BlackBerry Curve 8300

The smallest, lightest BlackBerry smartphone…..

“The BlackBerry Curve offers a unique blend of communications, multimedia and web features to provide people with an exceptional mobile companion for both work and leisure,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at RIM. “The BlackBerry Curve delivers RIM’s industry leading email and messaging capabilities in a highly approachable smartphone design that is packed with consumer-friendly features including a 2 megapixel camera, enhanced media player and high-performance browser.”

The 2.5-inch, 320 x 240-pixel display did a superb job rendering everything from Web pages and maps to photos and videos. The rest of the design is pretty straightforward. A standard 3.5mm stereo jack, a USB port, and a push-to-talk key line the left side of the Curve, and the volume buttons and camera-launch key are on the right side. The top of the device houses the Mute button. We wish the microSD Card slot weren't located beneath the battery, but chances are you won't be removing your card very often; the Curve's mass-storage mode enables easy drag-and-drop file transfers.

It supports up to 2GB cards that are available today and will automatically support 4GB cards that are expected to become available later this year.

The BlackBerry Curve features a high-performance browser that can download and display HTML web pages quickly and efficiently. Users can bookmark their favorite sites and set up RSS feeds to stay connected to the timely news and information that matters most during their day. The highly responsive browser, large and vivid screen and super-easy trackball navigation provides an exceptional mobile experience.

The BlackBerry Curve offers many convenient phone features including Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), Bluetooth® 2.0 support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits and Bluetooth peripherals, quad-band operation for global roaming, dedicated ’send’, ‘end’, and ‘mute’ keys, smart dialling, speed dialling, conference calling, call forwarding, noise cancellation technology to offset background noise, a low-distortion speakerphone for hands-free conversations and support for polyphonic, mp3 and MIDI ring tones.
More important, RIM managed to squeeze in a full-sized backlit keyboard, one that makes the Curve noticeably wider than but also much more reliable than the Pearl, whose not-so-SureType keyboard doesn't always accurately guess the word you're trying to peck. In just a few minutes we were typing e-mails and entering Web addresses at a brisk pace, thanks to the Curve's well-spaced layout. Just like the Pearl and the 8800, the Curve has a trackball for simple (if sometimes erratic) menu navigation.

Though it doesn't bring Wi-Fi or 3G support, the BlackBerry Curve offers a best-of-breed design and a well-rounded set of features to make it an attractive device for consumers and mobile professionals alike.

Bandwidth:                                       Quad band
SAR rating:                                       TBCW/kg
Weight/Dimensions:                       107 x 60 x 15.5/111g
Screen:                                          65k-colour 240*320-pixel TFT touchscreen
Standby/Talktime:                          1000h/3.5-4h
OS:                                                     Blackberry application
Connectivity:                                    Bluetooth/USB
Data:                                                   GPRS, EDGE
Messaging:                                       SMS, MMS, Email, IM
Phonebook capacity:                      1,000s + Sim
Internal/External memory:            64MB
Ringtones:                                        Polyphonic and MP3 ringtones
Voice control/dialling:                    Yes/Yes
Games:                                               1 game, brickbreaker
Handsfree speakerphone:             Yes
                                                           

Positive:

• The RIM BlackBerry Curve boasts a sexy and slim design with an improved full QWERTY keyboard.

• The smart phone also has a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and a media player.

• There's a new spell-checker for e-mail and memos, and audio technology that automatically adjusts call volume in noisy environments.

• Superb battery life

Negative:

• BlackBerry Curve doesn't have integrated Wi-Fi or 3G support.

• The device's camera still doesn't have video-recording capabilities

• Call quality sounded a bit hollow.