blackberry curve 8900

DESIGN

The Blackberry Curve is the upgrade to the Curve 8300. The upgrades come in the form of a redesigned keyboard as well as a streamlined body, not to mention the thing is packing Blackberry OS 5 which is a mark improvement over the former version (OS 4.3).

That said I was pretty impressed with the design of the phone. I have been a previous Curve owner (until I fell for the Palm Pre) and while it did lack in some areas, it was a beautiful device nonetheless.

In terms of specifications the Curve 8900 packs a lot of nice features into a beautiful package. Starting off the features is a beautiful 2.44 inch (diagonal) 480×360 pixel Transmissive TFT LCD screen that supports over 65k colors. While not as bright as the Blackberry Bold, it still is a nice screen. Other features include a 3.2 megapixel camera that supports JPEG encoding with auto focus and image stabilization. It also has a flash and 2X digital zoom. He camera can also shoot video in normal mode at 240180 pixels and MMS mode which drops it down to 176×144.

Wireless features include 802.11b/g WiFi and can support WPA as well as WPA2 encryption both personal and enterprise. There is also Bluetooth x2.o + EDR which allows not only a Bluetooth headset but also handsfree serial port profile, stereo audio and dial up networking.

The media player is not too shabby either. It supports a variety of sound and video formats including the AAC/AAC+/Eaac+, WMA (both standard and pro), MIDI, WAV, and of course your common MP3 and 3gp files. On the video end there is support for MPEG4, XciD, DivX, h.263 AND wmv3.Ringtones can be used from any of the variety of audio codec’s listed so there will be no need to download premium ringtones from rip off sites.

The phones dimensions are 4.29 inches long by 2.36 inches wide and .053 inches thick. Weight is only 3.87 ounces with the battery in and while I are on the battery issue, the phone comes with a 1400 mAHr removable battery that is rated at 5.5 hours of talk time and 356 hours of standby time.

PERFORMACE

In terms of performance the device performs great. Call quality is nice and so is the speakerphone although it is not as good as that found on the Bold. The camera is comparable but still lacks in quality when compared with that of other Blackberry phones. Video quality is also nice but yet again I can’t help but thing the Bold has a much more vibrant screen (in fact the most vibrant screen I have ever tested on a device).

My one major complaint in terms of this device (and it’s a big one), is the exclusion of 3G support. In a day and age I think its quite dumb for companies like Blackberry to release devices that do not take advantage of the speedier networks I have around. That said I found page load times to be quit excruciating. The average load time for a site like NY Times, CNET, Engadget etc was between 45 seconds to a minute. That is quite a contrast when you take into consideration the Bold loads site like these on average within 15-20 seconds. That said WiFi is a nice change as it will give some improvements over the EDGE network supported by the phones chip.

The OS is a mark improvement over the previous version. The menus look livelier and the Browser has been updated and now supports better navigation such as curser etc. More importantly the media player has been revamped, and while it will not afford all the luxuries of a dedicated media player or PMP, it is still nice. Music quality is excellent and bass is pretty good.

If you have a Blackberry with O.S 4.3 or earlier it would be a nice idea to upgrade if not only for the upgraded OS.

CONCLUSION

So in conclusion I think this is a nice phone. Unfortunately I cannot help but notice that there are certain flaws that make it a little less exciting. In any case your requirements will depend on the purpose of your phone. If you want something just for email and media then this is the phone. On the other hand if you surf the web VIA mobile you might want to look else ware. I suggest the comparable Blackberry Bold.

You Should Also Check Out This Post:

More Active Posts: