RIM BlackBerry Bold 9930 (Sprint)

Sprint's version of the new BlackBerry Bold 9930 offers a few key differences next to the Verizon version, the most compelling of which is less expensive monthly data plans. It's still not a shoo-in for a recommendation, though. The Bold 9930 is a beautiful, fast cell phone?in search of a contemporary operating system. It's a slimmer, more responsive BlackBerry than before, but otherwise it's the same BlackBerry we've all known for years. That's fine for businesses which need mission-critical messaging, but for consumers, it's not enough to keep up with the latest Android and iOS devices with their thriving third-party app communities and more advanced multimedia features.

Design and Call Quality
The Bold 9930 measures 4.5 by 2.6 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.6 ounces. It's a classy-looking device, with its sharp aluminum accident band and thin, extra-wide QWERTY keyboard. Typing on it feels sublime; this is the best keyboard in the business. The 2.8-inch capacitive touch screen sports 640-by-480-pixel resolution, which is considerably sharper than the 360-by-480-pixel screens of earlier Bolds.

The Bold 9930 is a true world phone, with support for dual-band EV-DO Rev A (850/1900 MHz), quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), and dual-band HSDPA (850/1900 MHz). It also supports 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n and 5GHz 802.11 a/n Wi-Fi networks. Sprint also unlocks the SIM card slot, unlike Verizon, so you can pop in something cheaper locally overseas if you don't mind losing your phone number temporarily. There's no mobile hotspot mode available, though, which puts it behind Sprint's numerous Android phones.?

In back to back comparisons with the Bold 9930 on Verizon, the Bold 9930 on Sprint sounded basically the same, despite the two different networks. Callers sounded crisp and bright, and there was plenty of volume available. I still heard a slight wash of static around individual syllables. Callers sounded I sounded okay, but not as good as I do through other Sprint phones. Reception was average; sometimes the phone dropped to 1xRTT mode, which is disappointing considering that earlier Sprint BlackBerrys from three years ago like the Pearl 8130 always stayed on EV-DO in my home.

Callers sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset?($129, 4 stars). The Nuance-powered voice dialing worked perfectly over Bluetooth. The speakerphone had plenty of volume, but sounded a bit more distorted with than earlier Bolds. Battery life was considerably shorter than the Verizon version for some reason, at 5 hours and 37 minutes of talk time.?

User Interface, Apps, and BlackBerry App World
Most of the same things that make the Verizon Bold 9930 successful are present here. The 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon makes BlackBerry OS 7 fly. The WebKit browser is a godsend compared with earlier RIM devices, and works about as well as an Android or iPhone browser, only with a smaller screen and without Flash. The Bold 9930 continues to excel at messaging, with its built-in push email support, BlackBerry Messenger app, and threaded texting. You still can't sync with Microsoft Exchange without a BlackBerry Enterprise Server installed at your company, though.

Sprint adds its own flavor to the built-in software. The media folder collects most of Sprint's usual bloatware in one place, including Sprint TV, Sprint Music Plus, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile, and the GPS Navigation app, which offers solid, voice-enabled turn-by-turn directions for free with the appropriate unlimited data plans.

Unfortunately, the Bold 9930 on Sprint also shares the same downsides as the Verizon version. BlackBerry App World is a total embarrassment, a sluggish, ungainly app store that makes browsing, buying, and downloading apps unnecessarily difficult. BlackBerry OS 7, even with its various minor updates, still doesn't allow for the kinds of powerful apps that Android and iOS devices do. It's also tough to navigate the various complex icon and settings menus, unless you're a BlackBerry veteran, in which case it will feel exactly like what you're used to.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The Bold 9930 is a great music player, but just a so-so video player and camera. First, the music part: there's a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack, 8GB of internal memory, and a microSD card slot that accepts 32GB cards. The microSD card slot is buried behind the battery, which is one frustration in an otherwise smooth media experience. Music tracks sound crisp and clear through Samsung Modus HM6450 Bluetooth headphones?($99, 4 stars), and the jukebox-like album cover display is fun to scroll back and forth.

It's the camera and video that can use some improvement. The camcorder portion is fine; it's finally 720p HD-capable, records smooth 1280-by-720-pixel files at an even 30 frames per second, and sports a useful image stabilization feature that helps with hand jitters. The standalone camera itself isn't as good. While it's a decent 5-megapixel sensor and has an LED flash, it lacks auto-focus, and it doesn't take particularly sharp or vibrant photos. You can watch videos on the Bold 9930, and they play back relatively smoothly, but the 2.8-inch, 4:3 aspect ratio screen means widescreen movie files look exceptionally small.?

I like Sprint's version of this phone slightly better than Verizon's and T-Mobile's, thanks to the Sprint Bold 9930's lower up-front price, and Sprint's lower-cost, unlimited data plans. As a result, if Sprint's coverage area works better for you or your employees, this Bold 9930 is the way to go. That said, it's an old smartphone in sleek new clothing. If you can live without a hardware keyboard, the much-more contemporary Motorola Photon 4G ($199.99, 4.5 stars) is an awesome, Android-powered alternative, with its high-res 960-by-540-pixel screen, dual-core CPU, and 4G WiMAX capability, plus access to over 200,000 apps in Android Market. The Photon 4G is another world phone as well, with both CDMA and HSPA 14.4 support and an unlocked SIM card slot. If a hardware keyboard is a must, the Samsung Epic 4G ($149.99, 4 stars) remains Sprint's best keyboarded smartphone; it's slower than the Photon, but it still hits WiMAX networks, and still has higher screen resolution and access to all those Android apps.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 5 hours 37 minutes

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