RIM BlackBerry Bold 9900 (T-Mobile)

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 on T-Mobile will delight owners of older BlackBerries who have been waiting for an upgrade. But while the hardware is shiny and new, the Bold 9900's "new" OS is too similar to older versions to make a real difference. While the Bold 9900 finally gets a competitive WebKit browser and capacitive touch screen with BlackBerry OS 7, this cell phone is still no match for T-Mobile?s awesome range of high-end Android devices.

Design, Connectivity, and Call Quality
Much of what I wrote in the BlackBerry Bold 9930 ($249, 3 stars) review also applies to the 9900. Externally, the two devices are completely identical; both are classy looking executive-style smartphones. The Bold 9900 measures 4.5 by 2.6 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.5 ounces. The 2.8-inch capacitive touch screen offers an ultra-sharp (for its size) 640-by-480-pixel resolution. You still get the usual BlackBerry touchpad underneath the screen, but I find it easier to just tap and scroll using the screen itself, the more I get used to the idea of a touch screen Bold (which is jarring at first, if you?re used to older models). Typing on the Bold 9900?s four-row QWERTY keyboard, as with the Bold 9930, felt great.

The Bold 9900 is a tri-band HSPA 14.4 (850/1700/2100 MHz) and quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. That means it works on 3G networks both here and abroad. Note that while T-Mobile claims this is a 4G BlackBerry, it really isn?t, because it only supports HSPA 14.4. Expect download speeds averaging 3 Mbps, slower than the 5 Mbps and greater averages we've seen from truly 4G, HSPA+ 21 devices like the Samsung Galaxy S 4G ($99, 4 stars).

Inexplicably, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 has no Wi-Fi calling ability. That's unusual for a T-Mobile phone, and a disappointment. I also had very poor 3G signal reception in a marginal T-Mobile area in Massachusetts, where the Samsung Exhibit 4G ($29.99, 3.5 stars) had no trouble finding 3G - so Wi-Fi calling would have been welcome.

Calls sounded good through the Bold 9900, with a clear, warm tone in the earpiece, and just a touch of static around transmissions through the microphone. Calls also sounded fine through an Aliph Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset?($129, 4 stars), and voice dialing worked fine over Bluetooth. The speakerphone distorted a bit, but sounded reasonably full, if not quite as loud as other BlackBerrys I've tested. Talk time was average, at 5 hours 44 minutes, but that understates the 9900's battery life. This being a BlackBerry, it has considerably better standby time than other top smartphones?up to a few days of regular use.

Upgrades, Apps, and Messaging
The Bold 9900 gets a slightly different software bundle than its brethren on other carriers. T-Mobile adds MobileLife Family Organizer, a Cozi-powered scheduler, list maker, and journaling app. It also rebrands a few of the icons; the browser becomes web2go, for example. Like the Bold 9930, the Bold 9900 runs BlackBerry OS 7, which contain a much faster WebKit browser, some minor UI refinements, and a new ?liquid graphics? engine that generally remains invisible. The new scrolling icon menus are fun to use, if a bit tough to get used to. There are way too many settings pages scattered throughout the phone. And much like old Windows Mobile Professional devices, you can tell that the OS wasn?t originally designed for touch; sometimes it?s easier to just use the trackpad to nail the setting you want.

Otherwise, everything else remains the same as the Bold 9930. That includes Qualcomm?s 1.2GHz Snapdragon CPU, the 5-megapixel camera, and the 720p HD camcorder, which are all major updates from earlier BlackBerrys. The Bold 9900 feels very fast?faster than any older Bold or Curve you may be experienced with. As always, the Bold 9900 supports personal and business email accounts, though you?ll need a BlackBerry Enterprise Server installed at your company if you want to sync with Microsoft Exchange Server. The universal inbox supports Facebook and Twitter updates as well as email and instant messages.?

BlackBerry App World is still a disaster. When I first tested it in early 2009, I didn?t mind the freeze-ups and bugs so much. But today, they?re still there. And there still aren?t enough compelling programs, and even the useful ones usually trail their Android or iOS counterparts. Simply put: get an Android device or iPhone if you like apps.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The buried microSD card slot is a pain, but BlackBerry Desktop Software makes it easy to sync songs, playlists, and videos with a PC or Mac. Music tracks sounded clear through Samsung Modus HM6450 Bluetooth headphones?($99, 4 stars), and standalone videos played smoothly in full screen mode. My 32GB SanDisk card popped up a formatting error, but worked fine once I reformatted the card. The camera takes slightly soft, muted, but still usable photos both indoors and out, although the lack of auto-focus can be troublesome. The 720p HD camcorder is a decent stand-in for a (now discontinued) Cisco Flip; it records smooth, 1280-by-720-pixel videos at 30 frames per second, and the image stabilization setting helps a bit.

All told, I?m having a hard time recommending the BlackBerry Bold 9900, especially given its very high $299 up-front price. If BlackBerries were the only smartphones in the world (or if they're the only smartphone your boss lets you have), the 9900 would rate as excellent. And it's a great choice for enterprise messaging. But most of the world is demanding a rich app selection on its smartphones now. Before you buy the Bold 9900, have a look at the T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide ($199, 4.5 stars), our current Editors? Choice. It offers a slide-out, hardware QWERTY keyboard, a next-generation dual-core processor, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and a capacitive touch screen that?s almost an inch larger than the BlackBerry Bold 9900?s. It?s a little big and heavy, though; if you want something smaller, the older T-Mobile G2 ($99, 4 stars) is slimmer and lighter, and remains an awesome phone with a QWERTY keyboard otherwise.

Benchmarks
Continuous Talk Time: 5 hours 44 minutes

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