Blackberry Bold Looking to Take the Smartphone Genre; but Can it Beat the iPhone?

Since the iPhone dropped sometime ago, little has hit the market that truly contends with the wonder that is Apple's cell phone creation. But Blackberry, the maker of all things smart, is gearing up to release a contender, and it looks like it could take the big title. The Blackberry Bold will be released this summer and first looks and hands-on reviews have it seated right next to the iPhone ready to take the title of "best smartphone ever!". Before we pick a winner lets see how the phones stack up against each other.

Specifications & Features

The iPhone stands super sleek with the following dimensions; 115 x 61 x 11.6 mm and weighs in at 135g according to GSMarena. The Blackberry is a bit lighter at 133g but the difference is neglible. It is a touch thicker and a bit wider than the iPhone though with the following dimensions; Length: 114mm, Width: 66mm, Thickness: 14mm.

Both the iPhone and the Bold offer up most of the same exact features. They both offer up bluetooth, mp3 playback, headphone jacks, wi-fi access, e-mail and texting. According to Crackberry the Bold's display will be a HVGA, 480 x 320 pixels, Transmissive TFT LCD screen that supports over 65k colors The iPhone offers up something similar but the Bold's screen is apparently far better. Blackberry is fairly well known for their screen quality so that comes as no surprise. The build quality is supposedly good on both, although the iPhone appears slightly sleeker.

Usability

Apple's first parlay into the cell phone arena was a good one, without a doubt, but initial bugs had some consumers crying foul. Honestly what can you expect from a first time phone manufacturer, but with the bugs ironed out the iPhone is certainly functional. It's biggest claim to fame is the touchscreen. While it's a nice touch I don't find it particularly practical so I was excited to see that blackberry stuck with their old fashion full-sized QWERTY keyboard for their new Bold. My concept on this is "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and personally I think Blackberry has one of the nicest keyboards around (this coming from a sidekick convert says a lot).