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Let's get this fact out the way early on – battery life on the Bold 2 9700 is fantastic compared to others in the range. It can easily last a whole day with normal use, and sometimes you'll even extend it into the next if you shut down Wi-Fi and push email when not needed.
It's something of a coup for RIM that it's managed to optimise its BlackBerry software to work so efficiently – now users don't have to consider having to carry a charger around with them 'just in case'.
Of course, that cause is ably helped by an industry leading 1500mAh battery powering things along, but we're sure that most BlackBerry users will agree you can't put a price on being able to message and text and IM and watch videos all day long without worrying when the battery's going to blow (well, run out of power... not actually blow up).
At least users won't have to worry about applications draining their battery, after the odd T-Mobile plan not letting the BlackBerry App Store download properly.
We're still looking into why this might be, as it would be very odd if the flagship BlackBerry handset wouldn't allow you to use one of the key features.
However there are some key features on there already, such as the range of commuter games to keep the businessperson with a crazy fun side amused.
We're massive fans of the Texas Hold 'em King 2 poker game, and there's not a person on the planet that won't end up addicted to BrickBreaker at some point in their lives. We're also pleased to note that the latter works well with the trackpad rather than the ball, which is a real relief for those BrickBreaker BlackBerry fans.
The Word, Excel and Powerpoint viewers are also present and correct on the phone, and do exactly what they say on the tin.
And of course, we'd be very much remiss to not include the whole phone search function. This can check through practically anything, from messages to tasks to contacts and makes it very easy to spot when you need to work out somebody's significance in a project or something.
And of course, where would we be without Maps? The BlackBerry Maps software is back again, and it's still no better – the blocky graphics and cartoonish place labellings are as irritating (if functional) as ever, and the GPS system was so-so on the Bold 2 9700.
However w do like features like the layers option on the map, allowing you to make notes where important things are... like your house and where you work – places you would struggle to find in general life then.
