BlackBerry Bold 9650

“The Tour has been our favorite BlackBerry to date and the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9650 is a Tour with Wi-Fi, a trackpad and more memory… in other words, a better Tour. Still, we’re underwhelmed. The Tour offered significant advantages over its predecessors, namely the 8830, Curve 8330 and Bold 9000, but this new Bold is simply a refresh which adds otherwise standard BlackBerry features. Furthermore Sprint is currently asking $200 for the Bold 9650 on contract, a 100% premium over the outgoing Tour and a whopping four times the price of the very well endowed Curve 8530. Sure, the Curve’s display and keyboard aren’t as nice and the camera is lower spec’d, but when it comes down to it, the guts are pretty much the same. Let’s face it, a BlackBerry is a BlackBerry (unless it’s a Storm, in which case sorry about your luck.) We just can’t see people choosing the Bold over the Tour as long as the latter is available, and unless you need international roaming we don’t see people paying the $150 premium for a nicer keyboard and display over the Curve. Moreover, we shouldn't forget that the monstrous HTC EVO 4G is right around the corner. Of course, some would prefer the physical QWERTY of the BlackBerry, or would need its BES support, but as both handsets come at the same price we believe the Android-powered EVO 4G is a much more tempting offer overall. We’ve been saying this for what seems like years now, but BlackBerry is in a rut and now more than ever they need a device that is different to break them out of it. The BlackBerry Bold 9650 is just the latest in a string of good but boring offerings from RIM.”

“Ah, a Tour owner’s dream. The BlackBerry Bold 9650 started life out as the BlackBerry Tour2. It then went through a late-stage metamorphosis and received a memory upgrade and name change for a couple of different reasons. One of the reasons is to utilize a positive product name RIM has built (the Bold line), and another would be to prevent hundreds of thousands of angry BlackBerry owners from practically taking over the entire city of Waterloo, Canada. You see, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 is what the Tour should have originally been, and by releasing a Tour2 under a year from the original device’s debut would be straight up insulting. RIM killed two birds with one stone by renaming the device to be a Bold, continuing a successful device brand, and also trying to not completely obliterate an existing handset (even though the Tour 9630 will certainly be end-of-life’d very, very quickly). So is the BlackBerry Bold 9650 the best in the biz? You’ll see soon enough, after the jump of course.”

“The messaging capabilities of the 9650 are solid, with email support being the strongest of the bunch. The threaded SMS software looks and works great, and all the IM clients on board mean you can always get the message. Social networking has also improved with better Facebook and Twitter applications that integrate more tightly with the device itself. The music client is still a bit on the weak side, and the performance of the camera and video camera were surprisingly inconsistent with other BlackBerries. The browser isn't the best that's available, but it surely beats what is available on most feature phones. In sum, for those who need a QWERTY-equipped smartphone with all-around solid performance, the 9650 is a good choice on either Sprint or Verizon's network.”

“The BlackBerry Bold 9650 is the follow-up device to the Verizon Wireless (and Sprint) BlackBerry Tour 9630 smartphone. Much of the device remains very similar, including many of the specs and overall design, but the Bold 9650 also offers twice the memory of the Tour, adds WiFi support, and also includes the optical trackpad that's also found on the Verizon Wireless Curve 8520 and on the BlackBerry Bold 9700 available on AT&T and T-Mobile USA. The Bold 9650 is the best BlackBerry smartphone available on Verizon Wireless, and its solid battery life and good voice quality make it an attractive bet to those that want, or require, a BlackBerry. However, the phone's relatively poor web browser and feature set may make many other devices, such as more powerful Android phones, seem more attractive.”