Recently I’ve been trying to dive back into software development. My job in IT has stunted that growth a little bit, where I have more of a reactionary role, so when problems arise I act, when there aren’t any problems, the day becomes excrutiatingly slow. Going back to software development is my passion that I hope to be my career one day. What I’ve been doing lately is thinking of ideas of applications that would not be useful to myself, but to others as well. I’m a pretty avid twittering, been apart of the twittering game for about a year now and just love the simplicity of what it is and how many different ways people use twitter to either, communicate their own ideas, post interesting links or just get news (I’m a little of all three). Though it has some issues, my current phone of choice is the BlackBerry Bold, but what has been lacking is a decent twitter application for the BlackBerry platform. Although there are a decent amount of applications out there, twitterberry, socialscope (currently in private beta), blackbird, twittermail, twibble most are lacking in some way. I am setting out to create my own BlackBerry Twitter client which I will aim to complete a working product within two months. I have very little experience in working with external API’s and am not very familar with any REST concepts, hopefully the thoroughly documented twitter API reference will do me some good.
Quis custudiet ipsos custodes?
For the non-latin scholars, taken from Juvenal, the quote is roughly translated to mean, “Who watches the Watchmen?” an oft mentioned mentioned quote in the Watchmen trade/movie. I did this past Sunday and came away with a slight sinking feeling. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was solid; the visuals were amazing; acting, for the most part, was good; action scenes, great; plot, good and mainly true to the movie. But… it just wasn’t good enough for me.
Spoiler alert for those who’ve not read the trade/watched the motion comic yet. For those who’ve not read it, a quick summary of the trade is that it follows middle aged has been superheroes in a hunt to find an unknown killer killing off superheroes for seemingly no reason. I’ll try not to reveal so much for those who’ve not watched the movie yet. Condensing a 12 issue arc into a mere 2:45 hr movie that will satisfy both mainstream audiences and hardcore fans of the trade was quite the task. Mainstreamers, coming in expecting your typical flying, high jumping, cheesy save the girl action will be letdown in leaps and bounds. Though Watchmen will be classified by many as a “superhero movie”, it’s more of a movie that happens to have superhero-like figures in it. You’ll not see any cutesy save scenes of teenage angst or someone rekindling a long gone relationship. People actually die in this movie, pretty gory deaths, may I add. There’s your excessive nudity that will have you wondering who was the poor sap that got stuck animating that blue, glowing man-thing that is attached to a bald Data-like naked man and some pretty strong political and philosophical themes going on.
Beginning, with well… the beginning, which was a mix of classic music that retold the past events leading all the way up to the “current” in the Watchmen universe. The beginning was extremely well done and summarized the events pretty well, though I’d have to admit, non-readers of the trade will most likely be confused as there is no text nor is there a narrator, just scenes mixed in with Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Although the beginning music really messes well with the intro, sadly the music for the rest of the film (other than the organ music from the second trailer) was quite disappointing. I know the director was probably trying to get music to fit the times, but it just didn’t work out most of the time. The music felt really out of place in many of the scenes, throwing off the whatever vibe was going on in the movie.
The next scene opened with the fight between the Comedian and his then unknown killer, which I’d have to say was one of the best fight scenes I’ve seen in a movie in a while. Although I knew exactly what was going to happen, it left me guessing what was going to happen though the “costume” of the mask killer was outlined in such a way that you kinda knew who he was if you had stay passed the hour mark of the movie. It also a mostly logical retelling of how the fight may have went down minus a particularly irksome item that you Watchmen readers will mostly like notice.
The next hour and a half comprised mainly of the retelling of the Comedian’s past and his unlawful acts that lead to his untimely death. This is where I started getting let down by the movie. The casting of the movie was pretty spot on in my opinion, look-wise anyway. All the characters looked like their counterparts to pretty much a T with some compromising changes. But what had me scratching my head was the acting of the Comedian, it just wasn’t… good. He under acted many of the scenes. Maybe it’s because I expected a certain type of reaction, which has been in grained in my memory since the first time I picked up the book, but he just could have done a better job of expressing emotion. the actor who played the Comedian made it seem like he was just reading off the script he read a few minutes beforehand. The acting just could have been better, but was a momental letdown.
On the other hand, Rorscach was a perfect casting, he not only looked the part but acted like I had imagined he would’ve acted. He was the crazy and conspiracy theorist when he should have been, his mannerisms were believable, his sense of justice and matter of speaking were spot on. He definitely wasn’t afraid to be Rorschach, though I definitely would be if I met him. My favorite scene was in the famous prison cafeteria scene where he dosed a fellow prison mate with boiling hot oil, then shouts out, “None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me.” Amazing, I could watch that scene over and over again and would not get old of it. Though what was missing was the retelling of Rorscach’s origin, which was a gross oversight of the director. He was the character that made the movie stand out; he was the most interesting, most intriguing character and they just left out how he became Rorschach.It was most likely left out in favor of the retelling of the naked super powered blue guy origin. I’m hoping it was just cut because of time, since I hear the movie was cut down from nearly 4 hours to under 3 to be able to get the masses to not leave.
Generally, the movie was a great retelling of the first 5 chapters of the trade and then quickens up after the 2 hour mark to come to a very different ending than what is in the trade. Philosophical-wise, the ending was very similar, but what had me was the blame being turned around and the changing ultimatums in the movie. There was also a very logical sequence change in the movie of the famous Dreiberg/Laurie sex scene, essentially it was moved back in favor of a more “friendly” scene to Rorschach that is.
Watching the movie in IMAX was definitely pretty awesome, but probably not worth it, since I don’t believe any of the film was filmed using IMAX cameras. So if you think you’ll be missing a lot since there are no IMAX theaters in your area, you’ll probably not be missing much. Be warned there is a fair amount of both male and female nudity as well as pretty gruesome deaths and fight scenes, which added a grittiness to the film. The comic with a comic “Tales of the Black Freighter” were unsurprisingly absent, as the animated version will be coming in separately, as well as the book within a book chapters of “Under The Hood”. I honestly can’t wait to buy the spliced in uncut DVD release when it comes out and sit and watch the marathon of a flick.
So did I like the movie? Yes, I did. Would I watch it again? Yes.
One of the biggest consumer electronics show (CES in Las Vegas from January 7th-January 11th) is going down this week, which also happens to overlap with another, the Macworld expo (January 5th-January 9th in San Fran). Don’t ask me why they decided to pick conflicting, making people choose to going to one or the other, which essentially hurts both parties. But enough of that, in this post I’ll be laying out some predictions of what I think will go down at each.
Since Macworld is here first:
There is also mounds of speculation for what Apple is going to do at Macworld, this being their last (for those who don’t know Macworld isn’t a creation of Apple, but rather Macworld Magazine) and all. So rumor has it Apple will be announcing new Mac Minis, Apple TVs and iPhone Nanos. Hardware-wise Apple will finally introduce new Mac Minis, Apple TVs and cinema displays or cinema displays equiped with the Apple TV hardware. But what I think will happen is that Apple is going to do a more software centric keynote, which will inevitably focus on its own iWork suite. They are going to take it into the cloud or create a system where you have the ability to, think about this. What is you have the ability to install on a corporate server a collaborative software suite, where all users within the network can work and access documents easily. Apple’s aim is mainly to infiltrate into the corporate environment, which Microsoft has them beat by a wide and large margin. With the impending exit of Steve Jobs as the face of Apple, they have to do something to push into new territories and I think this is what they are going to do.
CES:
CES is a whole ‘nother monster that encompasses such a wide range of consumer electronics that I’ll just keep it to general themes. The biggest theme for this show will probably be entertainment media in the living room, which will mean bridging online content, such as from Hulu, Netflix, Youtube and what have you to your TV. There is going to be a plethora of video streaming devices out there, since there isn’t really a great all-in-one out there yet. I have an Apple TV loaded with boxee, as well as an Xbox 360 setup to stream content from my computer through my personal network in my apartment. Both have their downsides and upsides, but neither is the be all end all of streaming devices. Having both work in unison achieves something close, but it still isn’t there yet, everyone always ultimately either asks me how to do what on the thing to get it to watch something or just plain gives up and goes back to the god awful Scientific Atlanta box that Time Warner has provided to watch absolute garbage on cable TV. The dream video device would do something very similar to my beloved Squeezebox Boom, but for Video, easy to use UI and just plain works, as well as be very modular in device, both in hardware and software. Apple’s closed ecosystem has led to no one wanting the Apple TV other than your enthusiasts, such as myself who will take the time and effort to soft/hard mod it to get it to do more for which boxee is a great example.
To complement all these devices, I see a plethora of content moving away from your traditional methods of broadcasting quickly. You can see it already happening with Hulu and all the contracts the major studios are considering with Youtube/Hulu and Sling Media. But what needs to happen is that these services need to be easily accessible. After seeing the success of Apple in the digital music market I’ve learned one thing, if you create something that is easy to use and at a reasonable cost people would be willing to not pirate and proceed in ways that are much easy to obtain the content they want. Apple hasn’t been as successful in the video market as they were in the audio, but that could all change if they open up and create a subscription based model. Think about the possibilities if they were to license out an API of their software and let people go at it with Apple’s name recognition the reach for digital video nirvana could be here within months. Sadly, I do not think Apple will ever adopt either.
I also predict that we will finally see a sub-100 bluray player for the masses to just buy that Dark Knight Bluray and watch it in all its 1080p glory.
To sum it up:
Macworld: Taking applications into the cloud and the corporate workspace
CES: Convergence video devices, bluray player on the cheap
I got to go home for the holidays and one of the most undesirably parts that I hate about being home is how slow the internet connection is. But what I didn’t realize it at the time was how much I got done online. It was an odd paradox, since slow connection to the information super highway (does anyone call it that anymore) would normally equal death to all productivity and multitasking, but I soon learned that it was just the opposite. To cope with the slowness of my DSL line at home I started to choose where I visited a bit more meticulously knowing full well that if I choose something that I didn’t like and started clicking on an absurd amount of links it would just equate to me watching that little spinny thingy in my Firefox tabs spin over and over and over again. I was able to finally catch up on the awesomeness that is The Daily WTF and read up on the beauty that is of the new Core i7 from Intel (AMD too?) and it is sweet. So if you think that having a “slow” internet connection means certain doom and gloom, don’t, think of it more of a blessing in disguise.
So roughly using the Bold for almost two months, what do I think of it? My first issue is with the Bold or BB OS’s issue of not being able to install applications outside of the alloted 128 MB of RAM space. RIM really either needs to do 1. either give their devices a lot more RAM or 2. give their devices to install apps into either external storage cards or the internal memory space. I know they do this for security purposes, but their smart they should be able to figure out a secure solution, I mean what harm can one really do by installing applications into the internal memory (don’t answer that). Now don’t get me wrong the Bold is probably one of the best devices I have ever used cause things just work on it and things are real zippy, but I’m a pretty heavy user of the Bold and after having multiple applications open using newsgator, google maps, email… the RAM gets eaten worse the Firefox before version 3.0. There is no way to view a running processes to see which one if the hog and stop it, all you have is just clearing the browser cache and this memory cleaning thing, that I have no clue what it does and does not seem to work (Options -> Security Options -> Memory Cleaning). At times it feels like *gasp* using a Windows Mobile device, yes, you heard me right, Windows “slower than a snail, terrible memory management” Mobile. I have done many battery pulls to try to relinquish the lost memory more times now than I can count and waiting 3+ minutes for a phone to start back up is ri-dic-u-lous.
Other issues:
IMAP is pretty much broken, I don’t know if it is an issue with Gmail IMAP or just IMAP email handling in general (I’ve only used IMAP with my gmail account), but it is broken like no other. I don’t receive all my email and it tends to lag when marking an email as read, if it even marks it as read and I had no way to access all my folders. I have since reverted back to general default email settings, which is POP I believe, cause I actually get emails that way.
No fun applications at all. Don’t expect an iPhone like experience on this thing cause it really is great for managing your data and such, but other than brickbreaker or wordmole, don’t expect to be playing Metal Gear on this thing. Another thing is there is no easy way to install applications to this thing, don’t go expecting to simply load up an app store and simply search and install what you’d like from your phone. You are gonna have to search on a desktop to find an application that suites your needs, then you can either connect your BB to your computer or use the god-awful web browser to enter in the url and manage to navigate to it somehow. The impending app store may solve all these problems, but I have a feeling it probably won’t.
Approximately 1/2 of my lock ups, freezes and slow downs can be attributed to one thing, the web browser. It isn’t as bad as say Pocket IE, but its pretty bad. I mean on the surface it renders pages like its original pretty well, that’s if you manage to load a page without it locking up. But you can install Opera Mini on the Bold, so there is an alternative. I am really just waiting for Mozilla to release Fennec, the mobile Firefox browser.
The last issue, which some may or may not consider an issue is (I hate to say it), but the Bold just isn’t “fun” enough. I look at all the cool apps for the iPhone and I get pretty jealous, over the past year or so the iPhone/iPod Touch has really become an amazing platform for development. As much as I dislike some of the choices that Apple has made (ummm… Copy/Paste anyone) it is the phone everyone wants because of its applications and usability. I know plenty of people that have trouble getting around the BB, but know very few that have the same issues of usability on Apple’s mobile platform.
What I think RIM needs to do is throw out the book and create an OS along with great hardware that encompasses modern day techniques of UI. I’m not saying that they should scratch what they have with their current iterations, afterall they are the venerable email workhorse, but they should consider putting the effort into crafting a new platform that will herald in new users that would actually wow them not confuse. We’ll see what 2009 brings, CES next week is only that start of what I predict to be a very interesting year in regards to the common man.
The new year is fast approaching and is much more important to me and my family than Christmas ever was. I was never into the whole New Year’s resolution, improvement *blah, blah, blah*, but I feel like I should really set new goals for the new year and actually accomplish them. So here it goes, in order of priority
- Find a job I love
- Putting myself out there
- Meet more new people by myself
- Meet new people
- Actually save a decent amount of money by spending less on my beloved tech gadgets
- Catch up with old friends
- Be more fluent in my family’s native tongue, Vietnamese
- Program something I am actually proud of
- Read much more
- Write much more unique content
- Using my computer much less
The top one will probably involve moving out of NYC, which I am perfectly fine with since that would help to accomplish goals 2-4. In regards to goal 7, I am already set to take Vietnamese language class for the first half of the year, which I am extremely psyched about. Goal 4 will probably be the hardest, since I decided I want to build a new gaming desktop and a few other items, but we’ll see how this all goes. Goal 8 is a work in progress with a friend and is in its beginning stages, but the hardest part is actually getting things done. If all else fails, I’ll just buy an unlocked G1 and go to town with it. Last goal will probably never happen (I love the interwebs too much), but one can hope… So here’s hoping I accomplish at least one of these goals.
Out of the box, the BlackBerry Bold does much better than about 90% of the (smart)phones on the market, but for those that want to get the most out of the BlackBerry as possible, installing applications is crucial to getting the best experience you can get. After having the Bold for about a month, here is a list of applications and a short description of what they are and why I kept them.
AIM for the BlackBerry
Yahoo Messenger for the BlackBerry
GoogleTalk for the BlackBerry
Windows Live for the BlackBerry
About a week into getting the Bold (AT&T released the service books for AIM and Yahoo a bit later than usually, don’t ask me why), just about all chat clients now have support for the Bold, so with the included BlackBerry Messenger, the Bold has become the ultimate messaging phone. All are integrated very well and there is very little lag between sending and receiving messages.
Google Maps
Good thing that the Bold’s (a-)GPS isn’t locked down by AT&T and you can use any application that you want that uses GPS/a-GPS except for BlackBerry Maps, which AT&T decided to axe to include AT&T Navigator, which is $10 a month.
Gmail
With the Bold not supporting IMAP, there is only one way to sync Gmail with your Bold and is with the Gmail App by Google. Mind you it doesn’t support things such as labeling and I struggled to get it to auto suggest contacts and groups. There was also the issue of the updates not coming in real time, it seems that the Gmail App only checks sometimes, which is probably because it doesn’t want to be a real resource and network hog.
Facebook
Not great, but a decent way to view facebook on your BlackBerry other than using the subpar browser. You can only write messages to one person and not multiple people though, which is a real downside (note to facebook dev crew: implement a real mail and messaging system already, will ya).
FlyCast
Until Pandora/RIM (or an ambitious developer) codes up a Pandora app, this is probably the best alternative. Works decent, but it was hard to navigate seeing as the UI was just an emulation of the iPhone interface.
qik
Streaming video from your Bold to the interwebs, works well enough, but you don’t really know that it actually streamed online, but you can just go online later and check that it did and if it didn’t upload it later from your Bold.
Opera Mini
Great alternative to the built-in browser. It runs quicker, but it can’t run Javascript and it feels a bit slower than Opera Mini in the JVM of my old WinMo Tilt.
Mobipocket Reader
If you are a reading addict this is a great alternative to dedicated E-Book readers like the Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle or the iRex Illiad. I can’t say I can stare at the insanely bright screen for extended periods, but for those short trips to work on the subway where I don’t have any cell signal this holds me over pretty well.
Yahoo Go!
This is actually a very well done application by the Yahoo! team. It is very slick, supports Flickr where you can actually view photos, Yahoo Mail (not full HTML), news feeds (RSS) with full image support, weather, stocks, maps and directions which make use of the GPS. One complaint is that it is a tad slow sometimes. When I attempted to add the feed for Engadget, it took a few minutes for it to add to my news feeds.
TwitterBerry
For all you twitter fanatics, works extremely well and only updates when you want to unless of course you have it open, which it will update whenever one of the people you are following updates.
Newgator Go!
Probably my favorite application for the BlackBerry, one that I like so much that it is in my top five row. I am pretty much addicted to RSS and this is by far the best RSS application for the BlackBerry. The only downside is that it doesn’t support images, but it makes up for it in strides with the ability to clip articles, quickness and the ability to sync with your own news feeds on newsgator, where if you have multiple devices or are using the desktop applications FeedDemon or NetNewsWire you can customize what news feeds it updates.
Apple TV is one of the greatest things to have in a living, that is if you soft-mod it with boxee, the open source media plugin based on the code of the wildly popular (well at least with the geek crowd) XMBC. The Apple TV has always piqued my interest, which is strange it being the least popular Apple product, but back about two months ago when I heard that someone created a way to watch Hulu (albeit a bit chuggy) and other internet content easily on your TV with the Apple TV, I knew it would be the perfect addition to a home entertainment setup that I was planning to create for months. When I found out that I had a friend that had an Apple TV that he wanted to sell, I promptly took it off his hands at the going eBay street price. First thing I did was upgrade it to the latest firmware (Take 2.2) I created a patchstick for it using the ATV-creator with boxee/xmbc preloaded and in minutes (link here for video tutorial on how to make a patchstick with boxee) I was off and running. So what do I think of the Apple TV and boxee? In short, I think both are a almost-killer app and with the recent $4 million in funding this project received, it will only be get better from here on out.
Note: When I initially wrote this review, I had the Take 2.2 firmware on it and not the new 2.3 firmware that Apple pushed out. But when I restarted my Apple TV this weekend, it updated automatically with the 2.3 and effectively killed boxee, but there is already a fix to get it back up and running, which I did today. The new atv-creator patchstick now works under a Windows environment, so I do not have to use my roommate’s Macbook to create a patchstick. One caveat was that I had to use the USB drive image tool from the command line, which was really simple. Link here is to a team boxee member showing how to get boxee back on your ATV.
Time of the week I set down what I think people should listen. For all those who love IT and are going into security, I have always been a fan of CNET’s security bites. It used to be two guys, experts in IT security speak about security news, but now mainly consists of Robert Vamosi interviewing top-notch security experts or security vendors and the great thing is that it is not extraordinarily long, most clock in under 20-minutes.
So after waiting about six months after everyone else (and thems people) in the world got the Bold, AT&T has finally released theirs and I finally got mine. Unfortunately, after spending hours on the phone and speaking to multiple reps on the phone, AT&T refused to offer me a discount on the phone at all if I would re-up until I am 15 months into my contract (I’m currently at roughly a year). You can imagine how disappointed I was at the fact that I told them that I would even re-up for three years to get a discounted rate, but they still refused to budge on the price, merely giving me a $25 credit to my account. So I went ahead and purchased the Bold at the astronomical rate of $550+NY taxes. But enough of the logistics on how I got the hone, here is my review on the BlackBerry Bold.
I knew the title of best electronic purchase that was previously rewarded to my Squeezebox Boom was going to be dethroned one day, but I didn’t know that it was going to be dethroned so soon. I would first like to say that the BlackBerry Bold is my best electronic purchase ever. So after about a week of heavy use, here is my review on this thing. It is kinda long, so by all means read only the sections that matter to you all.
Specs:
- Size: 4.5″ x 2.6″ x 0.55″
- Weight: 4.7 ounces
- Screen: 2.5″, 480×320 pixels, 65K
- Platform: BlackBerry OS 4.6
- Memory: 1GB w/microSDHC slot (up to 16GB)
Network:
- GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 (Quad-Band)
- WCDMA: 850/1900/2100 (Tri-Band)
Camera:
- 2 mega-pixels (auto-focus)
- 5 x Digital Zoom
Audio:
- MP3, AAC, eAAC+ & WMA
Video:
- Hi-Resolution VGA, 30fps Video Recording
- Supported formats: MP4, 3GPP, H.264 & Divx
- Camera 2 MP
- Video recorder with Half-VGA resolution
Connectivity:
- WiFi (IEEE 802.11g)
- GPS
- Stereo Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP)
- miniUSB
- 3.5mm headphone jack
Messaging:
- SMS
- MMS (with video)
- E-mail (POP3, SMTP, IMAP4, BES, BIS)
Hardware:
Design:
I’m not sure what it is about the Bold, but the aesthetics of the thing are amazing. I was very hesitant upon hearing that they put (p)leather on its rear instead of a rubberized paint job, but all those reservations are gone. The feel of the phone in the hand is amazing. It does not feel like a brick like my last phone did, which was the AT&T Tilt, and feels slick, smooth and thin. The leather backside gives me no hesitation of using it one-handed; It is perfect for one-handed (fits well for any lefty or righty) use, when you just don’t have access to the other hand. The chrome finish that rounds it out makes it stand out as the high end device that it is. Needless to say, it has both the professional look that one would expect a BlackBerry would have, but yet a stylus look to it as well.
Screen:
HVGA, 480 x 320
The screen has the exact same resolution of that famous touch screen phone, but on about a third the screen size. In short, the screen is gorgeous and is hands down the best screen on any smartphone I have every used.
Keyboard:
I have been using a QWERTY device for about a year now and can’t think of any other way to use a phone. The keyboard on the Bold is quite spectacular. Although it took me sometime to get used to the shorter spacing between the keys, but I anticipated this, it wasn’t long before I was pounding away at the thing in lightning quick speeds. Keyboard is utterly the best thing about this device, which is saying a lot being this smartphone has a lot of things going for it.
Call Quality:
I’ve had four phones in my entire lifetime and I would have to say hands down this sounds the best out of the four even on the crappiness that is AT&T’s network. I don’t make much calls on this thing, but everyone came in clear and I have had no drop calls. Although I do notice that it sometimes gets stuck on EDGE when I am 100% sure that I am in a 3G area. Not sure why this is, but I had the same problems with the Tilt, so I am attributing this to AT&T’s network, which for the most part could be much better.
Software:
This is where the BlackBerry stands above all other devices. It does not have the same plethora of software as other devices, but it makes up for it on the quality of the applications and the speed of execution. Everything is instantaneous, when I click on an icon for say Gtalk, it brings it up right away and signs me in so I can begin to chat. It is one of the problems that I had with the Tilt, applications on that thing would sometimes freeze and lock up for seemingly no reason. On the Bold it is a whole ‘nother story, no waiting minutes for an application to load, it just goes. However, I have had the ocassional lock up, but I am attributing that because some applications have not been optimized for BB OS 4.6, since this is the first phone to get that OS or for the screen res, which is the first BlackBerry to get such a high screen res, well at least until the Storm hits stores.
Contacts:
Contacts management is far superior than any other smartphone I have used. Adding one is simple and easy and the SIM contact transfer is easy to use.
Messaging:
SMS:
This is actually one of the low points of the device for me. I don’t know what it is, possibly the extreme hype I got from everywhere, but it is just a letdown. All I want for this is threaded SMS, where each message is marked for each sender and receiver, all the messages are marked with is a date and time stamp and is group by exchanging contact. I mean the choice of different colors would have made this ten folds better.
IM:
This is the most connected I have every been on a mobile device. I can connect to people with multiple options with the only exclusion is IRC, but that would be crazy on a mobile device. AT&T has now made the service books available for ICQ and AIM to round out the support for the existing BlackBerry Messenger, Gtalk, Yahoo and Windows Live (MSN). All integrated extremely well and has a natural application feel, although I feel some slight lag, but that is probably due to AT&T’s network.
Email:
RIM is supposed to be number one in this area and I would have to say that it still is with the push email, but it does not automatically sync with the email services that I use, which is mainly gmail like IMAP, which is a total letdown.
Web Browsing:
I came from Pocket IE (the broken interwebs) and Opera Mini (much improved fast web browser) as well as Opera Mobile and Firefox on my N800, so I have quite a bit of experience with web browser. The browser called Browser is not so bad, but I can’t say that it is great either. First off, you have three browsers in total, one for Media Net for AT&T (which I kinda think may just be a shortcut to Media Net, I’m not 100% sure), one for WiFi and then the regular browser. I have no clue why there wasn’t just one browser for all connectivity options, but regardless, websites are rendered pretty well and (if you have javascript turned off) webpages are rendered pretty quickly. However, some websites had enormously terrible loads times on non-mobile versions of certain websites, i.e. Engadget. The only saving grace is that there is a mobile version. I have not tested it much on WiFi since I have an unlimited data plan and live in a major city where 3G is just about everywhere.
Multimedia:
The Bold has a pretty decent media player, not the best, but it is pretty decent. One thing that it needs is to show songs on the playlist using ID3 tags instead of the filename, otherwise the music player is great. Sounds decent as well, not 2nd gen iPod or my Squeezebox Boom quality, but it is listenable, only wish that the lowest volume could be lower. The Bold also supports a wide range of codecs as well, I have yet to test anything other than MP3 in the audio category, but in the video it did not play a few out-of-box, only audio came out of some video files. I would also like to see the ability to bookmark a long podcast or a movie.
Applications:
For what the Bold does not have out-of-box, you can probably find an application that does what you like. Just head over to mobile.blackberry.com on your Bold. What it is lacking is a mobile application store built on the phone like that other (i)Phone, but that will be coming in March 2009, since the usability is pretty horrible for downloading applications, which is handled by the web browser or connecting your Bold to your computer which has to have the BlackBerry Desktop software installed first.
Navigation:
The Bold for AT&T comes pre-loaded with TeleNav to replace BlackBerry maps, since I haven’t used either I can’t comment, but I did promptly install Google Maps. Works pretty well, takes a little while getting a fix though, but generally I am much happier with the GPS on this thing than I was with the Tilt where I had to open two programs to use the GPS, which would then may or may not work. As a note, you cannot install BlackBerry Maps on this thing because I am assuming AT&T has prevented it, but I feel if you hacked some of the service books you would probably be able to.
Camera:
I do not take pictures very often, but when I do I have my Canon PowerShot for that, but I have taken a few shots and it is nothing to scream about, but it works and has an LED flash, which is a definite plus. Pictures look decent.
WiFi:
As I wrote earlier, I have not used the WiFi very often, but I was able to connect to my apartment’s Linksys router I setup with no problem and was able to view other Access Points with ease and supports just about all the security protocols, even the now only unhackable WPA2-PSK.
Bluetooth:
Haven’t used this feature yet, can’t comment, but I will update once I do.
Pros:
- Awesome keyboard.
- Fast, fast, and… fast
- Beautiful Screen
- Beautiful Aesthetics
- Contacts management
- Wide Range of reliable applications
Cons:
- Email, although it pushes, is not IMAP and doesn’t sync automatically
- SMS could be managed better
- Not RIM’s fault, but AT&T sucks
- Addicting as heck
Conclusion:
This review has generally been glowing, there was no deal breaker in any of the downsides. The screen is gorgeous, fantastic keyboard, great contacts management, voice sounds good, messaging is good and the amazing amount of stable applications I have used and installed makes me so connected that it kinda scares me. If I were to give this a rating on a 10-point scale with 10 being amazing-awesome-can’t put down and a zero being do-not-even-go-near, I would give this a 9 out of 10, almost perfect.
Links to other Reviews:
- Boy Genius Report
- Engadget Mobile (Not quite a full review)
- Gizmodo (Pre-AT&T)
- Gizmodo (Post-AT&T)
- GigaOM
- InfoSync World
- apc (Pre-AT&T)
- Crackberry (Pre-pre-AT&T)
