Blacbery Curve 8330
BlackBerry Curve 8330 CDMA
The 8330 essentially paints the complete picture for the BlackBerry CDMA — it’s the last of RIM’s current lineup to cross over to CDMA networks. It’s also the first Curve to offer 3G networking and so promises to make a big splash among users wanting “real” Internet access and messaging in a small and relatively inexpensive smartphone.
Design
The Curve is shaped and designed to fit well into just about any size hands. The bright QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) screen does a solid job of displaying text and some pictures. However, the Curve, like other current BlackBerry products, uses some archaic fonts which take up more space than they probably should. That being said, most items are quite readable in most lighting conditions.
BlackBerry CDMA Curve 8330
The front side of the device also contains a the BlackBerry CDMA Trackball and QWERTY keyboard. RIM’s keyboards are highly touted for their ease of use and numerous shortcuts. I found the keyboard to be OK to use, but it did feel a bit inferior to the one on my Treo 680. While the keys were of a good size, I had to aim for them moreso than with the Treo.
The trackball was a breeze to use and made navigating the device fairly simple. In some places it was faster than I needed it to be, but was overall just fine.
The trackball is flanked by four application buttons: green and red call buttons, a menu button, and a back button. While small, these gave great feedback and didn’t get in the way when using the trackball or QWERTY keyboard.
The top of the Curve simply has a mute button. The mute button also functions as a standby button when pressed and held for a few seconds. It reminded me of the Treo/Centro’s button at the top, but less intuitive.
The rear of the BlackBerry CDMA has only the 2 megapixel digital camera’s lens. There is no opening to remove the battery. The rear is otherwise flush and uneventful.
The left side of the Curve has a 3.5mm headset jack, mini-USB connector, and a customizable application button. The right side has the volume up/down buttons and a button to launch the camera.
The Curve line has been a notable series of devices for RIM in that it brought additional levels of connectivity to the BlackBerry fold. The Sprint version of the 8330 has GPS and Bluetooth to compliment the EV-DO cellular connectivity. What this means for most people is that almost anything can be done in terms of connecting to devices and services.
Starting with the cellular end, the Sprint Curve is an EV-DO 1x device. Not always as fast as a basic DSL connection, the EV-DO speeds are still quite fast for a cellular connection, and works efficiently enough that it’s not a major drain on battery life.
Bluetooth is featured as an additional wireless option for headsets and dial up networking (DUN) connectivity. Using Bluetooth, the Curve can be utilized as a modem for laptops and tablet PCs. Depending on the plan level, there may be an additional cost to use this feature.
The version of the BlackBerry Curve that is sold by Sprint does not have Wi-Fi.
GPS is included, though. Using TeleAtlas maps and software, along with A-GPS (cellular triangulation) supported by the EV-DO connection, using the Curve as a navigation device is fast and easy. It takes about 30 seconds to get a lock, and after that map views are downloaded dynamically to the device.
The 8330′s battery life is something that caught me completely off guard. I am used to having to charge devices once a day, and sometimes more if its a busy day. The Curve took my hardest day and still managed to make it easily to the lunch of the next day just fine.
I am not really sure how RIM has managed to do it, but the battery life being so good is an unexpected and very nice feature.
Performance and Multimedia
The Curve 8330 gets the Qualcomm MSM6550 Chipset running at 225 MHz, an ARM9 family CPU. The nice thing about getting the Qualcomm chipset is you get the built-in GPS but the slower speed gets in the way of good performance when running CPU intensive applications. In reality the device doesn’t feel that slow, save for the very slow boot up time. Most applications launch quickly and messages send/receive quite fast. Video playback suffers using the slower CPU, so make sure to use mobile level encoding when ripping videos for the Curve. Large web sites take longer to download. After the carrier software and RIM standard software previsions, the phone has about 43MB (Sprint Curve) and 45MB (Verizon Curve) free. To expand the memory, the Curve 8330 comes with a microSD card slot that supports high capacity SDHC cards (up to 8 gigs currently).
Multimedia on a full QWERTY BlackBerry? Sure, you get a media player for music and video playback and on the Sprint Curve you even get Sprint TV! The media player supports MP3 and AAC files, and the unprotected iTunes songs play fine on the Curve. The audio quality is excellent through the built-in speaker and the included stereo headset, and the volume is loud. If you are a fan of Bluetooth stereo headsets, you’ll love listening to music on the Curve.
Camera
As with all Curve smartphones, the BlackBerry Curve 8330 has a 2 megapixel camera with digital zoom, and LED flash and a self portrait mirror. However, the camera on the Curve 8330 can record video while previous Curve models didn’t offer this feature. The quality of photos the Curve takes has also advanced. The camera lens isn’t terribly wide and you can have the LED flash turned on automatically or manually. The Curve takes sharp photos by 2 mp camera phone standards both indoors and outdoors with a good amount of detail and very good color balance. The images look good even though overly sharpened like many of today’s camera phone photos, but the high contrast works well with the images. Indoor shots have some noise but not bad at all, and in very poor lighting conditions the camera will turn on the flash. The camera phone can shoot photos in three resolutions: 1600 x 1200, 1024 x 768 and 640 x 480 with three quality settings and the camera software also has white balance and color effects settings. You can use photos as screen image and caller ID or send them to email and Messenger contacts.
The BlackBerry Curve can also record video with audio, a feature that’s so far enjoyed by BlackBerry Pearl users. You can take video clips in 240 x 176 and 176 x 144 resolutions, but oddly can only save them to a storage card not the phone’s internal memory. The videos look reasonably good, and the LED flash can illuminate subjects within an arm’s length well.
Overview:
- Estimated talk time: up to 4 hours
- Estimated standby time: up to 11 days
- Size: 10.7 x 6.2 x 1.6 cm
- Weight: 114 grams
- Display: 320 x 240 pixels, colour screen
Phone Features:
- Network CDMA Dual Band 800MHz 1900MHz
- Slick user interface including enhanced full QWERTY keyboard with trackball navigation
- 2MP camera with automatic flash & video recording capability
- Media player for music and video playback
- Built-in GPS & BlackBerry Maps
- Access the Wireless high speed (EVDO) network across Canada
- Standard MP3 player sized 3.5 mm stereo headset jack
- Voice memo application
- Speakerphone
- Light sensing technology to automatically adjust screen and keypad brightness
- Web usage through the browser on your device or connected to your laptop (via USB modem)
- Instant Messaging: Yahoo Messenger, BlackBerry Messenger, and Google Talk
- TELUS Navigator – Using GPS technology, navigator provides audible and visual turn-by-turn driving directions and coloured maps directly from your mobile device
- Pocket Express Application Store – Effortlessly discover and purchase top quality games, productivity tools, and other applications
- Pocket Express Services – Pocket Express provides clients with access to customized news, sports, weather and more
Tags: 8330 cell phone, 8330 phone, blacberry cdma, blackberry curve 83300
