With all the recent hype about Apple's new iPhone, we thought it would be a good idea to take a look at a phone that makes a decent or perhaps even better competitor to the iPhone. So with that in mind, we decided to to review the new Blackberry 8300 (aka Curve) from RIM. Owners of the just released Blackberry 8800 have got to be steaming right now because just a few months after that phone's release, this new and very sleek phone comes out. The new 8300 sports a very stylish design and a QWERTY keyboard that is the most compact yet on any Blackberry.
The thing that we most liked about the Blackberry 8300 was the new design that makes it very small and compact in your hand. In fact, it doesn't even feel like a PDA, but rather like an ordinary cell phone, but with a QWERTY keyboard for sending e-mails and text messages. It measures the smallest of the Blackberry phones with a full-layout keyboard at about 4.2 x 2.5 x 0.6-inches and weights about 4 ounces. The slim profile makes it very comfortable to hold and carry around with you and definitely slips easily into your pocket. The 2.5-inch LCD screen is beautiful as well. The 65,000-color screen with a 320x240 pixel resolution includes an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the screen backlighting to whatever your lighting conditions are. The same sensor also adjusts the backlighting of the keyboard as well.
The controls on the front of the Blackberry 8300 are very intuitive and get the job done nicely. The keys are spaced very comfortably and can be pressed without fear of pressing another key by mistake. On the left-side, there is a mini-USB port and on the top, there is a standard 3.5mm headset jack so you can use your MP3 player headphones. On the back of the 8300 is the 2-megapixel camera lens, flash, and self-portrait mirror. Located inconveniently inside the device under the battery is the microSD card slot for memory expansion.
The Blackberry Curve (8300) is a quad-band world phone and offers a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dial, and support AT&T push-to-talk service. The SIM card can hold up to 250 contacts and the phone supports MP3 and MIDI ring tones. The BlackBerry Curve is compatible any company's BlackBerry Enterprise server with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise. There is also an attachment viewer that lets you view files with the most popular file extensions, such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Corel WordPerfect, PDFs, JPEG, GIF, and others.
We were surprised as the disappointing wireless options on the 8300. It lacks integrated Wi-Fi and 3G network support. You are stuck using AT&T's EDGE service, which is much slower than other carrier's (and AT&T's) 3G networks. There isn't support for GPS radio either, so you'll have to use Bluetooth to add on that functionality.
The onboard 2-megapixel digital camera takes very clear pictures, but they are a little off color and can be a little gray too at times. The 8300 also supports music files with a media player that plays MP3, MIDI, AAC, and WAV music files and AVI, MP4, MOV, and 3GP video formats. The Curve comes with 64MB of onboard flash memory, but you will want to use a microSD card to add memory. The Blackberry Curve is said to get about 5-7 hours of talk time and as long as 17 days of standby time.
In conclusion, the iPhone and Curve are at totally different ends of the market and cater to totally different people. The iPhone is geared to the average consumer who wants to listen to their purchased iTunes music, while the Curve is more for business users who travel and want to have access to the office, e-mail, and the Internet from wherever they are in the world.
