The Blackberry Bold 9700 & Blackberry 9000 Review

UberTwitter for Blackberry Bold 9700 and 9000 Devices

I know, it’s been a while since I posted a ton of material on the site here. This was one of those things where, you’d feel guilty if you didn’t tell fellow Bold 9700 and Bold 9000 users about.

See, when I first got my blackberry the only Blackberry Bold Twitter client program or application available was from Orangatame software and it was called “Open Beak” now, i can’t complain about free software too much, but honestly I think…

…having this software for so long actually HURT My opinion of Blackberry Phones!!!

Why? Because it’s so basic, so ugly and so simple that the very features of Twitter that make it an exciting platform just aren’t there. You don’t get the social interactivity feel of actually chatting or interacting with people… You read other people’s stuff, you read your own stuff… and you post stuff.. whoo hoo? It’s like a blog!

Twitter’s not a blog!??!!!

Well, it’s microblogging, but with the @replies and such its’ alot more than a blog, it’s a social network with active communication going on! But not with Openbeak.

This week, a few minutes before bed, I downloaded UberTwitter and my life changed. Yes in 48 hours my life became a different life. Twitter became people I could talk to, i found a report spam button for all those idiots who keep DM ing me stuff, you know who you are… I mean goodness! I have over 325 DM’s sitting in the inbox, do you REALLY think i’m going to read them? Spammers!

Ubertwitter’s allowed me to see threads of conversations, interact and read other conversations, and actually find MORE tweets fitting on my screen (it seems) then my desktop computer, and easier to read!

If you haven’t tried it your doing yourself a major dis-service, it may in fact actually change your life and grow your business just by installing it. Don’t blame me if you loose hours of precious family time and even have a divorce over how addictive this thing is to use.

Daniel J Deyette

Bejeweled for the Bold 9700

Easily argued as one of the best games to play with a trackpad.. Bejeweled gives some kind of strange and sickly twisted rush when casually flicking the track pad from right to left as you complete a series of 3 shapes. Not only does it flow so nice and sweetly, but it’s a great way to pass the time and won’t leave you frustrated and upset at yourself due to the lack of control that a non-trackball device can sometimes leave you.

I genuinely believe that Bejeweled may very well be the best Bold 9700 game on the market at the moment. It’s one of the few worth paying for. The arcade modes, the advanced levels and the graphics even look better on the Bold 9700 version than on the iPhone version. (iPhone version pictured to the right..).

Download Bejeweled for the Bold 9700 Today!

They have the OTA option there too via SMS to most carriers.

Share Blackberry Internet With Your Laptop – 50% Off

Probably one of the most useful pieces of software available for the Blackberry Smartphone today is the Tetherberry software… Which this week got re-branded to just “tether” due to it’s arrival in the Blackberry App World store.

There’s all kinds of controversy over this app, because apps similar to it aren’t allowed in the Apple store and I imagine the Droid app store has the same song and dance… Whatever the case may be, it’s on at 50% off from now until January 10th, 2010. You really should take advantage of this… Because $24.98 for a $50 program is a good deal – and it was even too rich for my blood until they announced this…

What’s is “tethering” anyway?

Tethering is where you connect your Blackberry via USB to your laptop and use it’s internet connection. If you get an unlimited internet plan from your cell phone provider – this is essentially free internet wherever there’s a signal. If your provider gives you 1GB per month or similar (..and your probably finding your not using it all anyway) you can tap into that for quick email checks and save paying Starbucks any cash.

This works with any provider.. but some require a different config than others, but this software very much simplifies the whole process. This entire process can work easily with a mac or a PC, with windows 7, windows 98, windows 2000, even a server your troubleshooting somewhere that needs a patch or an update… Just brilliant! It’s your swiss army knife, and $25 could easily save your bacon one day even if you don’t need it today…

Download Blackberry Internet Sharing “tetherberry” today.

What’s Slowed Down RIM on OS 5.0?

What’s taking so long to launch OS 5.0 to all Blackberries?

According to RIM, it’s not them, it’s the carriers! Crackberry.com set out to find what’s going on with RIM and the end of 2009 promise to have os 5.0 launched to the majority of devices out there and what the hold up was and found that was RIM’s take.

A statement filed by RIM said:

RIM began rolling out BlackBerry OS 5.0 late last year through our carrier partners for supported devices, including the BlackBerry Bold 9700, BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Storm2. We continue to work with our carrier partners to make BlackBerry OS 5.0 available to users on new and other supportable in-market BlackBerry smartphones.

So what’s that mean, that kinda leaves out the Bold 9000, doesn’t it? Apparently the software is available to all carriers to make this available to anyone, as we saw recently with Bell releasing 5.0 to the Bold 9000, all carriers have the software and ability. So from this byte of news, we can stop screaming “when’s RIM going to release 5.0 for my device” and start screaming “When is my carrier going to release it?”.

That… Is the question.

Jeremy Atkins

The Blackberry Presenter – Powerpoint Presentations

On Wednesday, January 6th 2010 – RIM released a new device that really changes the name of the game! A Wireless presentation device allowing you to do power point presentations with no laptop.

Given the native resolution of a Blackberry Bold 9000 or Bold 9700, this method of presenting would be best for text Power Points and non high resolution, non technical presentations only, but regardless it’s really cool. Makes you wonder if it would also work to play DIVX movies from your blackberry to  your TV Set.

Kind of disappointed this device didn’t come with HDMI though, that would make it truly a game changer and something totally useful in a mountain of situations.

Freeze mode is really neat. You can actually pause the powerpoint on the screen while browsing the presentation on your smartphone so you can digg thru and find what’s coming next then flow back all while the audience still sees the screen you were last on. Pretty awesome!

10 Meters of walk around space while still controlling the presentation, Impressive. I’m sure more news will surface and more strategy around  how it works as it slowly gets mentioned around the web.

Technical Details:

Video Formats:
NTSC/PAL

Power Connection:
USB

Video Formats:
VGA, S-VIDEO

Languages Supported:
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish

Display Resolutions:
640×480, 800×600, 1024×768

Bluetooth:
Version 2.o + EDR, Class 1.5

They might want to  add native Indian languages, as Blackberry devices are beginning to get a huge following in that country too.

-Richard

OS 5.0 For Blackberry 9000 Official

… At least from Bell Mobility! Great job, Bell! At least this is a clear sign that it will be released for other carriers.

As reported from BerryReview, CrackBerry,  Phone’s Review and other sites out there. I mentioned before that I was hoping for Os 5.0 to bring battery improvements to the Bold 9000. There’s no guarantee though so we’ll just have to see how it goes.

This was also one of the reasons I stated that it made sense to buy a Bold 9700 over a Bold 9000 for “futureproof” reasons. However, i’m not sure that’s a big deal now that they’re both officially going to support the latest OS, it’s going to be more of a question of what you like better and if you’re ok with a shortened battery life and lower quality camera.

P.S. – For newbies, yes you can still do the upgrade if you’re not a Bell Mobility customer. Yes, it’s the exact same hardware.

OS 5.0 for the bold 9000?

Rumors are floating around the web that os 5.0 will come available for the Bold 9000… That its one week away.
According to many sources, RIM claimed they’d have it rolled out before the end of 2009, which of course is very very near….

I sure hope that’s true. They’re still selling the device, now in white too.

Its a much needed upgrade and I hope battery life improvements we saw on the Bold 9700 come along with it. But, if it does come out soon for the Bold 9000 I will be doing the upgrade on my spare as it’d be nice to see how it runs on it compared to how it runs on the Bold 9700…
What about you? Will you do the update if RIM rolls out OS 5.0 to the Bold 9000?

P.S. This week we removed Google Adsense from the site, hope that keeps the site clean for everyone! It’s really about the content more than the revenue ideally…

Daniel J Deyette

Vonage voip for blackberry now an option

Yeah, I often get excited about affordable calling on the blackberry, but hey! Who doesn’t like money saving tips?

Vonage brought out a blackberry app bacl in october so that’s kinda old news, but what’s new is their $24.95 plan rates instead of paying by the call… Who’s up for unlimited USA blackberry calling??

The Bold 9000 vs Bold 9700 – Indepth Review

This review is going to be a work in progress… Especially since it’s Christmas and there won’t be much time to do a complete work, but it’s very much needed on the web… A comprehensive overview of the differences and what you should know…

Size Comparison…

The Bold 9000 is definitely a much bigger unit with a much larger screen physically. The resolution on the Bold 9700 is slightly larger (480×360 pixels) versus the Bold 9000’s (480×320 pixels). Even thought the Bold 9000 is slightly lower in resolution (screen pixels) it’s actually physically bigger making it easier to read and navigate at a glance or for those with glasses.

But the Bold 9000’s larger size also means a larger keyboard making it easier for those with larger thumbs to type on…

Battery Life…

It’s no secret that the biggest innovation of the Bold 9700 was practically DOUBLE the battery life. When I retired the Bold 9000, I was getting a dead battery at 4pm after a heavy 8am to 4pm usage. That meant charging it up when I got home from work if I expected to use it in the evening while out with the family for any reason… Not good! The Bold 9700 started out acting much the same as the Bold 9000 in the first few days of use but on day 3 or 4, it started to last well past the usual… I usually go to bed on heavy usage days with 2/3rds of the battery still left.

Operating System…

The Bold 9000 runs on the original OS 4.7 (although some are actually running 5.0 on it with little troubles), if you want supported OS 5.0 the only option is the Bold 9700 at the moment as RIM has not released 5.0 officially for the Bold 9000.  What’s the difference? There’s some areas of 5.0 that have been improved and obviously battery life is part of that too. The look and feel is a bit slicker and nicer and the browser seems to be faster and crash a lot less. The threaded SMS (Text message conversations grouped by contact) makes communication easier too. Beyond that I don’t think there’s any major differences as – at this point in time – most software titles out there seem to work well on both.

Don’t believe what you read, they both run the same processor and so quite a bit of the guts are no different. Any speed differences are operating system and software related and NOT hardware related at all.

Camera Resolution…

The camera on the Bold 9700 is 3.2 Megapixels and comparable to the iPhone camera where as the Bold 9000’s is only a 2 megapixel. The camera on the Bold 9700 also has some fancy focus abilities making it able to take a nicer picture… However the CCD (Image Sensor) isn’t much improved so the overall quality in low lighting is still pretty bad and pixelated and no different than any other camera phone and neither phone’s camera can take a descent picture at high speed. Trying to take a good quality pic of your fast moving 2 year old is still not an option.

Navigation…

The old debate of the trackpad vs the track ball… I’m sure it’ll be going on for years to come… But there’s reason to be in either camp. Yes the ball is probably a bit easier for gaming and a pinch more accurate and easy to use, but… so easily prone to getting mucked up! A heavy user will find themselves cleaning it frequently and having all kinds of ball issues.. IF you ever have ball issues, you’ll quickly realize how useless the device is without it!

Summary…

As I said, I’ll be updating this with more info and will remove those mentions when it’s complete, but overall the Bold 9700 is a better phone with more features and futureproof for support from RIM and software developers as most developers move to more OS 5.0 Software. But I too miss blogging and typing and even reading articles on the slightly larger screen.

But working with a Bold 9000 at this stage means sacrificing a better camera, longer battery life, dirty trackballs and older OS 4.7… The choice is yours.

Texas Hold’em King for Bold 9000 and Bold 9700

We haven’t gotten into games much on this site, but there are some games that – when you have a few minutes to spare – can really add life and enjoyment to your day to day boringness.

Texas Hold’em King 3 is the latest version of a series of mobile poker games created by Magmic Games. They instantly connect you with a community of over 100,000 players that you can play against. They claim to have the very best graphics of any blackberry poker game out there… For only $5 bucks, you really can’t argue the price at all.

Basicly, you’re buying a license to own this game for the life of your blackberry, and potentially other blackberries too! Huh? Well, let me explain… If you buy Texas Holdem King from Bplay.com, you can log into your account and re-download it again – even a year later for free.

But wait, there’s more!

When you buy software from Bplay, your not just buying the Bold 9000 or Bold 9700 version only! If you buy a Bold 9700 down the road, but you bought it for the 9000… You can just log into Bplay and re-download the file for 9700’s instead. Cool huh?

Texas Hold’em is a game of skill and deception. It’s one of the most popular games online and in casinos. Check it out… Pretty cool!