RIM BlackBerry Bold 9900 review

RIM’s BlackBerry Bold 9900 is the thinnest BlackBerry to date, and its stainless steel construction and excellent keyboard make it stand out in a world of plastic phones. Despite its size, it packs a 1.2GHz processor and 8GB of storage, and its 2.8in screen has a generous 640×480 resolution, making it crystal clear.

The 9900’s build quality is truly impressive. Instead of the luxury leather back of some of its brethren, there’s a carbon fibre cover for the battery compartment. The stainless steel frame feels incredibly sturdy and helps protect the headphone and microUSB ports as well as housing the music controls, camera shutter button and screen lock button.

A 5-megapixel camera and LED flash on the rear take decent snaps, but as with most smartphone cameras there’s lots of noise in dark areas. Videos were also full of colour but with a resolution of 640×480 at 23 frames per second, they aren’t particularly good quality.

As usual, the BlackBerry keyboard is a joy to use with its sculpted keys and logical layout. Above it, an optical trackpad button sits between the standard Menu, Back and call buttons. As there’s also a capacitive touchscreen, you have plenty of options for controlling the operating system. The screen’s 640×480 resolution gives it a pixel density of 287 dpi, so pictures are incredibly sharp. We found the touch interface responsive and smooth.