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Buyer's Guide: The Best Monitors 
BlackBerry Bold 9700 vs HTC HD2
Tristan François
Updated: March 4, 2010
Updated: March 4, 2010
| On the left, we have the BlackBerry Bold 9700 with its physical keyboard, tactile trackpad and push e-mail whenever and wherever you want it. RIM, which specialises in business-orientated handsets like this one, received five stars for this phone. | | | | | | | |
On the right, the HTC HD2 has a huge screen and a gorgeous software layer that helps you forget that it's running Windows Mobile under the bonnet. You get all of that and a whole series of useful accessories. It's another five-star phone. |
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| Blackberry OS 5.0 |
| | Windows Mobile 6.5 + HTC Sense |
| 2.46'' • 480 x 360 pixels | | | 4.3'' • 800 x 480 pixels |
| 1.360 W/kg | | | 0.631 W/kg |
| 122 g | | | 157 g |
| 109 x 60 x 14.1 mm | | | 120 x 67 x 11 mm |
| THE BACKGROUND |
| RIM is no stranger to the world of professional handsets, but over the past ten years, its phones have become more stylish and accessible. Making the most of the current trend for BlackBerrys amongst younger customers, RIM has given a more modern look for its high-end handsets like this Bold 9700. It's smaller, easier to handle and blends quality design with a more high-tech style. On the inside, the software and hardware updates have remained fairly modest, but taken as a whole, the Bold 9700 represents considerable progress. |
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HTC's reputation lies in the extra software it adds to phones. It's been covering the cracks in Microsoft's Window's Mobile with its own software layers that offer advanced features and great integration with the OS for years now. Initially known as TouchFLO before being upgraded to TouchFLO 3D, the latest version picks up on features introduced in its Android equivalent, Sense. |
| This is going to be a tough fight between two interfaces designed by big names in the mobile world. RIM still keeps everything in house, giving mobile networks and end users a complete software package, while HTC has stuck with Windows Mobile. That hasn't stopped it adding a few of its own touches and plenty of good ideas. |
| HANDLING: RIM WINS |
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| The HD2 certainly isn't an abject failure in this area, but a 4.3'' takes up a lot of room. And despite having a smaller display, the Bold has a decent resolution and a physical keyboard, giving it a clear advantage. |
| With part of the finish in rubber, you have to be going some to drop the Bold. The physical keyboard is small but powerful, and the shape of the keys make it easy to hold on to. The screen isn't huge, but nevertheless comes with a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels. That's less than the HD2, of course, but compared to the size of the screen, it's not bad. It's also very bright, which means you won't have any problems even in strong sunlight. It comes with the new optical trackpad, introduced on the latest generation of BlackBerrys. It stands up well against a full-sized touchscreen, and is accurate enough to feel perfectly natural if you're used to using a mouse. |
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In case you hadn't got the message yet, the HD2 is big, and heavy too. Although it's pretty slim, it still weighs your pockets down, so HTC really doesn't need to include the warning about taking it out of your back pocket before sitting down. And when you're holding it, it feels like it's taking up even more room! The screen is impressively big and crams in 480 x 800 pixels. But it's so big and glossy that sometimes in direct sunlight you get the impression that you can see more greasy fingerprints than you can actual content on screen. Using your fingertips to navigate the touchscreen interface is a clear usability advantage over the BlackBerry, but the latter's trackpad does leave it enough room for manoeuvre. The virtual keyboard is big, and allows for very decent typing, but nothing like the performance of a physical keyboard. |
| SOFTWARE: A DRAW |
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There's no denying that BlackBerry OS is a powerful platform, and it allows the Bold to rival other business-orientated handsets by starting up in just a few seconds.
For users that want to be able to deploy a phone across a whole company, it's important to be able to configure them down to the last detail and also choose the right security settings. RIM is an expert at both of these challenges. Unfortunately, while you can adjust the position of the icons in the main menu, and create sub-menus inside folders like you can on a computer, the interface is infuriatingly inflexible. The homescreen, for instance, can only ever display the bar of information along the top (which is of course essential) and the first row of icons from the main menu. You don't get any widgets, shortcuts or real-time information. If you want a phone that you can customise yourself, you need to look elsewhere. |
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Windows Mobile also began life in the business world, but it's fair to say that its interface and features are now beginning to look more than a little out of date. It's hard to add customisation where there was none before, but HTC has done a lot to improve the look and feel. Sense is a very strong platform, and it includes weather widgets and personalisable icons for the homescreen and scrolling menus listing all the main features. You can access almost everything very quickly, and you need to dig very deep before you find any evidence of Windows Mobile. We're glad that all of your messages appear in a single place (something you can also activate on the BlackBerry) as well as the effective preview system. You can choose to either take a quick look at your last few e-mails or text messages, or expand to view the whole conversation with a single tap. |
| FEATURES: COMMUNICATE WITH THE BOLD, SURF ON THE HD2 |
| Without a doubt the BlackBerry's biggest strength is its ability to push all sorts of content to your phone. Whether it's IM, e-mail or information from an app you've installed, the vast majority of traffic is sent from the server to the client, and not the other way round. That saves battery life, as the handset doesn't hook up the server at predefined intervals just to check if there's anything new, but it also makes everything available almost immediately, including attachments. As soon as an e-mail hits your account, the server processes it and any files that are attached before sending it onto your phone in a format it can easily display. With automatic syncing with Outlook and Exchange, but also Gmail and Facebook, you needn't worry about having to spend long typing your contacts names and numbers in, either. The best part it is that this software platform, which was until now reserved for enterprise users and mobile networks, is now also accessible to small business thanks to a stripped-down free version of the server software. |
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Browsing with Opera on such a big screen is a real treat! You can actually read all of the content on web pages and they're laid out correctly. It's almost as good as using a computer. On top of that, there are plenty of little extras, like turning the HD2 into a WiFi router. That means you can share its 3G connection with your computer but without needing a USB connection--or even share it with several computers. That can come in very handy … In short, the HD2 is great for people who want to be able to get online but who only want to use their own personal accounts. A more heavyweight solution like RIM's would be overkill … |
| VERDICT: BOLD FOR BUSINESS, HD2 FOR MULTITASKING |
| At the end of the day, it's difficult to decide between these two phones. Both are excellent handsets but, crucially, don't have the same end users in mind. Enterprise users: in the case of large companies looking for a standard handset, the Bold clearly takes the lead: you can configure it exactly how you want and roll out upgrades directly from the server. It also makes synchronising mails, contacts and calendars incredibly simple. Smaller organisations: a BlackBerry is a less obvious choice here, and you need to think about what you're looking for in a mobile. But now that the BlackBerrry server is available to everybody, if mail and calendar sharing is what you need, then that will tip the balance in favour of the Bold. |
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Independents: if you don't need anything anywhere near as powerful as the Bold, then the HD2 is an effective solution that's easy to use, a good all-rounder and great for web browsing. Messaging addicts: stick with the Bold. There's a reason why more and more youngsters are going for BlackBerrys: a physical keyboard makes it so much easier to get in touch with friends, whether that's with an e-mail, and SMS or IM. At DigitalVersus: there are some BlackBerrys, but plenty of other smartphones too. And although nobody has plumped for a HD2, it certainly caught the attention of some of our biggest iPhone fans. |
