Chris Pepin

I upgraded to BlackBerry Bold 9700 (AT&T).  Previously, I had been using the original Bold 9000 and Javelin 8900.  From my perspective, the 9700 is the best of both worlds with a smaller form factor, 3G, beautiful screen and great performance.  That said, the 9700 is more evolutionary than revolutionary in terms of smartphone design.    Web browsing still lags the competition as does application installation and upgrades.   However, this is a criticism of all BlackBerries, not just the 9700.

I was exciting to try the new BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Apple Macintosh on my new MacBook Pro 13".  Unfortunately, the Mac version doesn't include the ability to upgrade to a new BlackBerry so I had to resort to a Windows 7 laptop for this purpose.   I was, however, able to backup my existing BlackBerry 8900 using the Mac and restore it to the new 9700.  For some reason, none of my applications came over - just my mail, calendar, contacts and settings.   It was a good opportunity to go through my applications and install only the ones I needed.    The process of upgrading to a new Apple iPhone is far simplier.   There is still alot to like about the BlackBerry in terms of security, manageability, the new trackpad (instead of trackball), the excellent physical keyboard (as opposed to onscreen) and the new 5.0 OS features.