Research In Motion has introduced a new BlackBerry smartphone, the Bold 9900. The question is: Does anybody care?

The competitive landscape looks brutal. There's the iPhone, whose 26 percent of the app phone market is the result of 75 million slavering fans and a bottomless app store. Rumor has it that Apple is readying a new iPhone for release this autumn. Nobody will ask "Does anybody care?" about that one.

Then there's Google. Its Android phone operating system now has 48 percent of the market, and last week, Google bought Motorola's cell phone business -- creators of the Razr, Droid and Atrix -- for $12.5 billion.

Is RIM up to this battle?

It's not looking good. Its market share is sinking because it is giving up customers to Apple and Google. The company is laying off 11 percent of its work force. Its shares recently hit their lowest point since 2006. A series of anonymous letters posted on the technology Web site BGR report chaos and flagging morale among the workers. One product after another is delayed. In April, one of RIM's chief executives, clearly stressed out, stormed out of a BBC television interview.

That was just about the same time that RIM released its iPad clone, called the PlayBook -- filled with bugs and enormous feature holes (for example, no built-in e-mail program or calendar).

But for the sake of argument, let's pretend that the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 existed in a vacuum.

How is it?

Gorgeous, for one thing. A stainless steel rim around the sides makes a nice complement to the shiny front and red holographic- patterned back. The keys, buttons and tiny trackpad glow white, which is handy in both dim and bright lighting.

It's also the thinnest BlackBerry ever. And it's fast, thanks to a high-octane processor inside. Yet its battery can still get...

2011-08-30 01:50:34