Hello beautiful...

[aggie]

Nice to meet you!



First impression of the 9700: best blackberry ever. RIP to my trusty 9000, you are retired. iPhone 3GS will be mothballed for a while..

[stevetaz]

Did you get an early release model? I thought that wasn't being released until Saturday or Sunday.

I hope the two of you are very happy together. You know another will come along very soon and catch your eye......

[aggie]

Did you get an early release model? I thought that wasn't being released until Saturday or Sunday.

I hope the two of you are very happy together. You know another will come along very soon and catch your eye......

nope, i didn't touch an early release model this time. Learned my lesson last time before I got my retail Bold. This one is a retail unit. Some stores are selling them early, just have to drive all over town to find one that will do it. After all the driving around town I did, the one closest to my house was actually selling it. Go figure!

And of course, you are right on the last part. However, I was still using my 9000 as my workhorse. I used it over a year, probably the longest I've ever used a phone. Right now the 9700 is my personal phone and it is better suited than the 9000 to stay that way. Not to take away from what an excellent phone the 9000 is, this is what the original Bold should've been-although, I do have a few things to complain about. I'll address those in my review/first impressions after a couple days

[Christopher Meinck]

Not to take away from what an excellent phone the 9000 is, this is what the original Bold should've been-although, I do have a few things to complain about. I'll address those in my review/first impressions after a couple days

What do you like about the 9700 that improves upon the original Bold?

[aggie]

What do you like about the 9700 that improves upon the original Bold?

I plan on touching on more in a later post after I get a few days with it, and some time on the weekend to really get into it.

But so far:

Trackpad-This alone makes it worth it. I can't say enough how awesome the trackpad is. Everything just seems to flow much more smoothly using it than the trackball. Quiet and smooth is the best way to describe it.

Camera-Night and day difference. Not quite on the level of the 3GS camera, but much better than the 9000's.

Form factor and overall build quality- I love the smaller size although the keyboard is taking some getting used to. It feels like a much more solid, quality device.

Screen-Glass > plastic. It sucks that it's smaller, but with the size of the phone it's kinda a given BUT, the resolution is sick, with more pixels in a smaller area.

124mb app memory free. enough said there. I have yet to see the famous Blackberry circle in the middle of the screen or had to do a battery pull, which I do twice a day on my 9000.

Battery life. Amazing. Maybe it's that I'm so used to constantly having to have the 3GS hooked up to some juice, but i can see easily going 2 days on a single charge.

It is a much more snappy device than the 9000. I'm sure some of this has to do with the added memory. Some of it probably has to do with OS 5.0 which is great. I stuck with 4.6 on my 9000 so the refinements seen in 5.0 make the experience much better IMO.

Browser-now with not as much suck. It still isn't great (at all) but images and data appear to load alot faster and things appear to freeze alot less in the browser. It seems to look a little cleaner, like the Storm browser, than the original browser on 4.6 looked.

NOW-the one thing that really irks me about this device. The microSD is under the battery cover. You don't have to remove the battery which eases the pain some, but still, it's a pain in the rear to remove the battery cover and insert/remove the card. I'm sure I'll have more to add after this weekend.

[aggie]

are you planning on picking one up chris?

[Christopher Meinck]

So basically a great device has become greaterer. I thought the build quality and screen on the Bold 9000 was awesome. If it's better, that's impressive.

Less suck... nicely put.

Haven't used my Berry in a bit. Been moving devices too frequently to get a good comfort zone with one. Might need to rekindle a little BB love in the next few weeks. Not buying a new one, but will give the old 9000 some time.

Giving the Droid some more time this weekend.

[aggie]

So basically a great device has become greaterer. I thought the build quality and screen on the Bold 9000 was awesome. If it's better, that's impressive.

Less suck... nicely put.

Haven't used my Berry in a bit. Been moving devices too frequently to get a good comfort zone with one. Might need to rekindle a little BB love in the next few weeks. Not buying a new one, but will give the old 9000 some time.

Giving the Droid some more time this weekend.

i'm jealous of the droid, but I managed to resist. multiple phones is acceptable. Multiple accounts/carriers with an 80-100 bill and I might be looking for a new place to live.

and well stated, a great device gets greater-er. Bold is still awesome but the 9700 is kind of a refined, more powerful version in a smaller, more sexy package. I'm putting my 9000 on craigslist now and it is a hard thing for me to do.

[corvid]

Congratulations on getting the 9700. Thanks for the review - look forward to hearing more about your experience. I would love one but don't have upgrade eligibility until next July. My bold works so well it's difficult to justify spending the $.

[stevetaz]

Hey aggie....I have been ssing reports of a bug in the 9700OS....SMS messages coming in do not show the texter's name even if in your Addy Book. Just shows the number that is sending the text.

Looks like the resolution is to eliminate the dashes from phone numbers in the Contact's info. If set up like 123-456-7890 changing to 1234567890 resolves the display issue...

Freaky....