My new toy – Blackberry Bold

This weekend I went to the local AT&T and got myself a Blackberry Bold. I initially wanted the Storm, but after reading all the reviews, I decided I should go with a Bold. My AT&T account was eligible for an upgrade now in January (actually January 19, but as I will be in Orlando then, I wanted to upgrade early). It was no hassle, compared with earlier times I been getting cell phones. In and out in about 10 minutes. I did not bother having them transfer my contacts or contents. All my pictures were already on my memory card (which I could use in the Blackberry), and I had already synced all my contacts to my computer at home. So when I came home, I could just re-sync all my contacts back to the new phone, and I was set.

It took me about a day and a half to get used to the phone, find all the settings, find some nice layouts for the screen and download some useful programs (e.g. Lotusphere´09 Session Database, Yahoo Go!, Facebook, twibble and Goggle Mobile/Maps/Sync/Gmail). I also made myself a couple of background images, just to try it out. I had one on my old Samsyn Sync phone I was happy with, but the resolution/size was totally wrong, so I ended up recreating it, and it actually turned out much better this time.

So after about two and a half days, what is my opinion? Well, I have to say I really like it. This is my first Blackberry, but I have been playing with some older models, about 2 years ago. This one is very nice compared with them. The screen is absolutely gorgeous, crisp, clear and easy to read. The programs, both built-in and most downloaded, are easy to use. I love the GPS functionality, and the camera is creating pretty good pictures, in good light conditions.

What are the things I don´t like? Well, there are a few. Some may be due to my inexperience with the device, but some are legit issues. Nothing that really take away too much from the Bold, though. My biggest issue, and probably just due to not being used to the device, is the keyboard. The numeric part have the numbers in white, just like the qwerty keyaboard. That makes the left-most keys hard to read, and creating some temporary brain overload when trying to type. I also am missing more specialized characters, like the Scandinavian UGand ?characters. My old Samsung had those.

The background light level is going up and down, and I have not figured out why or how it works. I am sure it has to do with the light conditions around the device, though.

As I said, I synced up my contacts with my computer at home, and when I got to work I synced it up with my Notes address book there. I also synched the calendar both with Google Calendar (using Google Sync) and with my Notes Calendar. Here I got some conflicts, the same item was sent to Google Calendar, then sent to Notes, and suddenly I had two conflicting items for the same event in the Blackberry calendar.

I then talked to our network admin and he set me up on the BES, and (without making any changes in the device), I suddenly had two copies of every contact. I am not sure if this is due to synchronizing with Notes through the Blackberry Desktop Manager and Google Sync, or the connection to BES. But that is pretty annoying.

So there are little issues like that, which I am sure I will get under control eventually.

In the mean time I am happily playing with my new toy. Well, I am not sure I should call it toy, I have some female friends who got a strange look on their faces when I told them I bought a new toy this weekend. I don´t know why, but I have a feeling they were thinking about something else, until I told them what I got”…”