The Blackberry Bold 9700 & Blackberry 9000 Review

Slow Bold 9700 or Bold 9780 in OS 6?

Are you going snail speed or slower?

I was, until a few days ago when I found out that I could see all programs running in Blackberry 6.0 thanks to a new feature that let me see what was running and what was causing my problem. Mine was Google Maps which had been running for 3 days straight. Ironically, my blackberry got slow about 3 days ago!

Is your Torch, Bold 9780 or Bold 9700 on OS 6.0 going slow? Is it lagging in spots and making text messages, and even contacts and browsing super slow? Pehraps check what’s taking up the CPU in 3 simple steps:

Click on Options:

Then Hit Applications:

Then head on over at the top there to “CPU” and you’ll see a list…

Click each application and you can see their memory use, cpu use and how long they’ve been running for!

Blackberry OS 6.0 One Homepage Tray Fix

I went googling all over the web after about a week of using the Blackberry 9780 to find something that would fix the way the home screen works. It drives me insane! I don’t like having a favorites, and a home and a media etc, etc. It actually angers me.

I went looking for a homescreen plugin, or a homescreen theme fix or even some kinda homescreen tray removal thing. Anything that would get that home set of icons to stay still, stay put and not move. Some way to have a fixed group of icons on the home screen.

While I haven’t found that yet, in the mean time I’ll say that one thing that helps reduce anger about it.. whenever you get lost, hit the red phone hangup button and that heads straight to the default “all programs” and it’s easy to find your way from there.

Dan

Bold 9700 and Bold 9780 Chargers for $0.83

I was surfing amazon today and saw that they have Blackberry 9700 and Blackberry 9780 wall chargers for $0.83!!
Make no mistake, this charger is the same small motorola created mini-usb end that we’re so familiar with that came out with the 9700 and has been stuck with since then on all new models.

Short post, I know, but it was really shocking to me actually.

Blackberry Torch 9800 Secret Codes

Name: Decibel meter.
• Description/purpose: Displays your signal strength in decibels, instead of bars.
• Process: Hold “Alt” and press “N”, “M”, “L”, “L” (repeat to reverse the effect).

• Name: Address Book file verification.
• Description/purpose: Checks the data in your Address Book for inconsistencies.
• Process: In the Address Book, hold “Alt” and press “V”, “A”, “L”, “D”.

• Name: Address Book data structure rebuild.
• Description/purpose: Forces a data structure re-build in the Address Book…
• Process: In the Address Book, hold “Alt” and press “R”, “B”, “L”, “D”.

• Name: View source code.
• Description/purpose: Displays the source code of a Web page.
• Process: In the Browser, hold “Alt” and press “R”, “B”, “V”, “S”.

• Name: Help Me! menu.
• Description/purpose: Provides crucial technical information about your device, for when seeking technical support or help in forums…
• Process: Hold “Alt” and (left) “shift”, then press “H”.

• Name: IMEI display.
• Description/purpose: Displays your device’s international mobile equipment identity (IMEI – your serial number) on-screen… Also works from all other GSM handsets.
• Process: Type “*”, “#”, “0″, “6″, “#” on the Home screen.

• Name: “Soft” reset.
• Description/purpose: Performs a “soft” reset of your device; the equivalent of doing a “battery pull” (ie. Removing the battery for a few seconds).
• Process: Press-and-hold “Alt”, then press-and-hold (left) “shift”, then press-and-hold “Del”.

• Name: Event Log.
• Purpose: Displays event logs of all the system-level events that occur on your device…
• Process: Hold “Alt” and press “L”, “G”, “L”, “G”.

AT&T Blackberry Torch 9800 Review

Coming from someone who’s actually used a Google Android, Blackberry 9800 slider phone, and an iPhone 4… completely and entirely for months at a time EACH… dedicatedly treating each as my ONLY phone… I can give you a completely honest review of the Blackberry 9800 that is cut-throat honest.

First off – you should know that this isn’t as easy to type on as the Bold 9000 or Bold 9700 was. For some reason those raised chrome lines and the edge of the screen at the bottom do their fair share of interrupting your key presses.

But, ignoring that it’s certainly easier to use than the Google Android or iPhone 4 when it comes to typing. Your not going to enjoy typing long love letters to your girlfriend or anything but short well composed letters to clients until you can get back to the office are certainly expected.

The screen is crisp, clear and feels much higher resolution than it is. It’s no Retina display, but it’s definitely better than previous blackberries and it suits it’s purpose well. The new social features and parts of Blackberry 6 are very nice to the social elite or the RSS reader personality. They are the perfect answer to being organized, and up to date on news and what’s happening on Twitter and Facebook respectively.

If your in business and you need to keep up, but you don’t want to sacrifice your web browser or your social media capabilities by not owning an iPhone, blackberry has finally solved those problems once and for all. In fact, Blackberries are smarter in a number of ways.. like not having a glass front and glass back. It’s much harder to break a blackberry than an iPhone.

Amazon is offering killer discounts and deals on AT&T Blackberry Torches….

It’s funny that around the web I’ve seen a number of reviews that knock a blackberry… Then they go calling them “Tourches” or something like loosers. The torch sports a 5 megapixel camera, can handle 32gb of swappable memory, swappable battery, much longer lasting battery and overall more functionally useful than any other phone on the market at the moment. Sure it’s not a giant gameboy, but that’s not the purpose of an adult phone..  In fact, who has time to play games nowadays anyway. Lets get work done, and get places on time!

One thing that drove me beyond nuts when I was in iPhone land was how many steps it took to add something to the calendar. I mean gez, it’s like a 30 second thing for me on my Blackberry. It takes forever on your iPhone… like 6 steps, seriously! The other thing was the notifications… can you believe there’s no blinking red light on an iPhone to tell you when there’s a new email to read? I mean who sits there and opens their phone all the time… I like the red light, I find it comforting to know that I can count on that blink to know when I have new mail or new Facebook conversations to read.

Daniel J Deyette

Blackberry Torch Release Date Rogers Canada

Photoshopped for Fun

Rogers has now officially announced they will be carrying the flagship device “Blackberry Torch” in a post on their blog. They state the words “In the next coming weeks” as their timeline, but sources say August 14th is the official date of release.

This will be a shining moment for RIM history. It’s certainly not the competitor the company needs to remain in the hearts and hands of consumers against threats like the iPhone or the Android platforms but it’s the very next best thing.

Blackberry devices were not really designed to be entertainment devices and so they’ve never shined in that space. This device doesn’t change any of that for a moment as It’s strengths are still in business mobile and business communications.

The glaring differences between this smartphone and other smartphones in the competing markets are the lack of support for 3d gaming, the lower resolution screen and the lack of HD capable features. The Blackberry Torch has a screen incapable of doing any kind of HD video and it’s processor and graphics are also incapable of these things.

All those things considered, Blackberry is still a far better business mobile device than an iPhone or Android phone. While you *CAN* Conduct business on an Android or iPhone, you’d find yourself quickly becoming frustrated over the pure convenience of a Blackberry with push email, enterprise calendar and such.

The Torch adds in some of the features we’ve loved about iPhone and Android that you miss when joining the Blackberry team. Things like Pinch Zoom, a Webkit browser, more integrated social features and an on screen keyboard. This odd device sports both a Blackberry physical QWERTY keyboard as well as a touch interface. It also has the famous trackpad.

Crackberry and other sites are already showing the shock of just how fast this device really is at doing all it promises. What surprised me was the Video Crackberry released where they show the CPU use of the device running several programs and not wavering. Something’s been done to optimize that 624Mhz ARM chip that Research In Motion is so famous for using over the years.

This device was a real chance for them to move into higher end processors and yet they’re showing without a doubt that this chip and this platform certainly still have a ton of life left in them.

Update: I talked to some Official Rogers representatives yesterday and they confirmed a September launch is more likely… 12-14th range.. first week or two. <sigh>

~Sonic~