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Messaging
As a keyboard-toting handset, the Bold 9930 is well equipped right out of the gate for ample messaging. The phone handles regular SMS text messages with ease, for conversations with owners of other devices, but expectedly BlackBerry Messenger is the route to go when chatting with fellow BlackBerry users.
The service allows BlackBerry owners to swap instant messages, with delivered and read notifications, plus you can share photos and files, conduct voice calls over Wi-Fi, and share information from other apps and social networking services. It's a direct lifeline to friends and associates who share your OS preference.
BlackBerry's inbox delivers a mix of new emails and Facebook and Twitter notifications, which can either make it a useful epicenter of activity or just a bit cluttered, depending on your needs. Scrolling through emails via the touchpad is a nice ability, though, and helps you breeze down the lists with ease.
Reading the actual emails can be a cramped experience, though, due to the size of the screen and the fact that it sometimes displays the contents zoomed in too far. Additionally, having to pull up a menu each time to display images is disappointing. It's a serviceable client, overall, though one limited by the hardware.
Internet
As with email, browsing the web suffers on the Bold 9930 due in large part to the display size. Mobile versions of sites typically only show a fraction of the page, while the full versions – despite the visual clarity – are displayed too zoomed-out to comfortably navigate.
The touchpad serves as an optional mouse pointer during browsing, though, which is a helpful boost for more precise (though slower) movement, and the built-in browser does allow for multiple tabs. It's just not a very smooth or comfortable browsing experience in general.
