Engadget has the Blackberry Bold with a quaint 1990’s era WAP looking browser
Posted on 25 June 2008, at 9:23 pm, by Wayne Schulz
Engadget has a quick look at the just delayed Blackberry Bold. I’m rubbing my eyes as I review their screen shots of the Bold’s web browser. Wasn’t Blackberry slyly promising an improved web browser? Blackberry shareholders best be saying a silent prayer that this is a pre-release device because the screen shots that Engadget has of the Bold depict what appears to be an early 1990’s era WAP browser. There’s nothing wrong with WAP browsers – except that the iPhone made them childishly obsolete over a year ago. Is that flop sweat forming on the brow of the Blackberry development team? If Blackberry can’t hit their mark with a full featured html web browser you’re going to witness a gradual but steady decline in their market share. Update: Gizmodo posted a video they made of the Bold last night and Phonescoop has some good photos of the web browser in action that provide additional screenshots.
Link: Engadget
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June 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Yikes…that’s not good. Maybe they should get on the phone to Firefox mobile or Opera and start talking licensing.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Well, they’re looking at Engadget’s mobile optimized site (http://m.engadget.com), which is NOT the same as looking at http://www.engadget.com.
Let’s keep the misinformation to a minimum out there.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Hey Wayne, you should check out phonescoop. They have pictures of the HTML browser and it looks pretty good rendering the site.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Do you have a link to the Phonescoop review of the html browser?
I will add in any additional reviews of the browser — it’s just that so far I have been unable to find any.
The first review out of the gate was Crackberry and their review proclaimed the browser largely unchanged.
Then Engadget posted some pictures from what appeared to be some sort of media event — none of which seemed to spotlight the browser. Gizmodo followed a few hours later (after I’d gone to bed) with a video that also skipped over giving an in depth review of the browser (though they did give a quick shot of it displaying Gizmodo).
Crunchgear this morning has a bunch of pictures but I couldn’t make out any browser shots.
I’m very interested in posting up anything that contradicts my theory that the browser could be sub-par.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Any recently Blackberry has a reasonably good HTML browser built it. (And a WAP browswer)
But you can also download and use Opera if you prefer. (I do)
There is no reason to think they have abandonded any of this..
June 26th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Wayne, here is the article that Marko was talking about:
http://www.phonescoop.com/arti.....&p=361
Hope that helps
June 26th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Thanks – I just updated with the Phonescoop link.