One of the major complaints about BlackBerry smartphones as a consumer device is the lack of an intuitive web browser. Bolt Browser seeks to fix that problem. When it comes down to it, the Bolt browser is much quicker than the native counterpart. It also seems to render full web pages a little more clearly than the native browser. It feels a little more like using a computer’s browser for those who have never used a third-party web browser on their BlackBerry.

The down side to the Bolt browser is its lack of an intuitive zoom in/out function. It offers a magnification (split screen) function, with the option to choose a preset magnification, but it also takes up part of the screen. The drawback to this magnification feature as opposed to a zoom in or out function is that the BlackBerry screen is already small and this feature takes up about 1/3 of the screen. The regular view takes up 2/3 of the screen solely for navigation purposes, and the magnified area is even 1/3 of the screen for reading. This makes for tons of scrolling. While it is a nice idea, maybe the option to combine the two would be even better, zoom with magnification.

A feature that the Bolt browser does carry that is different from many other browsers is the option to add RSS feeds. The problem with this is the feeds are not the easiest things to set up in Bolt. Supposedly you are simply suppose to subscribe to a feed straight from the page, but it never seemed to work that easily for me. You can also add favorite pages to your Bolt homescreen. On this homescreen you can also create folders to organize all of your favorite pages.

With Bolt, you can stream videos straight from the browser, which is a feature a lot of users are seeking. It sort of brings the desktop feel to your handset, but it is still a bit cumbersome to use and watch a video through a mobile browser.

Like the native browser, Bolt also utilizes the full QWERTY keyboard found on most BlackBerry devices. For those with QWERTY keyboards there are quite a few hotkey functions, enabling the user to navigate even faster and not wear out their thumb on the trackball/trackpad. While the Bolt browser brings a few good ideas to the table with their browser, and offers the keyboard hotkey functions, it still does not beat out the native browser in my opinion. It is very slick and operates very smoothly, but it simply lacks some of the features that the native browser has, and I seem to use them very often. It is also a bit of a trick to figure out everything from the Bolt browser. Setting up favorites is a breeze, and organizing them as well is no hard task, but setting up your feeds and figuring out/remembering all of the hotkeys is not something I want to have to do. Overall, it is a great substitute if you are tired of your old browser, and may be an application that I keep to use to browse some bigger sites, but all-in-all, it is not going to take the place of my native browser.  894060