The BOLD and the Beautiful – The BlackBerry Bold 9900 lands in Nigeria

Here in Nigeria, we love good things (come on, who doesn’t?), and as technology keeps advancing, we Naija Bobos and Chikitos can’t slack. We all know a good thing when we see it and just by the rate at which “Can I get your number?” changed to “So what’s your pin?” you can tell BlackBerrys are in the good column. 


 Just like that, the day to up our BB game has come. Ok…so maybe it came a few days ago but as of now it’s fair to say the BlackBerry fun times are here again. A while back, I talked about the launch of the new BB OS7 devices; about how great they looked and the huge leap in performance delivery. Not too much time passed after that before the folks at RIM kept their word and invited a select few to come say “hi” to the RIM team leading the move to Nigeria. (If you didn’t know their BlackBerry headquarters in West Africa is going to be in Lagos.


With that meeting in mind, it’s fair to say that the BB addicts in Nigeria have made a great impression on RIM, so that’s why they made sure we users (CrackBerry heads, I call’em) have great subscription options for our BIS, from the various networks. Yes, that’s a step in the right direction, but the reason I sound so excited is that, as I said earlier, the day is here! And the day I speak of, is the day we can stroll to our favorite mobile phone retailer, right here in Nigeria and pick up our very own, brand spanking new BlackBerry Bold 9900/9300.

Bold devices are hitting shelves all over Nigeria as you read. The Bold 9900/9930 fits snugly in your palm at a measly 10.5 mm thick and approximately 130g, with a 2.8-inch touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard (This revert to the original style Bold may not favour everyone, as I saw a lady complaining it was way too bulky, however too each their own I say.)

So there I was just sitting at home when a friend ask me Have you gotten yours yet?” of course I ask “My what?” to which we proceeded to Computer Village after some talk, then next thing you know (cue background music), there it was. All boxed up and looking gorgeous. Having gotten a real close look at the device right there in “hustle central” I could see it’s similarities to BlackBerry OS6, but thanks to a faster processor it all feels so good.

I remembered wondering what all the fuss was about regarding “liquid graphics” but swishing from app to app, picture to video and so on, it’s easy to see where the name came from, it’s just so fluid. The user interface is sleek and smooth and with the slew of new icons all over the OS the positive difference, was welcomed. Oh, and the added ability to rearrange and customize the homescreen views is also pretty neat.

All this and we haven’t even mentioned the great new features (NFC, Magnetometer, Accelerometer, etc) and tons of ways to use them. (Just hearing about the “Augmented Reality” applications has me thinking “yikes! What could possibly be next?”) After I fiddled with it and found out it costs between N100,000 – N130,000 (depending on who you know and your verbal acrobatic skills), I went home longing for it. Fair enough it is a tasty device, however the price is bound to make you take a step back. 

It’s not like we are in the UK or elsewhere that our mobile networks offer contracts and the phones come practically free, in most cases over here you just have to shell out the big bucks one time. Which can’t be fun no matter the size of your cash stack. So to soothe my ailing wallet, I decided to let Google soothe me, and the research led me to some awesome developments and my BlackBerry connects where hit up for more details

Follow @todaysgist