Blackberry Curve 8330 Review
After Research in Motion’s (RIM) initial success with the Pearl moving from the corporate world to the consumer market, they moved forward with the introducing the Blackberry Curve 8330. The Curve kept the consumer features that made the Pearl so popular, including a 2.0 mega-pixel camera, trackball navigation, and smaller for factor.
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Design
Design and Size
The Curve is a bigger phone than the Peal, measuring 4.2" x 2.4" x 0.6" rather than the smaller 4.2" x 1.97" x 0.55". Both phones are the same height and almost the same thickness, however the Curve is half-inch wider. Staying true with its name, the Curve had a gently sloping curve to the backside of the phone, giving it a natural and comfortable feel while holding it.
With the new craze of “media phones,” customers have been demanding more out of their phones. To meet the demand, RIM produced the Curve with a standard 3.5mm headset jack, allowing the use of standard headphones to listen to mp3s, streaming music, or to watch movies. This does pose a bit of a problem for those that will want to use wired headsets, however the Curve is equipped with Bluetooth 2.0 and supports profiles HFP 1.5, HSP, DUN, PBA, A2DP, and OPP.
Blackberry has a reputation with designing phones with an excellent speakerphone capability and the Curve is not an exception. The speaker on the phone is impressive, providing both loud and clear quality during both phone calls and listening to music. The microphone picks up voices very well without the echo common to most speakerphones.
Screen and Buttons
The screen on the Curve is very sharp with 65k colors and QVGA resolution of 320x240 pixels. The screen is easy to see during the daytime in direct sunlight and automatically adjusts itself in darker environments to dim the screen accordingly. This feature is especially handy for those people that use their phone in the bedroom or in the car at night.
The keyboard on Curve is the familiar QWERTY layout keyboard spread over 4 rows. The buttons are raised and have a slight gap between each letter providing a tactile difference between each of the keys. The separation is enough to allow rapid texting and emailing without always having to look at the keyboard.
The Blackberry OS added some convenient features while using the keyboard, like the automatic period function. After finishing a sentence, hitting the “space” key twice will insert a period followed by a space. The Blackberry OS is littered with many other quick tricks to simplify using it, so make sure to glance through the owner’s manual.
On both sides of the phone, there are convenience keys. The key on the left side of the phone is set up for quick access to the voice activated dialing feature on the phone. While using a hands free setup, it is a great program to use with no setup time. The program scans the phonebook and phonically deciphers each of the entries. The key on the right side of the phone is launches the camera and acts as the shutter button. Both of the keys can be changed through the settings menu to many different applications.
Features
Media Features
There is a mircoSD card slot hidden underneath the battery, which is a bit disappointing. It would have been nice to see a side-loading slot like the Pearl so that we could hot swap the card without having to restart the phone. The Curve supports mircoSD cards up to 8GB.
The Curve with Blackberry OS 4.5 for Sprint, allows almost any form of media to be played on the phone. Mp3’s can be loaded onto the SD card and played through the media player. For the music junkies, the Blackberry App Store has plenty of great programs for streaming music, including Pandora and Slacker Radio.
With the new OS, the Curve allows users to access java enabled sites for streaming video, like YouTube. All of the Sprint phones also come with Sprint TV and you can watch a variety of shows in decent quality. Videos can be downloaded and viewed with friends through the use of the speakerphone.
Performance
Quality and Battery Life
Compared to an average phone, the build of the Curve is still impressive. It can take routine falls from short heights, being tossed loosely in a purse or pocket. However, in comparison to the older Blackberry “brick” phones like the 8703 and 7130 and even the 8830, the Curve is not quite as sturdy.
The call quality on the phone is above average. Compared to other smart phones, it works in more places with less dropped calls. Even during the hard handoff (directly from one tower to another without a buffer), the phone doesn’t drop calls.
Battery life is one of the most important features of just about any phone. RIM gave the curve a 1400 maH battery rating it at 3.7 hours of talk time and 216 hours, or 9 days, of standby time. From personal use, I argue that these numbers are underrated. As a heavy cell phone user (lot of email, text messages, Twitter, etc.), I get a solid day of usage and only charge my phone when I go to bed. The exception this is the usage of the navigation programs like Blackberry Maps or Sprint Navigation, which drain the battery quickly.
Overall
Of all the Sprint phones that we have demo-ed so far, the Curve has been our top choice. With the stability of the Blackberry OS and the impressive battery life, we don’t miss anything: phone calls, emails, tweets, etc. Switching to other smart phones leaves us missing what we once had with Blackberry and their convenient features and shortcuts.
After being fairly careless with the phone, routine drops and use in the rain, I have been very impressed. The only frustrating part is the trackball for navigation. It works great and smooth, until some hair or dirt gets in there. It is easy enough to clean, just a nuisance. If you’ve never used a Blackberry before, be patient with learning it.
Video Review on our YouTube Channel
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