Specs and Speculations: Blackberry Bold

     The email phone. The business phone. The first successful smart phone. The Blackberry. Is it really all that good? The Blackberry Bold came into my house, and I jumped at the opportunity to review it (Although I'm not so sure the phone's owner really wanted me to use it).
     At first glance, the Bold looked nice. Unlike many phones, it's straighter angles make this a sleek looking business smartphone. You get a full physical QWERTY keyboard under the 2.45 inch LCD screen. Being used to the big touchscreen smartphones common today, the Bold's small, "regular" screen seemed strange. The Bold's Bluetooth capabilities are also important for the business user.
    On my Samsung Intensity, I made a call to the Bold. The voice quality was okay, but when the caller was not talking, there was a lot of background white noise, even though they were in a completely quiet office. The Bolds ear-piece seems to work well.
    Using the mini trackpad on the phone was a lot harder than using the touchscreen on say, the iPhone. Having a physical keyboard can sometimes be nice, especially for heavy email users. The Bold sounds good so far, but the user experience on the OS is a real drawback. For instance, in the maps app, you have to click the trackpad to change the mode from "Pan" mode to "Zoom" mode, and then move your finger on the trackpad.
     The picture quality on the 3.2 MP is better than one you'll find on a feature phone, but doesn't come close to the iPhone 4's almost point and shoot like quality. It's nice to have a flash on the phone, but with this camera I would definitely bring along a point and shoot camera on a trip, because the Bold's Camera  doesn't really do the trick.
     Our Verizon phone came preloaded with icons for Skype, NFL Mobile, along with some games, but clicking on most of them just brought up a webpage for downloading them. Verizon also adds it's VCast and a few other programs, along with (annoyingly) making Bing the default search provider. The calendar app works fine, and is actually more advanced than the one on Android and iPhone, but has a very plain and old fashioned looking interface.
     Email setup was easy, and I set up my Gmail account on the phone in seconds. Blackberry users are crazy about how the email system is better than anything else, but I don't see how it outshines the iPhone or Android. The one drawback with email is  that it takes twenty minutes fo rthe mail to start coming into your inbox.
     Gamers, stick with an iPhone or Android device, because gaming isn't really going to work that well on the Blackberry Bold. The Bold comes preloaded with five games, including a not so well designed Brick-Breaker, a pretty fun casual game called Word Mole (so that's where the enter button is), and Sudoku, which seems okay. Medal of Honor and Assassin's Creed II, for $6.99 and $1.99, respectively. Although these are popular titles in the gaming console world, I don't know how good Assassin's Creed II could look on a 2.45 inch screen.
     Once you start to understand how the operating system works, everything becomes easier to understand, until then the OS really is not as self explanatory as iPhone's iOS or even Android. The whole Blackberry system works, but is almost completely any missing any eye candy you'll find on other phones.
     The Blackberry Bold seems to be for the business user who definitely does NOT use this as their primary computing device. For those, I would definitely recommend the iPhone, or maybe for a more sophisticated user, an Android device. As usual, you definitely should play with all your options before you make the decision.

Blackberry PlayBook: Now Touchable

     Last year was the year of the 3D TV. This year is the year of the tablet PC. When looking through my various tech and gadget blogs on Google Reader, most of what I saw was either stupid, or tablet, or both. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, pretty much every PC manufacturer announced a tablet PC.
     For those slightly unfamiliar to the technology world, a tablet is a touchscreen computer that usually runs a mobile operating system. Some run the popular Android, others their own customized OS, some run Windows 7, and a few even run Linux.
     The tablet PC was started by Microsoft quite a few years ago, but the concept never caught on. Until now. Apple's iPad really popularized the idea of the tablet. Now Motorola, Samsung, and even Vizio, a TV manufacturer, have caught on.
     In September, RIM (The creators of Blackberry.) announced it's PlayBook, a 7 inch tablet running a new, personalized OS. The BlackBerry tablet was always a cool idea, but nobody was ever really able to touch it. Until now. (Second time I've used that this post.)

BlackBerry PlayBook

     At the Consumer Electronics Show, BlackBerry had a few working prototype models displayed. Viewers can see a tech demo, and the lucky few could actually play with the tablet. The reviews were overall good all around, and although it is not a final model, the device seemed to work fairly well.
     The PlayBook is 7.6 inches across, 5.1 inches in height, and only 0.4 inches thick. With a weight of 0.9 pounds, the PlayBook is lighter than the 1.5 pound iPad by about 0.6 pounds, and with it's small size and light weight, the PlayBook will be great for professionals on the go.
     The PlayBook does not run the BlackBerry software, but, simular to the BlackBerry smartphone lines, is optimized for business use. Unlike most tablet PCs, the PlayBook has true multitasking, meaning that, unlike other tablets, it does not pause apps when they are minimized. Rather, this BlackBerry tablet leaves apps running completely, and lets you see them running with it's unique user interface.

PlayBook's Photo App

      The PlayBook features a 7 inch capacitive touch screen, a 3 mega pixel front facing camera for video chat, along with a 5 mega pixel rear facing camera for (the strange few) who want to take photos with a 7.6 inch tablet, and  a microUSB and microHDMI port. The PlayBook also sports stereo speakers and 1080p video playback.
      The business user needs power, and BlackBerry promises power with the PlayBook with a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM.
      The coolest parts of the BlackBerry PlayBook are the little things. The fact that there are no physical buttons on the front, and that the touchscreen extends beyond the visible screen, so you just swipe up from the bottom to access the home screen. Another neat feature is the actual home screen. The bottom half contains a grid of your apps, while the top half contains small previews of the currently running apps, as they are running. For example, a running YouTube video would be watchable (in a very small window) even when you are not currently in that app.
     The PlayBook  has 3G or 4G, along with 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR. The 4G will be available from Sprint, and with the 3G version, it is not clear which carriers will have it.
     The PlayBook seems like a very compelling device. Two things may stand in the way: The price is still unknown, and with all of the true multitasking going on, it will be hard for BlackBerry to achieve good battery life.

      The BlackBerry website states, "BlackBerry 4G PlayBook coming soon to Sprint." This seems to indicate  a near release date, so PlayBook awaiting individuals, the seven inch tablet of your dreams may be coming out sooner than you think. If you were planning on purchasing an iPad, but like the PlayBook, you might wan't to wait for it. The only reason I'm not saying "Buy it." is because it is not yet buy-able. But if it were, I would definitely recommend the BlackBerry PlayBook.