BlackBerry Bold 9700 Charging Pod review

Desktop stands aren’t the most exciting thing in the world, but they are extremely useful accessories to have.

For starters, they’re a lot nicer looking than a conventional charger and they keep your mobile, in most cases, anyway, in an up right and easily viewable position.

In short, we like charging pod stands more than chargers. But how does BlackBerry’s Charging Pod stack up against the rest?

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 Charging Pod is a very simple set up - you simply take it out of the box, attach it to a power source – either your PC or a plug socket – and you’re away. However, this is the case with the majority of charging pods, so no prizes here. 

That said, the BlackBerry Charging Pod is a lot better looking than your average charging pod – it’s sleek, well designed and pleasant on the eye.

It’s also very small, meaning it takes up very little room on your desk at work, which is good news for the more cluttered amongst us.

A lot of charging pods we’ve tested require the user to physically attach the phone to it either by placing it on a tiny USB-prong or fiddling around with the device so that it attaches to the stand’s power point, which is extremely annoying, and something that is all too common on the majority of charging stands.

Fortunately, this isn’t the case with the BlackBerry Charging Pod – you simply pop your BlackBerry in and you’re away.

The reason for this is that instead of using a connector that physically goes inside the phone, the Charging Pod uses the two metal points instead.

So as soon as you place the device in the stand its corresponding points meet up with the cradles and it begins charging. It also makes it very easy to remove the device as there’s nothing holding it in the stand – needless to say, we really liked this aspect of the Charging Pod.

Another nice feature of the Charging Pod and, BlackBerry devices in general, is that once you pop it inside the cradle it automatically displays an illuminated clock. Again, this isn’t a massive feature, but it’s one that means you always have a well illuminated clock whenever your device is on charge

However, the thing that really makes the Charging Pod stand out is that it allows you to use it as a speaker phone when your device is on charge.

So, when you’re charging your BlackBerry and a friend calls, you can leave it in the stand and take the call on speakerphone, again, a very nice touch.

In short, we really liked this charger. It does everything you’d want and a little bit more, and for this reason, we wouldn’t put our BlackBerry in anything else.