After months of online speculation, rumor and badly photoshopped innuendo, Research in Motion announced its new BlackBerry Bold today.
RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis stopped by the Wired offices last week and gave us some one-on-one time with an early version of the Bold. It’s, well, kind of awesome. I’m by no means a BlackBerry fanboy, but the Bold has some impressive features.
First off the big news:
- HSDPA: We tried it out in G-Lab HQ and were able to load several graphic-heavy sites quickly with the BlackBerry Bold’s fast 3G data access. A few hiccups occurred when pulling up Wired.com’s front page, but keep in mind this was also a beta unit. Mike assured us they’re still ironing out all the bugs and final units would not have any issues.
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/ compatibility: No n spec, but that’s no biggie. Having nearly unrestricted Wi-Fi access will make this BlackBerry even more useful.
- Half-VGA, 480 x 320 pixel screen: The screen itself is gorgeous, bright and colorful. We watched the seizure-inducing trailer for Speed Racer and it was gorgeous and glitch-free. Too bad we can’t say the same for Speed Racer itself.
- Built-in GPS: Paired with location-based services plus BlackBerry Maps, you’ll also be able to use it while making a phone call. Try that while driving and see if you can avoid crashing your car.
The external speaker is loud, clear and excellent for handsfree use. It’s also passable as an impromptu speaker for playing music or movies. Comparatively, it’s about as powerful as the speakers on an average laptop. Plus there’s now a requisite 3.5mm headset jack so you can plug in standard headphones.
The keys have been reconfigured slightly from previous BlackBerry iterations. Mike pointed out that they now have metal dividers resembling the shape and feel of guitar frets, making touch-typing easier. Interesting, considering most CrackBerry heads I know can already touch-type without a second thought.
The BlackBerry Bold is going to ship preloaded with 1 GB of memory, a 2-MP digicam with a built-in "flash" LED light, and media-management software that can sync with iTunes. For additional storage, you can also plug in a microSD card; the Bold supports cards up to 16GB in capacity. The back panels are removable and will come available in a variety of colors.
While the Bold is not the touchscreen-enabled iPhone killer that has been rumored for the last nine months or so, from what we saw, it’s shaping up to be a solid device with some very cool, forward-thinking features.
The Gadget Lab will get the first working models as soon as they are ready — just before the projected launch date in late June. We’ll have the review up for y’all around then.
(Photos by Jim Merithew / Wired.com)
Hit the jump for more details from the press release.
RIM Introduces the BlackBerry Bold Smartphone
Top of the line BlackBerry smartphone with premium design and unprecedented performance and functionality; targeted at business professionals and power users.
Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/05/first-look-hand/#ixzz2UuBE3Kfr
