The Blackberry Bold 9700 Comparison

Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry Bold 9700 seems more than familiar, marrying the solid horsepower and good quality that characterized the original Bold 9000 with a form factor increasingly similar to other recent BlackBerry releases. A typically excellent RIM e-mail, contact and calendaring device, the Bold 9700 works in concert with the latest enterprise back-end software to add more features for enterprise users. That said, some of these new features are a little kludgy. It’s somewhat surprising that the new Bold 9700 bears the Bold moniker at all. Whereas the first Bold’s size and textured backplate made the device visually and tactilely distinct from other BlackBerrys, the Bold 9700 adopts a look overly similar to recent releases including the Curve 8900 and the Tour.

RIM representatives indicated that last year’s Bold 9000 was a little too butch (one went so far as to refer to it as the ManBerry), so the Bold 9700 was made smaller and given some cosmetic changes designed to make the device a little more appealing to women. The Bold 9700 is significantly smaller than last year’s Bold 9000, measuring in at 4.29 by 2.36 by 0.56 inches and 4.3 ounces, compared with 4.48 by 2.6 by 0.59 inches and 4.8 ounces for the Bold 9000.

From a design perspective, the Bold 9700 makes it seem like RIM is running out of design ideas.

While the original Bold 9000 was distinct (because of its size, heft, screen quality and the aforementioned backplate), the Bold 9700 feels pretty derivative. Take the Curve 8900 and tone down the shiny chrome a hair; slap the Tour’s flat-keyed QWERTY keyboard and bezel design on it; add a textured, leatherette strip on the back; move the side buttons and connectors around a bit; and reduce the profile with a trackpad instead of a BlackBerry’s typical trackball; and voila—you’ve got the Bold 9700.