I am a fanboy, but I am not a fanboy of a single company or device. I am a mobile tech fanboy. Exploring the ins and outs of different mobile platforms almost always gives me ideas about what I want in a perfect mobile device. One exception over the past couple of years has been the BlackBerry platform. I tried the BlackBerry Bold 9000 twice over the past year and a half. Both times I returned the BlackBerry within a week because it just would not do what I needed my primary (or secondary) device to do.

Fast forward to the present and the release of BlackBerry Bold 9700 on T-Mobile and AT&T. I was very interested in the BlackBerry Bold 9700 for a few reasons:

• The hardware is elegant. It has the professional look of the Bold 9000, but a slightly smaller form factor. It also added an optical navigation pad instead of the trackball.
• BlackBerry OS 5 looked like a decent upgrade from OS 4.5 that was on the Bold 9000.
• It was available on T-Mobile as their first 3G BlackBerry.
• I wanted to see how the BlackBerry app experience was compared to other platforms since they launched BlackBerry App World
• Finally, the recent announcements from RIM regarding BlackBerry developers have all been positive from what I have read.

So, what is a gadget geek like myself do when I am curious about a device?  I visited the local T-Mobile store and bought yet another BlackBerry. Could the Bold 9700 be the BlackBerry to finally win me over for more than a week?

I am mainly going to take a look at the hardware right now.  It is the first thing you experience, so let’s what kind of impression the Bold 9700 can make.

I have always enjoyed front-facing keyboard phones. When I was a Windows Mobile user, I always wondered why nobody could make a phone that was half as elegant as the BlackBerry Bold. The Bold 9700 comes in second as far as look and feel for this form factor. While I still believe the Nokia E71 is the best designed phone in this category, it also suffered from the wimpy QVGA screen resolution like Windows Mobile non-touch devices. The 9700 has a beautiful 480×320 resolution screen. I think this should be the standard for this category of devices. Hopefully Nokia and Windows Mobile Standard manufacturers will finally be able to match this screen quality in 2010. There is no excuse for 320×240 to live on any longer.

I love buttons. I especially love it when I can customize buttons to do what I want. Other than the QWERTY keyboard, the 9700 also has 2 buttons that are customizable out of the box. In addition to those 2 buttons, there are third party apps that add the ability to customize other buttons like the lock and mute buttons on top of the 9700. You can even assign actions to double, triple, and quadruple clicks. This makes the few customizable buttons much more efficient…as long as you can remember what you assigned to each button.

The Bold 9700 is the first Bold that came with the optical navigation pad/trackpad instead of the traditional trackball. I remember using the Samsung Epix which also had an optical trackpad, but the user experience is so much better on the BlackBerry. I was a fan of the old trackball concept, but I never gave it a good enough shot to become a fan. I can’t imagine that the trackball could match the quality of the trackpad. I think this is the future of non-touch devices. The Bold 9700 trackpad is really a joy to use.

With the exception of the Storm, RIM has always been known for putting excellent keyboards on their devices. The 9700 is no exception. It did take me a day or so to get used to the keyboard, but that was mainly caused by the fact that I have been using phones with a sliding keyboard for the past few months. I had to get used to using the “alt” key more than normal since nearly all numbers and punctuation is accessed by an alt-click or the “sym” button. One of the nice features that is also available on other keyboard phones is the ability to hold down a letter to have it capitalized. I have been enjoying this on the Nokia N97 mini and E75, so I was pleased to have it on the Bold 9700. I do wish there was a better way to access frequently used punctuation like the period and comma, but I have adjusted to the keyboard the way it is.

This is a multi-part review, so stay tuned for more. If you have any questions or you want me to take a look at something specific, leave a comment.

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