The Blackberry Bold 9700 & Blackberry 9000 Review

Bplay theme designers working on animated 9780 themes

I heard from Fraser Cole via Twitter, that they are indeed working on porting their fancy animated themes so they’ll work on the new Bold 9780. Maybe they’ll be nice to me and transfer all the ones I bought over the years for my Bold 9000 to the Bold 9780…

Using the new Theme Editor, transfering old themes to the new Blackberry 6.0 format is easier than ever with the converter included.

I tried making an animated theme for the Bold 9780 fans out there, but it wasn’t so easy. After several attempts I gave up and went begging the powers-that-be at Bplay to release a theme… But alas no result yet. Hopefully soon!

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.

Animated themes for the Bold 9780

Like everybody else, I was seriously hurting for a Bold 9780 (With operating system 6.0) animated theme. Would have been pretty sweet to have something like that eh?

I remember the glory of folks being shocked by my Bold 9700 and my Bold 9000 with my fireplace theme and my snow globe theme from Bplay. I know it sounds like a sales pitch almost but seriously, I remember clients who had no idea blackberries could have animated themes being compeletely in awe at the phone on the table. Yes there were iPhones back then, but iPhones didn’t have animated themes… This was totally amazing. People really were jealous, even those who owned blackberries but didn’t know how to get that.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw that Mobihand had a theme that claims to have a Windmill Theme that supports “Non-Touch Blackberry 6.0″ operating system. If your any kinda familiar with Blackberries… You know the Torch has a touch screen, so one might only assume they MUST Have meant it supports the 9780….

I paid the $1.99 and it didn’t work. Sadly, I didn’t even have time to email their customer service for a refund. Who has that kinda time nowadays for a couple bucks? But!! I got great news, I posted a negative review saying it didn’t work on my phone and amazingly Mobihand actually emailed me with a refund! Their customer service rocks!

No dice! No animated themes are yet available for the 9780!!!! There are some for the torch but none i’ve found yet for the Bold 9780. Any trooper that wants to do some hunting, please do and then post in the comments section with what you find.

Why did RIM bother with the 9780?

After using the device about a week, a person has to ask themselves… Why did they not go to the next step and make a new bold with all the features mentioned on every bold review…

Wish it had wish it had (repeat)

The 9780 is just a 9700 with more ram, less chrome and a better camera.

Big thing you notice coming from an iphone is the instant lack of screen real estate. It can be somewhat fixed by setting the font to size 5 in options.

The 9780 apparently contains the same Marvel ARM 625MHz chip they have been using in bolds and 9800’s since the dawn of time… Yet some even claim the bold 3 to be faster than a torch due to its lack of touch screen processing, its livable but sometimes the browser certainly does lag.

Weird that RIM’s own browser doesn’t support commenting on their corporate blog. Ironic that I only found that out commenting on a post about a blackberry developer who decided to go laptop-less and entirely blackberry on a road trip.

Bold 9780 has no Wireless N built in

So, yesterday I finally ditched the iPhone 4 in favor of a Bold 9780. I will be writing a comprehensive review of what I already miss about the iPhone but what I already love about the Bold that I missed when I had my Bold 9700 in the past.

But.. For now one weird (and strange thing) I noticed about the Bold 9780 specs… It has no 802.11N Wireless technology. Yet the Pearl 3G, Curve 9300 and Torch 9800 all support 802.11N technology. Apparently the issue was that they built the 9780 basically exactly on the 9700 platform which limited them in architecture and design somehow and they weren’t able to include the N.

What is the bold 9780 and what’s it mean in 2011? It’s basically Research In Motion’s answer to the Qwerty traditional blackberry shape while still running OS 6.0. It’s meant for high level communicators and big emailers and it’s a real productivity tool with zero bells and whistles (At least by today’s standards).

While it lacks a high resolution screen, Open GL support, Flash support and a peppier processor that would certainly have other smart phone users considering the switch, it makes up for it in call quality, speed and practicality at what it does do best. Phone and organize!

iPhone 4 vs Crackberry Bold 9800/9780

Whomever invented the phrase “crackberry” due to their insanely addictive tendancies, has not met the owner of an iPhone. There are more apps, more software titles, games and things to do on that device than one can shake a stick at. Yet in all that, they’re incredibly annoying!

In 2011, I’ll be ditching the iPhone 4 in favor of a Bold 9780.

Why did a crackberry addict get an iPhone 4 in the first place?? I’ll tell you, back when the 9700 was their top device, they still hadn’t come up with a blackberry with a webkit browser. They had just aquired the browser developer “torch” and had not yet started using the technology. I’m primarily an online marketer and internet marketer and I needed a real web browser.. reading Sphinn.com on a bold 9700 meant that I couldnt’ see how many “Sphinns” I had recieved on my story and that frosted my cookies!!!

Then, I tried the Google Nexus One, but it was frustrating. The keyboard accuracy was disgusting and the RSS reader apps were non-existant. The browser was nice, but the gmail app was mega slow and nasty. I wound up going temporarily to a Blackberry 8320… Which was HELL. The damn thing was slow on OS 4.7 and had really slow texting which I never did find an answer to. I appologize to the guy I sold it to, I dont’ think it was a defect but it certainly was hell.

Then, I got the iPhone 4…

Why? Stoop to the levels of Jobs and his minions? I dunno, the web developer/marketer culture that my work brings me into almost forces you into an iPhone world… Everyone in my industry has one. I thought viewing websites as they properly look and that gorgeous retina display would be awesome… But what made me go over the edge to iPhone?

* Retina Display
* Push Email (really works fine)
* Typing…

When a friend popped over one day with an iPhone 4, I tried typing on it and i was shocked.. The accuracy was amazing! (Compared to the Nexus One android that I had from Google) and I thought I could really get by with that. In fact I was sure of it. I quickly researched the right RSS reader and other pieces i’d need to get it to work for my business…

Plus, you know the gaming abilities and the use of my Wifi mac bluetooth keyboard for typing on the road would make life easier, right? Except some really shocking things came clear super fast…

Why I’m getting rid of the iPhone 4 in 2011

Truth is, the email works as described… The web browser is fine, but typing really is nuts. There’s an entire website dedicated to the blunders of mis-typing on an iPhone. It’s not that the accuracy isn’t there…. It’s just that muscle memory as I wrote about in the past never occurs. Your body never learns where there the keys are so you can stop looking at the display and just type freely.

List of reasons iPhone’s suck for business:

* Emails, Texts and blog posts never get easier to write on the touchscreen keyboard compared to the muscle memory of a physical qwerty keyboard

* The calendar takes 2-3 more clicks than usual to add each item, frustratingly making scheduling a pain in the butt!

* The extra entertainment in your pocket (games, browser etc..) all make you less productive than you would be had you kept JUST a productivity tool…

* The speakerphone on every iPhone sucks. It’s not loud enough to function in your car or other convenient locations.

* The Call quality has never been nice, and I hate always hanging up on people with my cheek or hitting the mute button on the display with my cheek! DAMN YOU IPHONE!

* The non removable memory, the non removable battery… the battery life of what should be my phone but winds up having the battery life of a grownup video game.

* I miss the little red blinky light that tells me i’ve got email.. Not this on display thing that i’m not likely to notice…

In 2011, will I miss my HD camcorder, or the Retina display?

No, I doubt it, because I have an HD Camcorder that ONLY does that and does it better than an iPhone.
I have a video game system that does THAT better than an iPhone…
I have a laptop that browses the web better than an iPhone…

Why go for the 9780 vs the 9800?

The torch is nice, but if you’ve seen any demo units the keyboard is kinda hard to press, on top of the top row of buttons being hard to push. The touch screen puts extra load on the processor making it slower than the 9780 in Blackberry OS 6.0 and… hate touch screens. I do wish the 9780 had a higher resolution screen but beyond that, it’s a really good choice.

I think back in the day when it was the 9000 vs the 3GS people really had no choice. If you wanted to browse full blown websites when you needed to yet still have Blackberry’s famous organizer features, you were screwed. Even CBC’s recent reader poll showed a higher love for Blackberry. Crackberry found even the latest Blackberries have slower browsers, but still comparable and much more usable than the past ones…

In the end, having a phone and a strong calendar with enterprise backup and email is a much higher priority than browsing the web, which.. you can always do with a laptop in your own leisure anyway… tethered or not.

Bold 9780 vs Torch 9800

A person in this market place who has already chosen to go the blackberry route in this market place is enevitably going to ask themselves, Bold 9780 or Blackberry Torch 9800?

What’s the fundamental difference between the two?

Well, in short – the glaringly obvious difference is the touch screen and hidden keyboard the Torch 9800 sports is all that separates the two. I’ve heard several well published and well trusted arguments that OS 6.0 is faster on a 9780 because it doesn’t need to run the software and drivers neccessary to support the touch screen… While I haven’t seen two side by side, I would have to agree that to be true given that they both have the same amount of RAM and the same Marvel 625Mhz processors onboard. For the life of me I still don’t understand the use of this chip. Sure it’s well supported, affordable etc, but we see no discount in price… Yet they continue to use this in favor of even a modest upgrade to say some 800Mhz Qualcomm or something.

For typing…

Typing on a Blackberry Torch 9800 is a bit tougher than a Bold 9780 (which by the way contains the exact same keyboard letter for letter, inch for inch size wise to the Bold 9700)… The Torch however, has the top row of keys blocked by the top of the slider that slides over top of the keys and actually has a stiffer set of keys than the 9800… Making it actually less enjoyable to type on. Sure with some practice it could get easier… but I’ve heard from long time users that it’s not something that ever really goes a way.

Battery

I’m not exactly sure why but RIM actually claims a longer battery life on the 9780 than they do on the Torch.. Could the torch have been a hybrid experiment that went horribly wrong? I’ve heard rumors that typing on the 9800’s touch screen is nasty (I believe engadget said that) and you inevitably wound up typing on the physical keyboard after a short period of detest.

Apparently the 9780 doesn’t support WiFI… a glaringly nasty thing! Im not sure why they would choose to leave that out on such a wonderfully designed unit otherwise…

The onboard RAM is identical with the exception of the 4GB of EMMC onboard the Torch for some future use maybe?

I would think the 9780 would be an obvious choice if they would only include Wifi…