Maybe the desperation helped; the Bold 9900 is so good, I very briefly questioned my decision to defect.
It’s about as slim as any phone on the market, with stainless-steel edges shamelessly copied from the iPhone. The new Bold feels firm and comfortable in the hand, and even better when you start typing. Its keyboard is the best I have found on any phone, with a decisive response that puts touchscreen keyboards to shame.
You pay for the keyboard with a video screen that is small, just 2.8 inches across diagonally. Still, it’s a bright, sharp little screen, with respectable video quality. Better yet, it’s a touchscreen, so you can access many phone functions by dabbling at on-screen icons, just like the cool kids do. The interface resembles that of the PlayBook tablet, with icons grouped into sensible categories and accessed via side-to-side sweeps of the finger. It’s a layout that gets maximum benefit from a miniature screen.
My old Bold had a lousy Internet browser. The upgraded version is much better, although it’s still hard to read on the Bold’s little screen. The old Bold had an awful camera; this one’s fantastic, a five-megapixel device that shoots very good stills and high-definition video. And the T-Mobile edition of the phone uses the carrier’s so-called 4G network for faster wireless data speeds, good enough for decent Web surfing and photo viewing.
In all, a darn good phone, enough to question a switch to Android. But then along comes the newest smartphone from Verizon Wireless and Motorola Mobility Inc. to snap you out of it.
The Droid Bionic is pretty cool. There’s a dual-core processor, a gigabyte of memory, a great big 4.3-inch screen, and an eight-megapixel camera that can shoot 1080p high-def video, compared to 720p for the Bold.
