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Rogers unveils the Bold

MATT HARTLEY

From Friday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 7:12 PM EST 25/08/08

Wireless company adds RIM's new BlackBerry to a lineup that already includes Apple's iPhone ...Read the full article

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  1. Chris Haines from Vancouver, writes: $399 with a 3 year contract? No thanks. I'll be able to buy an unlocked US version for that price in about a month and get the phone with no contract. Nice try Rogers, way to stick it to Canadians again. We'll see how much customer loyalty you have when there is more GSM wireless competition in Canada. Enjoy the fat margins while you can.
  2. E B from Canada writes: I went to try out the Bold in a Rogers store, and they did not have a single workable unit in the store. Same thing happened with the new Bell smart phone in a Bell store remind you. Who would buy these units without trying them out for this kind of money? It seems like these stores are like the old Sears Catalogue concept. I need to use these phones to access a specific website that does not work with all operating systems (and not with all Blackberries, it does not work with the iPhone), so I must try before I buy. Caveat emptor! (Buyer beware!)
  3. brad f. from Torranah, Canada writes: >Enjoy the fat margins while you can.

    Didn't you read the end bit? They constantly invest in their network, we're told. They're not making money off of us, because they're putting it into their systems. That way, we get the high speeds and huge increases in bandwidth.

    (So what that they choke your connection to "make it fair" for other uses, even though they also did it to people whose accounts were created while this was not the case, people sold under the idea of high speeds and unlimited bandwidth. Who cares that all they ever have to do is whatever Bell and Telus do, then step it up a negligible, pathetic notch?)

    Wait, what?
  4. Peter Kells from Bytown, Canada writes: "We constantly invest in the network," say the good Rogers executives. What I want to know is when they are going to invest in service in Northwestern Ontario. Once you leave Thunder Bay heading west the next Rogers coverage is Kenora. I am sure that a lot of Rogers customers drive the Trans-Canada highway from east to west (certainly I do) an vice versa only to find that they have no coverage from the Soo to Thunder Bay and from Thunder Bay to Kenora. This is a big hole in their so called national coverage.
  5. EJ L from Canada writes: Telus has the best national coverage in my opinion... to bad they're not GSM. Owning a cell phone is just expensive... live with it
  6. Koolest Cat from Canada writes: Another day another Smart Phone.

    Who Cares!!!

    The media should stop getting sucked into all this hype.
  7. Gregory Colford from Canada writes: Lineups? There were no lineups as there were no phones! A launch without a rocket!
  8. Derek Lambert from Edmonton, Canada writes: I'd like to see a phone that focuses on internet radio. Rogers told me that their $30 data package would likely have enough bandwidth to handle 24/7 internet radio. If streaming radio stations could agree on a common format, they would kill Sattelite radio and any upstart internet station could be picked up on millions of phones. That and a 5megapixal camera and I found my new phone.
  9. Sun Ra from Chelsea, Canada writes: Twice the price and half the features of the iPhone. Is this some kind of joke?
  10. Larry Gemmel from Val-des-Monts, Canada writes: Sometimes I think the marketing of technology is confused with the marketing of sports cars: Sleek, faster, more powerful???

    I have an older model traditional style blackberry and I like it a lot. But there is no such thing as a speed issue for these types of machines.
  11. R Kreis from Ottawa, Canada writes: So I checked into this today and because I'm an existing Rogers customer with over 1 year remaining on my current 3 year contract I'd have to $599 for the Bold. This is $200 more than a new customer who would pay the $399 price. There would be a $200 cancellation fee if I wanted to cancel my current contract to get the 'new' customer price. Bottom line, there isn't a Bold in my immediate future, I like them but not $700 (after fees, taxes and general Rogers gouging) worth. That is one hell of a lot of email, pins and websurfing on a BB to justify that price.
    The same thing happened with 8700, it was $499 when it first came out but I waited about a year and managed to upgrade from a 7290 for $199.
  12. Kevin Ripley from Canada writes: How many Bolds did Rogers sell on Launch Day? 30? nation wide? This must be the most embarrassing ever for Rogers. Could it be that RIM snubbed them for tying their product to a ridiculous 3 year eternity? Only time will tell.
  13. Kirk . from Ajax, Canada writes: Don't sign contracts people. Keep whatever phone you have till next summer when some of that new bandwidth competion will start showing up. Read R Kreis post from 7:48 am. Wait for the competion and we can all kick Rogers, Bell and Telus to the curb for fleecing us all these years.
  14. JLynn Stapleton from Fredericton, Canada writes: For travelling within the Atlantic provinces, if you're driving particularly in Newfoundland, the ONLY coverage Roger's has is on the Avalon Peninsula (St. John's and as far out as Clarenville). That's it. 90% of the province is not covered, even along the highway, where Bell & Telus have better service, and even then Telus beats out bell with coverage areas available.

    Too bad I have to wait it out for my Bell contract to come up.
  15. K McIntyre from Oshawa, Canada writes: Sun Ra wrote: "Twice the price and half the features of the iPhone. Is this some kind of joke?"

    The high price is supposedly because RIM expects to sell a lot of these units to corporate customers, which is probably true.

    As for half the features, what are you talking about, exactly?

    The Bold does video recording and SMS/MMS messaging, whereas the iPhone does not. What does the iPhone have that the Bold doesn't?

    You can count the touchscreen, though whether that is a feature or a drawback depends if you prefer that to a physical keyboard (I do a lot of e-mail, so I don't).

    The iPhone has more internal memory, but the Bold has an expandable memory slot, so in a short time it would be fairly easy to have a Bold with more memry than the $300 iPhone (just add a 15GB microSD card, on top of the Bold's internal memory).

    They both have 3G support, GPS, WiFi, and roughly the same processor speed (according to specs, the Bold is very slightly faster). I haven't seen a definitive word on battery life yet, but the Bold has a replaceable battery so you can carry a spare.
  16. andy c from Canada writes: Sun Ra: looks like RIM is following a more traditional release method. keep the initial price high for corperate users and early adopters, then 6 months to a year begin lowering the price gradually.
  17. Shawn Bouchard from Vancouver, Canada writes: I stopped in a Rogers outlet last night and one of the clerks told me that the release of the Bold has been delayed and they won't have stock until next week. Not that I would get one...you need a contract to get a reasonable data rate from Rogers ($30/6GB). I'm not interested if I have to get a three-year contract to make it cost effective. I'm waiting to see what's coming up with the new wireless players.
  18. Craig B from Toronto, Canada writes: I just don't understand a few things here, but this being a Rogers offering, I should feel smarter. If the Bold is the "iPhone Killer" or even a competitor, why roll it out at $399 or basically $200 more than the iPhone. At that much of a difference, I would think that only corporations and hardcore Blackberry fans are going to be early adopters and in that case, you really aren't competing with the iPhone as those people were probably going to buy a Blackberry no matter what. As far as RIM is concerned, you have to wonder why they let Rogers charge such a high price for this phone, on top of a 3 year contract. It looks bad enough on Rogers, but also looks quite bad on RIM that their phone ends up being $200 more than the competition in their home country. I suppose I look at this from my own point of view. I am finished my contract with Rogers and considering upgrading to a smart phone, half for work, but also for entertaining/surfing during my morning commute. The $200 price difference makes the decision easy for me. Of course, the kicker is signing another 3 year contract which is something I want to avoid considering there SHOULD be new telecom players in the near future. As a result, and thanks to Rogers, I may just bypass RIM, Apple and Rogers and get an HTC Diamond for $149 from Telus.
  19. Pierre Laliberte from Toronto, writes: Has anyone actually seen one of these devices in store? Me think not

    Rogers: Failure to launch
  20. A C from Albertario, Canada writes: K McIntyre writes:

    The Bold does video recording and SMS/MMS messaging, whereas the iPhone does not. What does the iPhone have that the Bold doesn't?
    The iPhone has more internal memory, but the Bold has an expandable memory slot, so in a short time it would be fairly easy to have a Bold with more memry than the $300 iPhone (just add a 15GB microSD card, on top of the Bold's internal memory).

    Actually, you can do SMS messaging to multiple recipients on the iPhone. You might want to do a little research before posting such misinformation; as well the large memory would be a feature that the iPhone actually has that the Bold actually lacks. The fact that you would need to add it makes it plain: it's not there to begin with. Moreover, what's the price of the 15GB card? You're spending another $100 (minimum) to get the same memory as an iPhone that's already $100 cheaper?
    And then there's the app store and iTunes, those would be features unique to the iPhone; there's no easy way to get content (movies and music) onto a Bold. And to compare the Bold's OS or software offerings to that of the iPhone is simply silliness. And then there's the actual screen size, accelerometer, and the larger eco-system of accessories for the iPhone and iPod products.

    The Bold doesn't come close in any of these areas.

    .
  21. K McIntyre from Oshawa, Canada writes: Your points are really stretching.

    The memory is a feature the iPhone has, and the expandable slot is a feature the Bold has. With that I can carry around multiple microSD cards loaded with music or video in my wallet, and have effectively unlimited storage. Yes you have to pay more for the memory 16GB microSD card, but you also dish out an extra $100 anyway if you choose 16GB over 8GB on the iPhone.

    The iPhone has a larger screen, but the Bold has almost twice the pixel density making it much crisper.

    Now try copying and pasting text on your iPhone. It's such basic functionality that it shouldn't really be considered a feature. It's so commonly available and commonly used that it is almost unthinkable that it be omitted from a modern computing device.

    As for software offerings, how did you go about comparing them? There are plenty of Blackberry apps out there, developers having been writing them for over 6 years, but I have no idea how many.

    The app store is in fact distinctly not a feature. I like to imagine if Microsoft said all Windows software from now on has to be purchased from Microsoft.com, with MS taking a 30% cut, and the only way to load software from other sources would involve invalidating your PC's warranty. Would everyone applaud Microsoft for delivering a wonderful feature?

    Reality distortion field indeed.
  22. K McIntyre from Oshawa, Canada writes: Among the people talking about getting one elsewhere and unlocking it, have you just tried looking at buying a Bold without contract from a store other than Rogers?

    Surely the Bolds sold without contract at Future Shop come unlocked (their being sold for $650 without the carrier subsidy, but Future Shop will often deal). In Canada of course you'll have to get a Rogers account anyway...
  23. g h from Canada writes: Good discussion going. I'm ready to upgrade to a smart phone for my business and am considering the pros and cons of the BB Bold and iPhone 3G. For work I have a Mac desktop and notebook, and have heard from an Apple dealer that Blackberry's do not communicate well with Apple products. I keep trying to find someone who has a Mac and a Blackberry to ask if that is their experience.

    As far as new players coming onstream next year after successful bids in the recent broadband auction and offering better pricing, I'm not so sure. Most of it was of course snapped up by the big players and I've heard that some of the smaller purchasers have since been unable to get the financing required to support their bids and are having to give it back so to speak. Hope that's not true. It's a tough market to make a go of it, as Fido found out before being purchased by Rogers.
  24. Don B. from Waterloo, Canada writes: Anyone who knows the wireless industry well knows the Bold trumps the iPhone in nearly every category. Thank god for K McIntyre as the voice of reason in this thread...well done sir, I salute you!

    In addition, the Bold is priced high because as a business, Rogers is actually able to price it as that and still sell out of all its units. I can verify that there is an extremely high demand for the device despite the high price tag. Do you people not understand basic business principles? Just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean it's not logical. If you could sell 400 Bolds @ $399 in the same amount of time you could sell the same amount for $299, which route would YOU take as a business. Please. When demand dies down, the price goes down, so if you're whining the price is too high for you, wait some time and it'll fall.

    I think the number one problem with the wireless industry in Canada isn't the big three, it's the number of gimme-gimme-gimme whiners out there. Cell phones and smartphones are not a NECESSITY. Food, drink and shelter are. Get over yourselves.

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