Why The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is a Worthy Bold 9780 Upgrade

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is, arguably, the best handset Research In Motion has ever produced. With its high-end specs and brand-new operating system it has definite advantages over the Bold 9780, but are there enough changes to make it a worthy upgrade?

Size-wise, the BlackBerry Bold Touch holds supremacy over RIM's current-gen flagship. In fact, at 10.5mm thick, its the firm's thinnest handset to date, while coming in at almost 4mm skinnier than its older Bold sibling. This svelte form-factor is coupled with a more luxurious casing, too, made up of a brushed stainless steel frame and a high-gloss glass-weave backplate.

Under the hood of the Bold 9900, you'll find an exceptionally speedy 1.2GHz processor. This almost doubles the speed of the Bold 9780's 628MHz effort, making it better suited to multitasking and for watching high-quality videos. It also boosts the 9780's RAM count of just 515MB to a far more capable 768MB.

Watching videos will be further aided by the handset's screen. While its predecessor touts a 2.44-inch (360 x 480) effort, the Bold 9900 sports a larger 2.8-inch (480 x 640) VGA display. The 9900 ups the ante with the inclusion of a touchscreen complete with multi-touch capability, too, making it the first BlackBerry Bold to sport a capacitive screen.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 will also be the first of RIM's handsets to features the company's new OS 7, putting it yards ahead of the 9780 which won't be upgraded to the new platform. As well as support for the all-new touchscreen, the upgraded OS delivers; a revamped interface, an enhanced BlackBerry Browser with HTML5 support, voice-activated search, and BlackBerry Balance - which separates work and personal content. It also comes with support for NFC technology - which means the handset may one day be able to make mobile payments.

Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of RIM, seems equally impressed with the operating system, saying: "The new BlackBerry Bold smartphones and BlackBerry 7 OS are inspired by millions of customers around the world who want the ultimate combination of performance, functionality and style," said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO of Research In Motion."

On paper, both the Bold 9780 and Bold 9900 sound quite similar media-wise. However, although they both sport 5 megapixel cameras, the Bold 9900 is the first BlackBerry handset to support 720p HD video. This may not be up to the full HD 1080p standards that some new smartphones have, but it's a marked improvement on its ageing sibling - that's sure to tempt most BlackBerry users. This bumped-up video is complimented with more onboard memory, upping the Bold 9780's measly 256MB of onboard storage to a much-more reasonable 8GB.

As you can see, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 has a lot of big changes on offer, including a bump in processor, RAM, storage, form factor, high-resolution display, camera, NFC, and BlackBerry 7 OS. Although it's unlikely to tempt Android and iOS fanatics, it boasts the specs to to tempt the BlackBerry faitful - and to make it a worthy upgrade from the Bold 9780.