BlackBerry Bold Review

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)

The Perfect Entertainment Setup

Now that I have my own place, it is time for me to trick it out media-wise. My goal here is to create the perfect media setup in my place. I’ve thought long and hard and here are the rundown of my preliminary specifications:

• 42″ Plasma or LCD HDTV
• Slingcatcher w/a 1 TB HDD
• Either a Sonos setup or a Slim Squeezebox Boom
• Either a Bluray Player, Upconverting DVD player or HD DVD Player to replace the Panasonic one that broke.

Having my own apartment = having my own network. So with all this in mind, I chose this setup because it seems to be one of the easiest to setup and fits what I want to do perfectly, which is streaming from multiple computers and devices to just one particularly type.

My original choice for a TV is the Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ85U, which I can get for an ironic $1080, but I am still looking since I hear, from all my first-hand accounts, that LCDs are def the way to go and the Panny plasma isn’t as good as I had originally thought. I’m going with the Slingcatcher because of its support for just about every single format available as well as its ability to stream internet content. It isn’t out just yet, so there aren’t any reviews of it yet, but it is out for pre-order for $300. I’m leaning towards the Squeezebox Boom because of its support for a plethora of internet radio services, Rhapsody and media resources and its alarm clock so I can wake up to my favorite tunes. This too will cost $300. So the total cost will be roughly $1680. But I’ve still not decided yet. With the Fall update of the Xbox 360 dashboard software and the ability to be easily software modded, it might save me on the cost of a Slingcatcher since it can also be extended as a Media Extender and has support for DivX/Xvid files and of course DVDs. I’d just need to purchase the absurdly expensive $80 or $40 on eBay, 20 GB hard drive and mod it with my own or get the $140, 120 GB drive, which would save me $60 or I’ve

Other configurations would be buying an Apple TV and modding it with aTV or Boxee, so $230+$50 for the aTV. For those who don’t know, aTV is the software mod for Apple TV that unlocks its use for different media products. Boxee is this cool social network media hub, it is in alpha testing right now, I signed up for it, so let’s hope I get one. I’m also taking into consideration cost and easy and nice UI, since I would not be the only person that would be using all of these devices. The TV would be a definite ~$1000, so my other cost reductions would be for everything else. If I get HDDHacker to work with my 360 I wouldn’t need to purchase a $40 hard drive and use my own with this nice software hack and install Windows Media Player 11 on my computer and just share all the content.

This is also keeping in mind what I have currently, an Xbox 360 w/Rock Band and hopefully Rock Band 2 and of course a Wii and good old PS3. Overall I’m looking to speak around $1500+ for this setup. If anyone has any suggestions for me, let me know.

Tilted – AT&T Tilt Review

Well I think it is nigh time to finally do a review on the AT&T Tilt aka HTC Kaiser aka HTC TyTN II aka HTC 8900. After a six month study trip/finding myself adventure in Vietnam, I was in need of a cellphone again. Thinking I was off contract I decided to shop for the best phone I could find and finally drop Sprint, after much yelling and coaxing Sprint to let me off without paying a $175 ETF I jumped ship and decided upon the AT&T Tilt from AT&T.

Here is a quick rundown of the specs:

• 2.8″ 320 x 240 TFT touchscreen
• 400 MHz 32bit Qualcomm MSM7200 processor
• Full QWERTY slide out keyboard
• 3.1 MP camera
• 128 MB RAM
• 256 MB ROM
• Quad Band GSM, Triband UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100) 3G baby
• 802.11g WiFi compatible
• Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP
• Support for microSDHC cards up to 32 GB
• GPS

For more detailed information visit the pdadb info page for the Tilt here.

Hardware:
As hardware goes, this thing has everything you could ever want from a phone. A full keyboard for typing out long emails or lengthy SMS conversations as well as a large touchscreen. A real GPS chip for use with any maps application. A decent amount of space for those small applications. A quick processor. A decent camera with video recording capabilities. A 802.11g radio as well as triband HSDPA and bluetooth. It has everything. Beware, this thing is a brick and pretty heavy compared to your average phone. It also has a nice rubberized backing as well. It’s only port is a mini-USB port for all your needs, charging headphones and such, but for the latter you’d need to purchase an adapter or two and forget about dual charger/listening to music with a standard 3.5 mm without the purchase of another adapter.

Keyboard:
The keyboard is probably one of the best I’ve ever used on a mobile phone, every key feels individual and separate with full QWERTY support, the only thing this is missing is a CTRL and ALT key that will be featured in the upcoming HTC Raphael. GPS takes a few minutes to get a fix, but when it does, it works pretty well with Google Maps, as well as TomTom Mobile Navigator software. Data speeds are fast when in a 3G or HSDPA area, which luckily I am living in two cities.

Software:
The Tilt comes preloaded with a customized Windows Mobile 6.0 for AT&T subscribers. It comes loaded with much bloatware and trial ware. You’ll take some time sifting through which programs are actually usable or not.

Contacts:
Contacts are manage in the usable and the slightly ugly Pocket Outlook. It is pretty straight forward and you can add as much information about a person as if you were using Outlook’s desktop cousin.

SMS:
SMS are done in the similar fashion to emails, which is a great thing. While sending a message to one of your contacts, it will suggest individuals in your contact list. Sending to multiple people is done by simply adding a semi-colon and that individual’s name. If you are in the mood for something a tad better looking, I suggest the wonderfully free PocketCM. Download it here. It will also create a much improved contact interface as well, the only thing with PocketCM is that it still doesn’t support SIM cards.

Web Browsing:
Web browsing in Pocket IE quite frankly sucks. If you don’t ever want to see the web broken and small, then stay away from Pocket IE and use one of the alternatives, such as Opera Mobile (not free, but comes with a 30-day trial), Opera Mini (Free) or sign up for SkyFire beta. Pocket IE is terrible, it is hard for it to render websites that don’t have a mobile interface. Opera Mini, a java midlet, does this beautifully. It is a mainstay in my arsenal. Download it here.

Camera:
The camera is better than your average cellphone cam and can record video. Storage options are the phone’s internal memory or a microSD card.

Navigation:
After using the free trial of TeleNav and not wanting to pay the monthly fee for something that was built to be free and open, you’ll find Google Maps or Live Search from Microsoft. Both are great, I prefer Google maps myself, but Live Search is on par if not better in some areas. The latest version of Google Maps supports My Location, by giving you a general location of where you are, which is never accurate, but it comes in handy if you don’t want to drain your battery by turning on your GPS radio. For the people who are having trouble with their GPS radio, download GPS test here. I know it sounds silly, but it turns on the GPS module and helps to get a fix. Point your web browser here for Google Maps and here for Live Search.

Call Quality:
I’ve been extremely unsatisfied with AT&T and call quality. I’ve had to say more “What?”, making it appear as if I was deaf to the person on the other end. But this was to be expecting when I was taking into consideration other wireless carriers. GSM as a technology is kinda weak, CDMA has much better quality voice and data-wise. While on Sprint I could hear someone crystal clear, but on AT&T everything sounds muffled as if the other person was speaking through a plastic bag. I’ve also have more dropped calls in the past eight months than my entire three years with Sprint. Although Sprint doesn’t have as wide a coverage map as AT&T, if sure did cover enough for me. AT&T seems to be lacking in many areas.

WiFi:
Being significantly faster than EDGE or 3G, it works great, but is a great battery drain. The only problem is that if you leave WiFi radio on for a decent amount of time, it slows to a crawl.

Bluetooth:
Support for stereo bluetooth is great. With the right phones you can wireless listen to your turns and leave your MP3 player at home. Tethering this thing to my laptop to use it as a wireless gateway worked great albeit a tad slow, but you’d have to use the buried Internet Connection Sharing. I also tethered this to other devices and it worked great as well. Guides here and here. Bluetooth tethering eats up battery life like no tomorrow, but it isn’t as bad as having WiFi turned on.

Pros:
Robust and great hardware. Sturdy.

Cons:
Software holds this thing back. Out of the box, it is mediocre, but finding the right software for this thing makes it much better. AT&T is lacking in included accessories, mainly that it provides none other than another stylus. So unlike Sprint where they include an USB-to-2.5 mm jack, a 512 MB microSD card, a screen protector, all you get in the box with AT&T is a USB charger and the phone with one additional stylus.

Conclusion:
For the person with enough patience to put up with the software downsides of the Tilt will find a great device that has a great community that has created much software and enhancements for it. On paper this thing is awesome, but the UI is not very intuitive. At times it’ll slow to a crawl to the point of unusable, it is frustrating to say the least. But loaded with the right ROM, it becomes slightly less rocky. My hope is that there will be an Android hack to make this thing capable of running Android. But I give this thing a 7 out of 10. Slightly better than the average phone. Be sure to visit XDA-developers for other enhancements.

Update time

It’s been a while since I’ve actually wrote a post, been a tad busy with graduating and trying to figure my life after college. Well I’ve amassed a bunch of new gadgets (new for my use that is) and I’ll try to post a review of one gadget a week along with one or two posts of related software. First up is my Tilt aka HTC Kaiser aka HTC TyTN II. I think eight months is a good amount of time for usage to review it.

Technological Luddite

Everyone has problems with technology even the most tech-savvy person has had a few problems which has driven him to the point of, either step on it until you can’t even recognize it anymore, or just buy a new one to replace it. The democratization of technology has given the everyday-man the ability to do something, such as creating a website, that a even a few years ago would have been out of reach for a plethora of individuals. But I see more and more everyday, people are taking this technology and never using it to its fullest extent, it just goes to waste. A few months back, I returned from my half year “finding myself” journey in Vietnam, to come to the realization that I need a cellphone again, since my plan was up (or so I thought, which is a story for another day) I began my search for the close to perfect, bestest cellphone with the cheapest price. I settled on dropping my current carrier Sprint in favor of selling my digital soul for two years to AT&T for the AT&T Tilt aka HTC Kaiser aka HTC TyTN II aka a whole bunch of other names. A month or so later, my roommate decided that he was in need of a phone upgrade, whilst trying to stick to his carrier of Sprint he decided that paying $400 for a brand spankin’ new phone, also from HTC (he opted to get the HTC Touch) was a good way to be on par with myself and my phone.

Months later I have hacked, read dozens of forums and reflashed my phone to slightly near-perfection and am loving it. But my roommate’s main uses for his device are as follows, texting (on a non-qwerty only touch screen device), phone calls and watching the broken web on Pocket IE. Calling it a waste in a great piece of technology is an understatement. For what he uses his phone for he should have stuck with his previous device the Moto Q, which has an awesome full-qwerty keyboard for texting and can make calls. As disappointed as I am right now, it was expected that he was never going to ever “use” the device.

I “work” in a computer lab, where students and faculty come in with work and occasionally (read: all the freaking time), have problems accomplishing tasks, you know things like printing color copies or copying and pasting a formula from one cell to another, so I usually get asked for assistance in these items. While helping I get the expected thank you’s and such, but I also get the “Why isn’t this working?” or “This should just work”

I guess my main point in this matter is that people are just becoming lazy and complacent and either think that technology should “just work” or just buy something to be chic and stylish. I think one way to solve this is to go back to doing things the hard way, then one can fully appreciate technology and its usefulness. Although there is a growing number of modders out there, their still a very niche population. By simply taking something apart, say a radio, one can learn so much about it. This is my call to bring back the past, bring back the times when things were “hard”, where messy html ruled the universe instead of discombobulated facebook and myspace pages. Go back to your computers and instead of asking your tech-savvy friend to figure it out for you, do it for yourself. Take out that screwdriver, open it up and just mess around with it until you have a mess of screws and wires laying around and just try to put it back together. If it doesn’t work, then take it apart again and redo what you did.