BlackBerry Bold 9900
The BlackBerry Bold 9900 series is the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone yet (at only 10.5mm) and the first to offer the perfect union of a high performance keyboard and touch display integrated within the iconic BlackBerry Bold design. The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 is the first BlackBerry smartphone to include built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communications). The phone features a range of powerful hardware enhancements including a 1.2 GHz processor, HD video recording, 24-bit high resolution graphics, and advanced sensors enabling new augmented reality applications. It also sports an Optical Trackpad, Capacitive Touchscreen interface, 5 MP camera, speakerphone, Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, GPS, external microSDHC, a 3.5 mm stereo audio jack. The device runs on the BlackBerry 7 OS, which introduces a next generation BlackBerry browser with "a significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience that is among the best in the industry." -- REASONS WHY IT WILL BE SWEPT AWAY BY iPHONE5: BlackBerry 7 doesn't have as much as apps than those available for iPhone and Android phones. As to NCF payments, which stores have NCF terminals anyway? Studies indicate that while the rich continue to use BlackBerry devices, the user base is shrinking. Many BlackBerry users are planning to switch on an iPhone 5. BlackBerry.com

T-Mobile's 4G-enabled BlackBerry Bold 9900, which is powered by Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS 7, is set to hit shelves on Aug. 31 with pre-orders already started for business customers.

Despite struggling in the smartphone market that is largely dominated by Apple Inc.'s iPhone and other Android phones, RIM came out with Blackberry OS 7 devices. BlackBerry Bold 9930 heads to Verizon, BlackBerry Torch 9810 to AT&T, BlackBerry Torch 9850 to Sprint and now Blackberry Bold 9900 to T-Mobile.

The Bold 9900, which is the thinnest of all its BlackBerry siblings, will be facing HTC myTouch 4G Slide in the smartphone battle, that too under the same carrier.

The Bold 9900 runs on BlackBerry OS 7, which is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon high speed processor. It comes along with a QWERTY keyboard with Touch-sensitive controls and optical trackpad. Blackberry Bold 9900 is equipped with a 720p HD video recording, a 5-megapixel camera, 8GB of internal memory, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS.

On the other hand, HTC myTouch 4G Slide runs on Android 2.3 or Gingerbread, which is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It is equipped with a 1080p video capture, an 8MP camera with dual-LED flash, 4GB of internal memory, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS.

T-Mobile’s Blackberry Bold 9900 will be available for $299.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $50 mail-in-rebate. But myTouch 4G Slide is available at $199.99 with a two-year contract.

Here's a look at how the HTC myTouch 4G Slide and BlackBerry Bold 9900 fare against each other.

Size: HTC myTouch 4G Slide has a dimension of 4.8 x 2.6 x 0.54 inches and weighs 6.5 ounces while BlackBerry Bold 9900 features 4.53 x 2.6 x 0.41 inches and weighs 4.59 ounces. myTouch 4G Slide is 0.52-inch thick while Bold 9900 is 0.41-inch thick, which is the thinnest of all its Blackberry siblings.

Display: BlackBerry smartphone sports a 2.8-inch 640 x 480 pixels TFT capacitive touchscreen, while myTouch 4G slide comes with 3.7-inch 800 x 480 pixels WVGA super LCD touchscreen.

Input features: The common input features found in both the smartphones are QWERTY keyboard, proximity sensor for auto turn-off and accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate. BlackBerry smartphone comes with extra input features like touch-sensitive controls and optical trackpad but myTouch 4G Slide offers a Genius Button for one shot voice commands to enable calls and to text or search the Web.

Memory: In terms of memory, both the smartphones pack 8 GB internal storage and 768 MB RAM. Both these smartphones have microSD support of up to 32 GB.

3G: When it comes to 3G data, HTC myTouch 4G Slide has HSDPA up to 21.1 Mbps and HSUPA up to 5.76 Mbps support whereas BlackBerry Bold will have up to 14.4 Mbps HSDPA.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: HTC’s smartphone features Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth version 3.0 with A2DP and Mini USB version 2.0. And BlackBerry Bold 9900 comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, dual-band, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth version 2.1 with A2DP, EDR and microUSB version 2.0.

Camera: myTouch 4G Slide has 8-megapixel 3264 x 2448 pixels camera with autofocus, dual-LED flash, geo-tagging and face detection, but RIM's smartphone has 5-megapixel 2592 x 1944 pixels camera with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, face detection and image stabilization feature. There is no secondary camera in BlackBerry smartphone while HTC phone has a VGA front-facing camera for video chat. BlackBerry Bold 9900 can capture video at 720p but myTouch 4G Slide can capture video at 1080p.

Operating system: HTC myTouch 4G Slide will have the latest Android operating system version 2.3 (Gingerbread) and BlackBerry Bold 9900 comes with BlackBerry OS 7.0, which includes HTML5. HTC myTouch 4G Slide uses its customized HTC Sense 3.0 user interface, while Bold uses BlackBerry OS 7 UI.

Processor: Both the smartphones have 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, but HTC phone has dual-core compared to BlackBerry's single-core.

Battery: There is a Li-Ion 1520 mAh battery found in HTC myTouch 4G Slide compared to Li-Ion 1230 mAh found in BlackBerry Bold 9900. The HTC smartphone will offer up to 7 hours of talk time whereas BlackBerry’s is yet to be tested.

Other features: The common features found in both the smartphones include SMS threaded view, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM, HTML browser, A-GPS support, Java MIDP emulator, digital compass, organizer, voice memo, predictive text input, and T-Mobile TV.

Few of features native to Blackberry Bold 9900 include BlackBerry Maps along with NFC support, digital compass, document editor, MP4/WMV/H.263/H.264 player and MP3/eAAC+/WMA player. And HTC myTouch 4G Slide will have Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk, Picasa integration, document viewer, MP3/eAAC+/WAV/WMA player and MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 player.

Pricing: Blackberry Bold 9900 will be available for $299.99 with T-Mobile's two-year service agreement and after a $50 mail-in-rebate. But myTouch 4G Slide is available at T-Mobile for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

Conclusion: It is yet to be seen whether BlackBerry Bold 9900 is great success for RIM, but HTC myTouch 4G Slide had faired well in the market. The key feature of myTouch 4G Slide is its 8MP dual-LED flash camera with excellent low-light performance. It also offers clear shots in bright settings by eliminating high-contrast lighting. It adds other features like Zero shutter lag which optimizes software to allow instantaneous shot at that precise moment, SweepShot for capturing ultra wide panoramic shots by sweeping across an entire scene in a single click and burst shot for capturing multiple pictures in one shot.

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