BlackBerry 9000 gets a very early review

We're all about reviews of products before they're released, but reviewing something before it's even been officially confirmed by a company is its own special brand of magnificent. Granted, these are more like the hands-on impressions of a self-confessed BlackBerry addict, who was willing to fork over $828 US on the off chance that the eBay auction the other day was actually legit. A week later Kevin of CrackBerry.com has the BlackBerry 9000 in hand and seems to be loving every minute of it. Apparently the keyboard is better than the 8800 series, the OS4.6 is smooth, fast and pretty, and the 480 x 320 LCD is "awesome." And don't get Kevin started on 3G: the logo alone brought a tear to his eye -- we're clearly dealing with a bona fide fanboy here. That said, it's an encouraging sign to see all those leaked shots weren't just for show, there's a real-live performer behind the legend. Kevin's major caveat is the size and weight of the phone, compared to his Curve, but we're sure the $828 hole in his checking account will have him coming to terms with that drawback in the near future. He'll be posting more details and impressions as he goes.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Nate @ May 6th 2008 12:32PM]

I wonder if this guy needs to worry about RIM coming after him for having a stolen merchandise.

We really don't know how the seller got his hands on these things.

[Nate @ May 6th 2008 12:33PM]

Man, I wish we could edit comments after posting here.

What the hell is, "...a stolen merchandise"?

[Flashpoint @ May 6th 2008 12:50PM]

within 3 years, most phones will be touchscreen. So long as they work around all the problems and limitations of the iphone, we'll all be happy.

[Nate @ May 6th 2008 1:02PM]

That's nice. It would be even better if it had anything to do with my comment.

[helloUser @ May 6th 2008 2:49PM]

RIM's employees (not all though) get prerelease items to test out for the company, I live in toronto now although half of my friends and all my family lives in kitchener-waterloo, i lived there for about 10 years and know a few people that work there. Its not difficult to get a blackberry there, a lot of people have one, although, selling a prerelease.....i dont know how that would go.

Oh well. The phone looks awesome, love the tactile keyboard, so much better than the iphones.

[Jody Bissoon @ Jun 17th 2008 10:54AM]

All the reviews are positive. I hope the battery life isn't a big problem. Jody Bissoon

[Christopher Vendemio @ May 6th 2008 12:34PM]

This is the phone that will probably make me leave my Q9H and Windows Mobile and finally bite the Blackberry bullet. I just hope it won't be too difficult to bring my contacts over from WM lol.

[bethel03 @ May 6th 2008 12:41PM]

The blackberry software will sync with your Outlook ;)

[Christopher Vendemio @ May 6th 2008 1:45PM]

Really? That's great news for me then. Thank you.

[Jay @ May 6th 2008 12:35PM]

Yeah but does it do IMAP IDLE? Until it does that it is completely useless to me. Long live Chatteremail on Treo.

[Cygnus @ May 6th 2008 4:20PM]

Well, apparently it will draw you a bath, make coffee, give massages and feed you surefire pickup lines. But, unfortunately, no IMAP IDLE...

[boris @ May 13th 2008 6:08PM]

What's the point of IMAP idle on a Treo when it alone kills the battery in an hour?

[RIFRAF @ May 6th 2008 12:38PM]

Nice looking phone, I have a curve and love it. Only wish Verizon would come out with one so I could get off AT&T's horrible service.

[sk @ May 6th 2008 2:56PM]

Good luck to you if you think Verizon is any better!

[RIFRAF @ May 6th 2008 1:43PM]

ahh well it looks I get the chance to see, It looks like Verizon is getting its own version.

[Jordan @ May 6th 2008 2:36PM]

Not to start another my carrier is better than your carrier flame war, but man, my AT&T got pwned in the hills of Kentucky by my friend's Verizon last weekend.

[jimmywash @ May 6th 2008 12:51PM]

Yet another unexciting design for blackberry lovers to spend money on. I just don't understand the lover for any of their phones.

[Mike @ May 6th 2008 1:37PM]

I think its more of the functionality than the looks >.

[Nicholas @ May 6th 2008 4:38PM]

I have an iPhone, but there are still things I miss about the Berry. But, being in the "ecosystem" (Mac's), the iPhone makes better sense for me. This thing looks pretty hot!

Somebody mentioned the lack of touch screen up top, and I think that RIM made the correct decision for the market. One handed use is a decent possibility. The smudged screen happens on both devices.

3G. Sigh. Maybe in July.

[Eric M. @ May 6th 2008 12:49PM]

$828!? Somebody is using their economic stimulus money to berry good use.

I would have just linked up to my own blog with Google Adsense so I can start earning some of that money back..

[Josh L @ May 6th 2008 1:11PM]

"... to berry good use..."

*groan* ;)

[Zal @ May 6th 2008 1:12PM]

I see what you did there.

[Patrick @ May 6th 2008 1:16PM]

I like it!

[Tony C @ May 7th 2008 10:29AM]

I'm sure that's what Mr. CrackBerry.com was thinking... He can make up a good bit of his money back and then some, with mongo ad hits to his website, being the first 9000 review and all!

[Steffen Jobbs @ May 6th 2008 12:56PM]

I think that's a great looking handset. The icons are plain, but so what. It's functionality that matters. If the guy's a BlackBerry fanboy, more power to him. RIM does very well for it's investors.

[brad @ May 6th 2008 1:03PM]

do you think this OS update will come to the 880/8830?

[daddycool @ May 6th 2008 1:10PM]

Blackberry Curve is the best form factor of any modern smartphone. Small, light, but still with a very usable keyboard.They shouldn't mess with it, just make a 8390 with 3G. This keyboard looks like the 8800 keyboard, not very good.

[Jordan @ May 7th 2008 9:31PM]

yeah rogers
coming to canada!

[jimmywash @ May 6th 2008 1:40PM]

I think they feel weird to talk on.

[Samus Aran @ May 6th 2008 1:22PM]

I would just like to say that the iPhone sucks monkeys.

RIM > Apple

[Male_Madam @ May 6th 2008 1:32PM]

Same tired crap...until the next outage. Mangez la merde, RIM.

[Ryft @ May 6th 2008 4:26PM]

The new 9000, or Blackberry Bold as it will be called, is pretty neat. I got to play with a finalized prototype while shooting a commercial for Blackberry about a week ago. However, it is still no iPhone.

[tony4d @ May 6th 2008 1:34PM]

Can the reviewer possibly be any more bias (yes, I realize the site is called crackberry.com)? Come'on, this guy almost cried when he saw the 3G logo? Okkie Dokkie ...

[Jubei @ May 6th 2008 2:14PM]

The icons on this phone looks childish. As if it was purposely designed to look amateurish, rather than professional. No color at all? Most likely it was designed this way to help speed up the UI process.

[Cygnus @ May 6th 2008 4:24PM]

The color and design of the icons are part of the theme. You can change the theme in about 5 seconds if you don't like it

[jeesusfreek @ May 12th 2008 2:32PM]

Blackberry 9000: 625MHz CPU

I seriously doubt that it needs "black and white icons and not color ones" to speed up it's UI with that kind of power under the hood.

Not that color vs. B&W makes a damn bit of difference anyways...keep your "childish" comments to yourself next time.

[MasterCKO @ May 6th 2008 2:09PM]

so much for the people calling the pics of this Blackberry in the auction a fake.

[Hagel @ May 6th 2008 2:18PM]

Hello Blackberry, meet Sony XMB

[WowBow @ May 6th 2008 3:27PM]

I know 4 rows of keys is standard for all modern BB and WM devices, but there seems to be enough real estate on the 9000 to allow a separate numeric row at the top instead of doubling-up numbers on the alpha keys. THAT, to me, would be a big improvement.

[karpy91 @ May 6th 2008 3:39PM]

Wow! I can;t wait for this baby to be released!

[alaN- @ May 6th 2008 4:45PM]

ROGERS!?!... Yay for Canada

[Alex @ May 6th 2008 7:58PM]

umm so the blackberry 9000 is with verizon or att??

[SignificantMind @ May 6th 2008 8:03PM]

I heard it would be in use for ATT Wireless service. So I'm betting it works for ATT while regardless as this phone in the picture shows it's on ROGERS network. So I kind of smell something is up on this kind of nifty phone that all us don't yet officially know about.

[Alex @ May 6th 2008 8:06PM]

awww i was hopin it was for verizon ill have my fingers crossed haha

[TMM @ May 8th 2008 6:46AM]

Disclaimer:
What follows is a rant of personal oppinions. So skip ahead, if you don't want to read something negative.
But I'm still right, though.

From the user interface perspective, they still do about everything wrong you can do wrong.

When I see him moving a little mouse cursor over the badly rendered mobile web page of youtube with the little trackball, I just have to laugh.

I mean, how messed and stubborn do you have to be to keep up with crap like this? If you don't critizise this they will never make it better.

The User interface is a total catastrophe. And it's not a next gen phone: there's nothing really new but some tech specs.
It's the user interface what's a lot more important than all those features.
Who needs those if it's crap to use?

Who needs 3G if pages still load that slow and look that shitty and are that shitty to navigate.
I mean: come on. It's a pain in the ass to browse with those things.
T e r r i b l e.
And look at the email interface: Are you kidding me?
This is what you give us in 2008: an email client that's little more than a text mode app from early cell phones. It's about as good as the client on the first Moto Razr - just a little better, maybe ;)

And instead of crying out loud about this I only hear you crying tears of joy about some new icons and some hardware upgrades, which nobody really needs, except people with a hardware fetish ... which makes this good as porn for them, apparently.

Every since the first BB it's always been the same: Badly designed, clumsy things, which do what they should do in the most clums and complicated way imagenable.
And yet they are sold, because of the lack of alternatives and hordes of nerds - apparently - which bombard people with "feature lists" and "spec lists", which is as though this stuff makes any difference in the usage or for about 90% of the users.
But the store guy tells them so.

From now on, I'm gonna call the iPhone JesusPhone.
Because when I look around and see what mid-age stuff you have to keep up with, it really looks like the coming of the messiah.

And dare you still tell anyone that the iPhone doesn't work for business people. All the user phones instead don't work for PEOPLE.

Don't flame me: get a head.

[Mobile Phone Diva @ May 8th 2008 1:36PM]

If the iPhone is so good for business, how do you delete individual spam and/or useless calls but keep the good ones on the list for a quick call back if need be? YOU CAN'T and that's BAD for my business!! You have no choice but to delete all! NO OTHER phone does this but the iPhone! No call barring option either. And that's why I use mine only for after work. And yes I DO own an iPhone before anyone says anything! The screen is spectacular but it isn't a business phone unless you don't care who calls you. But that's a major PITA in my business. Plus it will not sync properly with my domain email.

Hopefully the coming SDK and firmware update in June will fix all these shortcomings, but as of now, BB is WAY better for business.

[KH @ Jun 11th 2008 6:24PM]

I agree the BB is a piece of crap. I wonder why some people are so fixated on hardware when the device has no real innovation. It's like no one cares that the BB Bold interface wise is the same exact phone it's always been. Companies like BB are afraid to take chances because they feel they will alienate its users. So year after year they create the same machines with upgrades guts for the masses of idiots out there. The static keys on the BB will be its biggest downfall. You can bet that this phone won't sell very much and the next phone they roll out will indeed be iPhone like. Apple has something with the iPhone and it's only a matter or time before more companies like LG, Samsung and soon BB repeat what Apple is doing and fall into place. There are already talks of home phone being iPhone like in that they have touch screen, and use the internet to look up information via yellow pages in preparation to call say a local pizza place. Need I say more...

[silleeebug @ May 12th 2008 9:56AM]

So...first I would like to say that I have a BB Curve through T-Mobile, and I have an iPhone (unlocked, and also through T-Mobile). I also don't work anymore since my husband deployed to Iraq. I absolutely LOVE my BB!! The iPhone is great for entertainment purposes (youtube, weather app, music, and videos, etc). But in my opinion...nothing, and I mean NOTHING beats out a BB! My BB is great at keeping in touch with people in many different ways, which lets face it..is the purpose of a phone! I can chat through instant messaging (which is free to do with my husband in Iraq!!!) email, text, or call and talk. The iPhone I can do all of that too except instant message! I mean...wtf?! But anywho...I think the Blackberry 9000 looks amazing. I would love to know which company is going to be carrying it, and how much it will be, and when its coming out?? Thanks!

[Load of Shit @ May 16th 2008 8:06PM]

This whole things just rings me of some bad marketing ploy.

So badly done.

"Apparently the keyboard is better than the 8800 series, the OS4.6 is smooth, fast and pretty, and the 480 x 320 LCD is "awesome.""

What shit.

Blackberry's are good, but please don't try and fondel it too much .... it's jus't a phone

"the logo alone brought a tear to his eye"

This guy is worse the Apple Fanboys.

For real.

[KH @ Jun 11th 2008 6:25PM]

Another phone with some buttons. Is this phone touch screen? Can the screen be a little bit larger? These buttons are annoying.This device is just boring! The only thing good about this phone is 3G that's all. I bet web pages show horribly.

::opens the door to the apple store:: Can I purchase a 3G iPhone today. :)