Bold 9650: A BlackBerry For Business

The other BlackBerry that Research In Motion announced today is the Bold 9650. Rather than think of it as a specced-up Bold, think of it as a re-skinned Tour. Despite its less-than-original design and features, it manages to score solid points as a daily task killer.If the Pearl 9100 3G is the Porsche of BlackBerries, the Bold 9650 is the Ford F-150. It's a work horse, and is meant to get stuff done, not look pretty while doing it.

The Bold is a "World Phone" for Sprint (and hopefully) Verizon. It can connect to Sprint's 3G network in the U.S. and to 2G and 3G networks overseas. It also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. In other words, if there's a wireless signal nearby, the Bold 9650 can find it and connect to it. That's a good thing for business users.

(click image for larger view)
BlackBerry Bold 9650

As for the design of the device, it's good looking, and made from solid materials. It is bigger than the Bold 9700 in every dimension and you feel it in your hand. It's a bit on the heavy side, but most people won't mind so much.

The keyboard is very good. If you need a full QWERTY for typing out emails, the Bold 9650 is the device to do it. The keys have a good shape to them, making it easy to tell key from key when with your thumbs. The keys have solid travel and feedback.

Controlling the user interface is easy with the buttons provided. The optical mouse works well of moving the cursor around the display and I had no trouble with it. As with all BlackBerries, the presence of the send/end keys is always nice, and the BlackBerry key and back key make it easy to get a options and such.

There a full bevy of buttons along the outside ridge of the device that all help to control the volume, the application keys and the 3.5mm headset jack.

On the operating system side of the equation, the 9650 runs OS 5.0 (not 6.0, which is on the cusp of being announced). The UI looks sharp and works well. The pre-loaded apps on the units I played with included the usual set of productivity tools such as Office and Maps.

It's too bad that the 9650 doesn't have the 802.11n Wi-Fi that the Pearl 9100 3G does. It's also a shame that it doesn't have the 624MHz processor powering the Pearl. But the Bold 9650 was fast enough and completes most tasks with aplomb.