What I liked about BB 9700 - SW

This is the third post about my experience with the Bold 9700; if you haven't done yet, you might like to read the first and the second post.



The software

The social media software were available (for many reasons, I didn't expect them on a Blackberry) like Facebook - Twitter, etc...

- "Auto on/off" feature; with this feature I even got the battery to last longer; the phone will go into "sleep" mode with minimal battery usage, and will it turn itself on automatically, on the time I specified.

- Push, email, Twitter (mentions and DM), Facebook notifications, etc... Arrive almost instantly (though it depends on the connection I had at the time, there were times where it took about 15 minutes...).

- Interface - I changed the main screen background image and put the most used shortcuts /icons on the main screen; it was so easy to figure out, even without reading the manual.

- Sending emails/SMS: I found sending messages from Blackberry so easy, I had multiple email accounts setup, selecting a new email from the menu is easy, writing it was also easy (once I got used to the keyboard), to select who to send it to, you start typing first few letters, and it suggested names from my contacts, if I had a contact with multiple email addresses, I'll get a prompt to choose which one I want to send to. what I liked most about it, is sending an email n a "non signal" area (i.e., on my daily train journey, the signal is bad); I just write the email and send; it acts as my desktop email client, the email goes to the outbox, and once signal is back (connection is established), the email will be sent automatically; unlike many other email clients that complain about "connection not available", etc....

- Sound Profiles: I setup a "Sound Profile" that gets the device to ring only when incoming call was from a specific person, and the device was in its holster (I can setup the profile to ring/vibrate/"do nothing" differently if it was out of its holster). I could control the number of vibrations (1, 2 .... up to 10), sound level (high / low / silent), ...

With so many notification the phone can generate (from Facebook, Twitter, calendar reminder, emails reception -btw I had multiple email accounts and I can specify the notification on each one separately- SMS, Instant Messages, .... the list go on.... this level of notification customization is great.


- Windows Live Messenger: Always online, (the desktop version in your pocket, so convenient to stay in touch), yet doesn't affect the battery much; the only 2 things I couldn't do on the mobile version (but can on the desktop) are: video call and audio call. Other than that, everything is the same. ah.. one option that's not available on the desktop, I can specify an "alert" for an offline person, so that whenever they get online, I get the notification. (note this application is developed by RIM).

- PIN messages: As every Blackberry device got its own PIN number, this functionality is very similar to an Instant Message client (where you can send a text or MMS or even a voice note to any Blackberry user anywhere in the world). Honestly, with this device, the line between text messages and emails is getting blurred.

- Search: being able to search emails and text with "advanced" criteria was really nice (and unique) experience on a mobile device.