BlackBerry Curve 8300

The moment you think about mobile e-mail, the first thing that would strike your mind would be Blackberry. It has created a special place for itself in this area. Though many of the other mobile phones such as Symbian and a lot of other well-known models have this feature, Blackberry has almost completely conquered it.

The moment you think about mobile e-mail, the first thing that would strike your mind would be Blackberry. It has created a special place for itself in this area. Though many of the other mobile phones such as Symbian and a lot of other well-known models have this feature, Blackberry has almost completely conquered it.

Trackball navigation:

Blackberry had been traditionally using the side mounted scroll wheel. In the past few Blackberry phone models, the side mounted scroll wheel has been replaced by a small pearl like round ball, which can be moved to make any navigation and , when pressed, it makes a selection. Since this navigational ball is placed right below the screen, this is well suited for both right handed and left handed people. It has made the four-way pad look lethargic and outdated. Since this navigational trackball looked like a pearl, the first Blackberry to come out with this was called as, Blackberry Pearl which was released in march 2007 and this series was followed by traditional style Blackberry 8800.



Stylish and light:

Coming to the model that we are to review, the BlackBerry Curve 8300, you might be wondering which feature of it must have given its name to be “Curve”. It is because, it has a smooth & curvaceous casing which has soft edges and feels smooth to hold in the user’s hand. The edges of the phone gives you a rubberised feel that allows you to grip the phone well Unlike the dirty blue, which most of us hated, the Blackberry Curve 8900 comes in a stylish silver colour. The silver and black theme has made Blackberry look more stylish than ever. It looks very compact and light weighted when compared to the other Blackberry models. Its dimensional specification seems to be 107 X 60 X 15.5 mm (H X W X D) and weighs 111.4 grams.


Good display:

RIM Blackberry Curve 8300 seems to be very user friendly. It has a colourful 2.5″ large screen that can display up to 650000 colours with a good resolution of 320 X 240 pixels. Since the display is light sensitive, it has the ability to adjust itself according to the lighting conditions in which it is used, which enables the user to view the display clearly and saves your battery too. The screen has a good wide viewing angle but is prone to glaring, which cannot be helped much.

The QWERTY keyboard:

Curve 8300 comes with a full QWERTY keyboard. This keyboard is of great use while typing in emails and messages. The QWERTY keyboard also has the numeric keys that are overlapped on a few of the alphabets which are having a black background. The subtle backlight provided to the keyboard is of great help as it indicates the spacing between the keys well. Blackberry has included the spell checker in its e-mail software for the first time ever, a feature that should have been included long time before.

The text entry yet, requires some amount of concentration. You would be first searching for a dedicated ‘@’ and period keys. But once you get used to it, we are sure that you will be typing swiftly.

Toy camera:

RIM had finally made up its mind to focus on the common people too and has provided the phone with a camera. Having a great deal of messaging and sharing features, the pictures taken using the camera can be shared swiftly. The camera has a resolution of two mega pixels and a LED flash. It has only basic features and images are miserable, suffering nasty colour tints, blurry detail and dull exposure. The media player is better, with tunes sounding acceptable, especially through decent headphones. Curve uses the standard 3.5mm headset and provides us with stereo earbuds.

Multimedia features:

As the BlackBerry Curve 8300 phone supports MP3, MIDI and polyphonic ring tones, you can now set ring tones and alert tones of your choice. The desktop software has also included a feature that lets you to copy multimedia on to Blackberry Curve. The Roxio software from Sonic included, which is the first time media manager for RIM also includes CD ripping, editing and media library management.

The voice activate call feature is a very interesting feature that allows you to make calls very easily. The Curve is much better at plain old voice calls, with a clear, crisp loudspeaker and much impressively, the voice dialling that actually works. You can just speak a phone number out loud, at a normal speed and with background noise, and the 8300 will usually recognise it. It is slightly less reliable on contact names from the phone book

Memory:

BlackBerry Curve 8300 smartphone comes with 64MB of internal flash memory and if this is not enough for your needs, then you may use the MicroSD slot of expand your phone’s memory. But the slot is placed under the battery cover near the SIM card, where it is a bit hard to handle.

The email and messaging support:

The email support that Blackberry Curve possess has complete document attach support which make practical mailing possible. Its features works well. But the blot is that the documents, media files and PDFs cannot create or edit files beyond the basic text memos. When the Blackberry internet service that was designed for the POP3 email customers, it certainly kept up to date with all the important emails, and unfortunately with the spams too. There is a way to prevent spams as it is very easy to delete the mails either using the device or the server. The speed will depend on the sender’s and your email servers and network coverage.

With the feature of instant messaging being available, you can easily chat with your contacts and even share photographs and tunes. That is, along with instant messaging you can also use the traditional SMS, MMS and Blackberry messenger too.



Connectivity:

Wireless transfers between devices is made possible with the Bluetooth technology and since the Curve supports it, you will be able to establish connection with another Bluetooth enabled device in seconds. It also has the EDGE technology which make high-speed data transfers possible, at almost thrice the speed of GPRS.

The Blackberry maps feature is available. The Bluetooth being built-in, with the help of the GPS antenna, you can forget your need for any other GPS device. But, since you can download the maps on the air, it does cost you.

Browser:

RIM Blackberry Curve 8300 Smartphone uses a HTML browser, allowing you to make use of the internet on a fly. A disappointing fact is that it cannot display full HTML emails and displays the text only version, the undesired one. Since the phone uses Quad band technology, international roaming has become possible.

Secure:

You can rest in peace of you have left your Curve outside because, it comes with password protection for additional security to save your confidential details from prying eyes. The keypad lock, as you know prevents accidental pressing of the keys on the mobile. All the day to day smartphone features are also available like that of the alarm clock, phone book, memo pad, task list and an organiser.

Battery:

It has a talk time of four hours and stand by time of about 408 hours which is really good for corporate people who go on long tours.

Verdict:

The Blackberry Curve 8300 is a highly capable device with a lot features aiming not only the corporate sectors but others too. The Curve 8300 has finally proved to be a good business tool and a great entertainer too. The absence of Wi-Fi and 3G cannot be really felt, but it would have been great if it was included too.

Posted in: BlackBerry