AT&T BlackBerry Bold Review – Don’t Buy It!
As many of you readers know, I only post things that I can backup on this blog and to say the least, don’t buy the AT&T Blackberry Bold because I tried it last night and it’s as slow as your 3G iPhone.
It was my friend’s birthday in downtown San Francisco, (I also did test the 3G iPhone along with the Blackberry Bold) and had the chance to use his new AT&T Blackberry Bold.
Well, the benchmark was of course with my Sprint Blackberry 8830. Aside from mobile internet speed issues, the Blackberry Bold proved to be bulkier in size while the built-in camera was definitely a plus over my 8830.
In my speed tests, I pulled up Zedomax.com and couple of other sites. My Sprint Blackberry 8830 took about 15 seconds while the AT&T Blackberry Bold took over a minute! (Same thing happened with the iPhone 3G, which my friend’s girlfriend had in the same testing room.)
A lot of you consumers are mislead by over-fed advertising online, on TV, and elsewhere.
But I can explain exactly WHY AT&T’s network is simply too slow for mobile browsing:
1. AT&T is on HSDPA. HSDPA is simply the 3G version of GSM, which most of telecommunication companies in the world use. Now this HSDPA is SLOW in America. (I have however heard that it’s faster in Finland where Nokia is based from)
You can knock yourself out to learn about HSDPA on Wikipedia here.
Also read up on GSM, which is the backbone of HSDPA.
2. Sprint is on CDMA and EDVO. Basically, CDMA is used in only few countries such as South Korea, where CDMA proved to be super-fast, and is the backbone for WiMAX, the 4G technology.
I have lived in South Korea couple years ago and I have to say, cellphone technology is really about 2-3 years behind in the U.S. as far as customer usability goes. (Btw, WiMAX was developed in Korea, now being implemented slowly by Sprint.)
Well, before you can attack me with your comments, please do read up on these too:
CDMA on Wikipedia, which is basically backbone behind EDVO and WiMAX.
If you have took college classes on computer networking like me, you know why CDMA is faster, because it’s digital channels divided, perfect for mobile internet.
You do have to realize GSM was really built for voice while CDMA was built for making efficient use of digital signals.
Well, to sum it all up, real live testing is always a good measure of which mobile internet is the fastest. Even me, I do theorize a lot but it came to me yesterday, I was indeed right. (Thank you very much. 
)
3. Lastly, but not least, AT&T is basically Cingular since they bought Cingular couple years ago. I used to be on Cingular and switched to Sprint after extensive testing of all U.S. telecommunication companies. (You will probably find a lot of data on this blog by searching for it if you really want.)
In all, I just want to inform you of the features you need to look at before buying a phone. I don’t work for Sprint, I just know that my Sprint Blackberry has the fastest mobile internet speeds.
In addition, Verizon Wireless is also on CDMA, and they are probably as fast as Sprint.
In all of my previous testings in the U.S. in SF downtown (we even rented a hotel room just for that), CDMA proved to be superior to GSM as far as mobile internet speeds go.
Now, if you don’t really browse on the internet and still want to get the Blackberry Bold from AT&T, go ahead but if you need the fastest, fastest mobile internet, I highly and strongly advise you to wait until Blackberry Bold or similar model becomes available on Sprint or Verizon Wireless.
Again, I am not biased, I can see through the mass-media marketing of telecommunication companies in the U.S. If you are pretty expert on this topic, I am sure you will agree too.
Besides the fact that CDMA is superior over GSM, another thing you have to note is the number of cellphone towers that Sprint has over AT&T is enormous, also due to the fact that Sprint bought Nextel, one of the biggest (if not one and only) walkie-talkie-style networks.
I am sure AT&T’s network can be slightly faster in certain locations in highly metropolitan areas. But overall on average, AT&T never had their own network. They bought the dying Cingular and simply marketed with billions of dollars. (Which is why they are successful)
Well, that’s enough banging for today and like I told you, I know this mobile internet stuff because I use it everyday to make sure my site is running. Everytime my site goes down for more than an hour, I am losing a lot of money so even seconds are important to me on the cellphone.
I am sure I will get a lot of positive and negative comments on this post, please don’t post dumb, negative comments, only comments that can be backed up with real facts, or they will be marked “spam” immediately and permanently IP-banned from Zedomax.
Happy smart cellphone shopping! (I know I know, Steve Jobs and AT&T hates me by now. Hey, but I am stating facts here, not just spending billions of dollars into advertising and cellphone-wash the masses.)
Here’s couple links out of many million opinions floating on the internet that AT&T 3G is freakin’ SLOW!
AT&T 3G feels like a 14.4 modem from AT&T Forum
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