A lifestyle product for executives – that’s how Maxis is positioning the recently launched BlackBerry Bold.

And the company’s effort to provide a business phone for the prosumer (professional-consumer) market certainly feels apt with this new release.

One might be taken aback with its size, but this is countered by the matt black body with chrome bumpers and leatherette upholstery that gives it a solid yet stylish look.

The BlackBerry Bold retains the pearl trackball of its predecessor that, coupled with sharp half-video graphics array display and the full Qwerty keyboard, provides for a

user-friendly handling.

Side-mounted keys give you one-click access to key features such as camera and voice dialling, and everything is intuitive to use and simply presented.

You get six shortcut menu options at the bottom of the screen of the home screen, with one-click access to often-used features like keyboard lock, messaging, contacts, calendar, browsing and maps.

For the full menu list, just click the BlackBerry soft menu key to get all application icons.

Surfing the Internet is a whizz as the BlackBerry Bold offers high speed downlink packet access data speeds and Wi-Fi. Just like on the PC, a blue bar at the bottom of the screen indicates the loading speed of a Web page.

Other than functioning like a mouse, the trackball can be used to navigate sites in “page view” or “column view”, and to easily zoom in and out of content.

Mobile messaging, as expected of a BlackBerry, doesn’t disappoint in the BlackBerry Bold. There is push-email that’s compatible with corporate servers. This is in addition to personal e-mail, the ability to download and send attachments, instant messaging with the BlackBerry Messenger as well as SMS and MMS.

You can also download and activate applications like Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Facebook, and Windows Live Messenger.

For more consumer appeal, the BlackBerry Bold features a camera, media player, music and games.

At two megapixels, the camera is nothing to shout about. The plus is that it has a built-in automatic flash and almost no shutter-lag. However, controlling the settings prove to be quite difficult when it goes beyond zooming in and out.

The BlackBerry Bold’s video player, meanwhile, supports various versions of DivX, XiiD, H262, H264 and M4V.

Music-wise, the media player supports a variety of digital formats, including MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+. There is a 3.5 millimetres jack port, so you’ll be able to plug in your stereo headphones.

For games, there is the Brickbreaker, which is a paddle, ball and brick game that works with the trackball. There are also card games in the form of Texas Hold Em Poker and Klondike, as well as two puzzle games, Word Mole and Sudoku.

The BlackBerry Bold has an average talktime of 300 minutes and 310 hours’ standby.