| General | 2G Network | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 | |
| 3G Network | HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 | ||
| Announced | 2009, October | ||
| Status | Available. Released Exp. release 2009, November | ||
| Size | Dimensions | 109 x 60 x 14 mm | |
| Weight | 122 g | ||
| Display | Type | TFT, 65K colors | |
| Size | 480 x 360 pixels, 2.44 inches | ||
| - Full QWERTY keyboard | |||
| - Touch-sensitive optical trackpad | |||
| Sound | Alert types | Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3 ringtones | |
| Speakerphone | Yes | ||
| - 3.5 mm audio jack | |||
| Memory | Phonebook | Yes, Photocall | |
| Call records | Yes | ||
| Internal | 256MB storage | ||
| Card slot | microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB, 2GB included, buy memory | ||
| Data | GPRS | Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps | |
| HSCSD | No | ||
| EDGE | Class 10, 236.8 kbps | ||
| 3G | HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps | ||
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g, UMA | ||
| Bluetooth | Yes, v2.1 with A2DP | ||
| Infrared port | No | ||
| USB | Yes, microUSB v2.0 | ||
| Camera | Primary | 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus, LED flash | |
| Features | Image stabilization | ||
| Video | Yes | ||
| Secondary | |||
| Features | OS | BlackBerry OS; 5.0 | |
| CPU | 624 MHz processor | ||
| Messaging | SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging | ||
| Browser | HTML | ||
| Radio | |||
| Games | Yes + downloadable | ||
| Colors | Black | ||
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS support | ||
| Java | Yes | ||
| - BlackBerry maps | |||
| - Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) | |||
| - Media player MP3/WMA/AAC+ | |||
| - Video player DivX/WMV/XviD/3gp | |||
| - Organizer | |||
| - Voice memo/dial | |||
| Battery | Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh | ||
| Stand-by | Up to 408 h | ||
| Talk time | Up to 6 h |
Users Opinions and Reviews
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 shrinks down the 9000 to fit in your pocket. We take see if smaller is better in this first look review.Bold9700 sports all the features you’d expect of a flagship BlackBerry device. It has Wi-Fi, HSDPA and GPS, the latter allowing geo tagging – where you tag photos taken with the phone’s camera with the location at which they were taken. Unfortunately, some of the phone’s most crucial features are ones we weren’t able to test with a quick hands-on look at the device. The Bold 9700 claims to offer much better battery life than its predecessor, with a stated six hours of talk time or 17 days standby with 3G turned on.
Many Bold 9000 users faced battery problems with their phones though, so we’re going to take those numbers with a pinch of salt before we kick off any celebrations. Also, the music player has been optimised, allowing you to put your Bold 9700 into a ‘walkman’ mode where other features are put to sleep, giving over 30 hours of MP3 playback with a single charge. These are figures that you’d be happy with in a high-end dedicated MP3 player, but again we’re going to have to approach them with caution for now.
Still, if you’re planning to use the Bold 9700 as a commute music player, the 3.5mm headphone jack is a feature we have absolutely no issues with.
However, like many of the Bold 9700’s best bits, it’s another feature that was included in its predecessor. We’re not going to complain about a valid iteration on a phone we loved the first time around, though.
This isn’t a next generation BlackBerry, a fact that RIM admits to by planning to keep the Bold 9000 on sale alongside the 9700. However, if the original Bold was just that bit too chunky for your tastes, give the Bold 9700 a further look.