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Is the BlackBerry Bold Too Expensive?
October 22nd, 2008 by Todd Haselton 
This just in: the long-delayed BlackBerry Bold will be available in the United States on Tuesday, Nov. 4 for $299.99 (with a two-year contract). RIM’s BlackBerry Bold was announced months ago in the sweltering summer heat and after months of delay it arrives in sweater weather, but with a price point that is just hard to swallow in these tough times.
Why is the Bold $299.99? Here are our thoughts.
The BlackBerry Bold has a 624MHz processor under the hood, which will no doubt help its UI run like butter and help videos play back at a decent clip. But the iPhone has a 620MHz ARM processor, too, and it costs $100 less. Plus Cupertino’s golden goose comes with 8GB of storage where the BlackBerry Bold comes with 1GB of on board storage and a microSD slot only–which, admittedly allows you to add up to 16GB of storage, or more as microSDHC cards catch up–but it doesn’t have all of the features the iPhone has. The UI is good, yes, but it’s not as good. The browser is good, but it’s not as good as the iPhone’s Safari browser.
So are BlackBerry fans and new adopters paying a premium for that idea exactly: that RIM knows people enjoy its products and so expects us to shell out the extra dough? Is it charging a premium for its stellar full QWERTY keypad to those that aren’t fans of the iPhone’s touchscreen one? Or is it the full GPS support and already-available GPS applications that provide turn-by-turn directions? Or its ability to run applications in the background?
Sure, you can send off multimedia texts and record video, two features not found in the iPhone, but you’re still limited to a subpar camera. Yes, you can copy and paste text anywhere.
But are all of these features worth that $100 premium?
And then there is that big elephant in the room: the Verizon BlackBerry Storm ($379.00). Which we don’t know what it will retail for but is said to be “competitive” with both the T-Mobile G1 and iPhone. Does that mean the Storm could also be priced lower than the Bold?
You tell us, is the Bold worth it now? Will you shell out $299.99 for the smart phone in November?
Our Related Content
- BlackBerry Bold 9700: Full Review
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From Other Sites
- How Valuable Are Smartphone Battery Life Figures? (Notebooks.com)
- BlackBerry Bold: My Business Workhorse (Notebooks.com)
- BlueBerry, about as blatant a rip-off as you'll ever find (SlashGear)
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5 Responses to “Is the BlackBerry Bold Too Expensive?”
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October 22nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
The difference between the blackberry and Iphone is that the price may start out at $299.99 but it will discounted heavily as they release other versions and will be eligible for business/student discounts bringing the price further down.
The device is not a consumer device, it’s meant for business users that clearly don’t mind paying $299 for a device that simply works for their business needs. The consumer version of the Bold will be a Curve equivalent that I’m sure you’ll be able to get for $99-$149 after it is released like the Curve is today.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Of course it is, but as DBX00 notes above, its geared to the business user – who routinely have more money than brains and/or get their company to buy it for them. And, if the current economic situation has shown us anything, corporations are quite capable of making a lot of bad financial decisions…
Then again, the same might be said for the iPhone and its consumer users – and in both cases (and after whatever discounting of the device might be applicable via the wireless provider), there is always the not inconsiderable cost of keeping these things connected over the course of a contract and the the additional frou-frou (see iPhone’s App Store and RIM’s own intentions that way) one is encouraged to buy to make the device useful/fun.
The initial outlay is only the tip of the iceberg…
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
It’s sad to say that I am actually over the Bold before it even comes out. It has been delayed for so long that it really took away the excitement and turned it into annoyance. It have me the time to explore “other options”. $300 is obnoxious as well. Bberry killed the Bold’s mystiques by not releasing it on time OR they shoudl have not talked about it until it was ready. Over it, as many people are.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:03 am
If you care about the things that BB does excellently, like push email that enables you to stay in touch with your business from anywhere just like you were in your office, then it’s worth it. I don’t think that anybody does that as well as BB. This is their distinct advantage.
How many people really want or need that is another issue.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:19 am
I’m getting the storm for only 100 dollars. While this may not be about the bold, is the storm even worth 100 dollars?