Team Mossberg at the WSJ (Katherine Boehret) pees on RIM's BlackBerry Bold, which quietly went on sale yesterday. The bottom line: big, heavy, and expensive:
I've been using the Bold for the past couple of weeks, both in New York City and in Washington, D.C., and had almost no trouble doing email and Web browsing with its 3G network connection and Wi-Fi capability. I admit that I didn't use it much as a phone, mostly because its bulky size made it awkward to hold to my ear while chatting...
But the Bold reminded me of my grandparents' new Buick: handsomely polished and luxuriously comfortable, with plenty of extra bells and whistles. As much as I like the plush feel of this ride, it can feel as big as a boat when I need to park or navigate narrow city streets. Likewise, the Bold's large size affords mobile extravagances like a keyboard I could use without looking down and a leatherette-covered back panel. But when tossed in a bag or even held in my hand, the BlackBerry Bold simply feels too heavy and too big.
Furthermore, this device's $300 price is steep considering it comes with only one gigabyte of memory, and a memory-card slot for expanding that should you choose to do so. By comparison, Apple's smallest $199 iPhone comes with eight gigabytes of memory.
Etc. Perhaps the biggest diss is that Katherine reviewed it instead of Walt. Can you imagine Walt not reviewing a shiny new Mac or iPhone?
See Also: BlackBerry Bold Goes On Sale, Everyone Yawns
