AT&T BlackBerry Bold First Impression

Ok, so I had to do it.  I went out and picked myself up an AT&T Bold (even though I’m still with T-Mobile).  Ok, so we have all seen the reviews of the Bold blah blah, but this is a fairly new 3G network that AT&T has plus some cool stuff that only AT&T has.  Instead of re-reviewing a phone that has been out for months, I am simply going to give my impressions on this version and point out some cool features we were expecting.

First things first, the keyboard is different.  They swapped out the red digits on the number pad for white numbers.  I totally forgot that this was happening and right when I picked it up, I remembered and instantly noticed.  It is different and still looks good, however I still feel that the red and the black was beautiful.

Next the 3G seems to be in order, running pretty quickly.  I have had no issues with the browser yet which is a good sign.  AT&T’s 3G doesn’t seem to be lagging due to the iPhone eating up all the bandwidth, but we’ll see when I get an AT&T iPhone and AT&T Bold side by side.

Ok now on to the fun stuff.  The long awaited Cellular Video is here, remember, the thing we posted about long ago when we thought the Bold was gonna drop on Oct 20th. on the BlackBerry Bold!  So far scrolling through the menus is basic, and loading videos is quick.  The video quality is not that great for the shows, but it is good enough for streaming full episodes of NBC’s hit show 30 Rock.  The sound is terrific with the video which is one of my favorite things about the Bold (the speakers).  This is a great free service that will be included in all qualifying BlackBerry data plans.  Although not all channels are free, such as HBO which will charge $4.99 per month, there are plenty of things to watch for free (i.e. election coverage [cough cough I hope you voted!]).

Some criticism on this device is that unlike my previous prerelease BlackBerry Bold this one you cannot turn 3G off, or I am an idiot and am missing something.  My last criticism is that the demo video they give you is not the cool BMW M3 video that was on my prerelease .

That’s all I have to say about that.