpad could prove to resolve the issue of users wearing out the trackball. Give or take, you might have better mileage with the trackpad, but at the expense of lower usability level.

As said, we prefer the trackball over the trackpad. But prolonged usage could prove the trackpad to have better reliability of the two.

Thankfully, the Bold 9700 retains the same design aspect of the original QWERTY keyboard of the Bold 9000 with its slightly raised and curved individual keys that give it a tactile feel. However, we did experience slightly slower speeds and lower key accuracy as compared to the Bold 9000, which wasn't that much of a surprise to us since the keys are physically a tad smaller.

With each key reduced slightly in size, it's expected that your tactile feedback would dip, but thankfully, it's still relatively easy and fast to type on the Bold 9700.

On average, both the Bold 9700 and the Nokia E72 will have almost similar typing speeds, but the experience might vary depending on the user (i.e. finger size and nails).

We've once shared a story on how a Bold 9000 survived a ride on the roof of a car, thanks to its faux leather backing. The Bold 9700 will come with the same backing, albeit not fully covering the casing. Its microSD card slot has also seen a change in location, back to underneath the casing. We were glad that it doesn't follow its older generation BlackBerry devices, allowing you to slot in the microSD card at an angle, and utilizes a spring mechanism instead of a catch.

The leather backing that's great for gripping with your hands (and apparently on the top of cars too) isn't fully spread over the Bold 9700's backing (left picture) like the Bold 9000 was (right picture).

The microSD slot has been shifted back to underneath the casing and designed for angular insertion unlike the side insertion of the older Bold 9000 (as shown on the left).

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