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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Blackberry Gets Bold

Everyone wants to play in iPhone's tent, and BlackBerry is angling for a bunk with its new Bold smartphone, due this summer worldwide.

The Bold is a tri-band GSM worldphone and the first from Blackberry to offer access to HSPA broadband wireless networks, but only at 3.6 Mbps; the 3G HSPA iPhone will speed by on 7.2 Mbps HSPA systems, one of the few aspects of Apple's next generation device (due next month) we know for sure.

The Bold's iPhone-beating benefit is more multimedia – movie viewing, photo slide shows, Roxio music management and even an iTunes sync application – plus a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, 1 GB internal memory and an external micro SDHC memory card slot. But BlackBerry's raison d'être is email, which is what makes it preferable to the iPhone and it's awkward touchscreen keypad. No matter how rich RIM makes the Bold's multimedia capabilities, it can't compete with iPhone.

This doesn't mean that the Bold isn't bulging with goodies that will make Blackberry users a little less envious of their iPhone-toting compadres for non-email activities. Bold boasts DataViz' Documents To Go, which enables downloading and editing of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Bold also adds a/b/g WiFi, integrated GPS functionality, a 2 MP camera with video recording and the fastest processor Blackberry has yet offered.

Labels: Blackberry, email, multimedia, music, RIM