In 2009, Research In Motion (RIM) released the new BlackBerry model with codename ‘Onyx’ or also known as Bold 2. The official name of this Smartphone is BlackBerry Bold 9700 and it is the revised version of its predecessor, the Bold 9000.
In general, the features of Blackberry Bold 9700 are not much different from the first generation of Bold series. The most significant difference is in its design which is smaller, thinner, and lighter and it also looks more elegant than the previous Bold. This Smartphone has a high-gloss black design with a 2.44-inch screen TFT 65K colors and 480 x 360 pixels of resolution. It tends to similar with Javelin than the first generation of Bold, but still it has a keypad like the Bold 9000. In addition, Onyx uses touch-sensitive optical navigation track pad instead of trackball used by its predecessor.
Another difference is the increased battery life. If the first Bold could only last for up to 4 hours talk time and 10 days standby, Onyx is capable of up to 6 hours talk time and 15 days in standby mode when it is used in 3G networks since it uses a 1500 mAh battery Li-Ion.
The ability of the camera has also been increased as well as the memory capacity. Blackberry Bold 9700 includes a 3.15 megapixel camera which allows users to take images up to a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels but unfortunately there is no secondary camera. Features of the camera include autofocus, LED flash, check quality and image stabilization. It has a 256 MB of internal memory which can be expanded with removable microSD memory card up to 16GB (2GB included).
To gain a great performance, Blackberry Bold 9700 is powered by a 624 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM. Onyx also has been using the operating systems Blackberry OS 5.0 (upgradable to 6.0) and supports the BlackBerry Desktop Manager 5.0 for Windows and Mac.
This device is already support 3G connectivity with Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE and UMTS / HSDPA networks, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and A-GPS support. For data transfer, this device is equipped with Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0. For connectivity, it also features BlackBerry Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ, Voice memo/dial, BlackBerry maps, and Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF).
The excess of BlackBerry Bold 9700 are its sleeker design and its brilliant display. It also gets a faster processor and BlackBerry OS 5.0 which is a lot easier on the eye. The minus are the default browser does not really work well (it is suggested to use other web browser) and the compact size of this phone results in a smaller display as it does affect readability. [IS]
