Camera

The Bold's 2.0-megapixel camera is middle-of-the-line, and not the most impressive camera option for a smartphone. Most basic clamshell's come with 1.0- to 2.0-megapixel, while smartphones tend to come with 2.0- to 3.0-megapixel or higher camera. Still, it's on the higher end of the BlackBerry camera quality spectrum. Some other BlackBerry devices only come with a 1.3-megapixel camera.

RIM BlackBerry Bold (9000)

Your Price: $39.99 with service

It helps that the camera has a flash -- a coveted feature for many camera phone users -- but the picture quality isn't great and photos often come across with a gray cast. It's also disappointingly easy to end up with a blurry picture if the slightest movement is made while taking a photograph.

An automatic white balance option, picture quality options (normal, fine and superfine) and 3x zoom help take a better picture, along with a steady hand. Picture size options are large (1,600 x 1,200 px), medium (1,024 x 768 px) and small (640 x 480 px).

The phone has just two color effects -- sepia and black and white. Editing options include cropping, rotating, and zoom. Pictures can be saved to a folder, set as a caller ID photo, sent in a message or deleted.

The Bold also takes videos. The video camera has zoom, color effects, and a video light for shooting in a dark room. Videos can be saved at a higher quality of 480 x 320 px and stored on the phone or filmed for 30 seconds at 176 x 144 px to send in multimedia messages.

Because smartphones need a decent chunk of memory to perform their multitude of functions, it is suggested someone looking to take a lot of pictures or videos invest in a memory card.

There are better cameras and more features out there, but the Bold still offers a decent camera/camcorder package for someone looking to capture a few moments but not get too serious about their footage. Fuzzy photos are a possibility, but most images come out clear when the camera is held in place and the video recording quality is grainy but picks up sound well and is aided by a video light. The Bold's camera is not it's best feature, but it's fine for someone who's not buying the phone for its camera.

Basic Features

The Bold comes with an extensive menu of options. Basic applications include a memo pad, task menu, calculator, clock, camera, video camera, word to go, BlackBerry Messenger, password keeper, voice notes recorder, voice dialing, slideshow to go, sheet to go, an in-phone search option and a folder for saved messages.

Access to email, the Web, on-line shopping, music and videos, and text, picture and video messaging are available as well. There are also tools for juggling appointments, room for multiple contacts, games, viewing and editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on the Bold, and Internet access to Wi-Fi and a mobile network.

Desktop software can also back-up Bold data, transfer media files and applications between the Bold and a laptop and forward emails and calendar items between the two devices.

The Bold's all-inclusive nature is good and bad. It means the phone comes with a lot of great features built-in (although a World Clock and an EZ Tip Calculator are surprisingly absent). But some of those features may be a little too BlackBerry-specific for some people's tastes.

The phone has instant access to a BlackBerry email account and a BlackBerry messenger, but users will have to navigate through the browser to find their personal email accounts and Yahoo!, AOL and Windows Live Messengers are not quickly available on the phone. This can lead to even more juggling instead of the simplicity of having instant access to existing accounts.

Syncing the phone can also be exclusive, since users need a computer with Microsoft Windows and can only edit work documents from Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

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