I got a BlackBerry 9700 on Monday. Intro notes: I’m on T-Mobile and used a G1 for a year until it broke. I switched to a first generation BlackBerry Pearl for three weeks.
These are my thoughts on the 9700 written on a BlackBerry 9700. (I needed something to practice typing on the keyboard so this is what I chose.) I was gonna start this by saying that I’ve never been so excited for a phone before. But that’s just me rating more recent things higher. I was way more excited for the G1, back when it had a chance to stand toe to toe with the iPhone. (Even then, it was only a chance and not really likely. But I didn’t realize that Lloyd Christmas had a better chance with Lynn Swanson.)
The screen is fantastic. I always felt like text was always too big on the G1, even when set as small as possible. On the Bold I’ve got it set pretty small and can read it comfortably. I’m glad to be on a full keyboard again. My G1 broke. Loved that keyboard. Didn’t love sliding it out every time, but I didn’t mind as much as some people did. Switched to my brother’s old BlackBerry Pearl. I actually really like the keyboard and the SureType system. The biggest problem is that I updated the OS and the first-generation Pearl really can’t handle the newest version, so typing with any sort of speed meant a meeting with the hourglass and then probably a ruined sentence to delete. Also, the trackball couldn’t scroll left so I learned to navigate without getting to places where a left would be necessary. The trackpad is really nice. It sort of feels like having a touchscreen, which might be hard to believe without trying it. Obviously it can’t compete with the multitouch experience, but coming from the G1, I really don’t miss the touchscreen.
But I do miss the browser. The biggest flaw of the 9700 is the biggest flaw of any BlackBerry—the browser is garbage. This is well documented and RIM has a WebKit browser in the works. Yes, I tried Opera. No, I haven’t tried Bolt yet. But for now the experience leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I read 9700 reviews and thought. “Well, how bad could web browsing?” Bad, so bad, Jackey Vinson. Having that kind of software on flagship hardware is like having all those retro NES games on the Wii except it feels ancient instead of nostalgic.
Another thing I miss is Android’s universal menu bar. Some BlackBerry applications still allow you to see alerts at the top of the screen; some don’t. I’m writing this review in Memopad and I have no visual evidence on screen of whether or not new messages have come in. The LED could probably be set, but that only notifies me that something new came in, not what kind of new thing came in. When the G1 UI demos came out last year, I thought it was odd that they would highlight something mundane like the menu bar. Now that I don’t have it, I understand why it was so important.
The messaging experience is the system seller and it’s the reason I know I won’t have any buyer’s remorse. About a month ago a majority of my friends that I hang out with regularly started using the BlackBerry Messenger group chat feature. And within a couple of weeks it became the main form of communication between us. Texts stopped and mass MMS stopped. Some of the same friends used to frequent a forum we had in high school, and it reminds me of that in some ways. Is this going to be a dealbreaker for most people? Probably not. But for me it was. I miss having a decent browsing exerience (hopefully the WebKit browser fixes that in the future). But I would really really miss the group chat if I couldn’t have it.
Email is great. I installed the Gmail application and I’m satisfied with it. SMS messages are threaded by user now, which I’m really happy about. I hate going back to see what I said last (we stopped using ICQ for a number of reasons but that was one of the main ones) and didn’t ever fully understand how the Pearl decided to mini-thread some convos and not others.
Music and video are good from what I’ve seen so far. Video plays without a hitch as long as its not too high a resolution. Music is pretty basic but that’s all I want really. Even with my iPods I rarely used more than a couple playlists on a daily basis. And the BB Desktop Manager lets me sync with iTunes playlists. I’ll probably try leaving my Nano at home the rest of this week and see how that goes.
And I guess it’s also a phone. The calls I’ve taken have been clear consistently. Honestly I’ve never complained about call quality on any of my previous phones so take my opinion with a grain of salt (read: disregard it completely).
The 9700 hardware is great and the software is good. Browsing might be a dealbreaker but if you’ve used a BlackBerry before you know what you’re in for. And if you haven’t, do some research and make sure you know what you’re in for.