Curvacious, Cunning and Cool (Blackberry Curve 8900)

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	Blackberry Curve 8900
Date:	29/10/09 (200 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks great, easy to use, massive improvement on previous models

Disadvantages: Battery life not fantastic, can't compete with iPhone

The Blackberry Curve 8900 is available on a number of networks, both on consumer and business tariffs. For a reasonable monthly tariff (£25 upwards) the handset should be free on an eighteen-month contract.

I've had a few Blackberry handsets now and having got used to each one for either 12 or 18 months, the enormous improvements in the handsets have impressed me every time. My most recent upgrade has been to the Curve 8900, which is, without a doubt, the best Blackberry that I've had to date and, probably, the best mobile phone I've had, full stop.

The handset looks great; a stylish combination of silver and black that's fairly subtle and stays the right side of classy. My last handset was the Curve 8310 and, in comparison, this one has moved on leaps and bounds. It's smaller, thinner and lighter and generally feels much better in your hand. The QWERTY keyboard is (just about) big enough even for my fairly clumsy fingers to type properly and there seems to be a little more space between the keys now. Navigation around the handset is simple and intuitive, facilitated via four main buttons and the (now familiar) mini-joy stick. The joystick is more responsive and more precise than on previous Curve models, even if takes a little bit of getting used to (quite often, you'll veer off the icon or screen item that you're trying to click onto.) I only really have a few small complaints about the design. The volume controls on the side of the handset are very flat and whilst you're on the phone, it can be extremely difficult to find and then press. If you keep the handset in its own magnetic sleeve (which, incidentally locks it for you at the same time) you find that the top of the handset gets a bit scratched.

Used purely for voice calls, the handset performs well. Call clarity is good. It's easy to hear the other person and I don't seem to get any complaints about the reverse position. It seems to sit more snugly if held to the side of the hand but is, of course, Bluetooth enabled for a headset and has a standard socket for a hands-free kit if required. As with most modern handsets, it's equipped with most standard features, some of which (call waiting and call barring for example) can be network specific and some of which aren't completely reliable. You can assign pictures to an address book contact, for example, which are supposed to appear when the caller calls you, but this seems a bit hit and miss and the pictures don't always seem to appear. The battery life is reasonably average. Despite charging it up for 24 hours at new, the battery doesn't last me that long and I need to charge it up again most nights after a medium's day's usage. The specification quotes six hours' talk time and 19 days of standby. The reality, in my experience, is far short of this.

The high-resolution display is such an advance from the previous models that it feels revolutionary. Web pages look gorgeously crisp and colourful, and offline applications including the selection of games included, are a pleasure to use. The resolution makes browsing far easier. The display actually has better resolution than the (supposedly) higher specification Bold and has a warmer, brighter contrast than any of the previous Curve handsets. The application icons on the standard menu do look a little as though they are trying to copy the iPhone (a big mistake) but you can customise the appearance to various different styles to get away from this, if you wish.

Frustratingly, the Messages menu continues to mix up emails and SMS messages, as it did with the previous Curve handset. Indeed, I have three different email accounts currently set up to 'push' through my handset and whilst they each have their own icon, all the messages appear via the one Messages menu too. This isn't confusing for me, as the accounts are all used for very different things, but I don't like it when the emails and SMS messages get mixed up. Incidentally, setting up the various email accounts is really easy. If it's your first time with a Blackberry handset, the customer service team will usually give you help but the setup wizard installed is very self-explanatory. Remember to go to your service provider's mobile email web site first to register the handset IMEI and PIN and then you're pretty much sorted. Many (most?) of the big web-based email accounts are now supported by the Blackberry enterprise server and you can certainly get aol.com and mail.com accounts through the handset, along with Google, Yahoo and Hotmail. For users who want a phone for business and personal email usage, this is great news, but remember that warning about the messages merging into the one menu. You can, as usual, synchronise to desktop applications via a USB cable, but for most users, everything will synchronise wirelessly. The handset features the aforementioned Bluetooth, along with GPS and wi-fi as standard

Multimedia features now mean that the handset has wider appeal outside of the business market. The handset has an enhanced camera compared to previous models and it shows. The megapixels are up from 2 to 3.2 and this makes an enormous difference. The 8900 now actually feels like a usable camera phone and the interface easily enables new pictures to be sent as emails or MMS messages. There's also an auto-zoom feature, along with a flash, although I still struggle with pictures of an evening if there isn't tonnes of artificial light. The multimedia player can handle a host of audio and video files but the 100MB standard memory is tiny, leaving this unlikely to be a viable replacement for an iPod for those who've a mind to do so. On that note there is also a Blackberry apps store, to try and compete with the likes of Apple, though, not surprisingly, it's a long way off the huge variety that can be boasted by the Steve Jobs empire. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack for those who want to plug in their headphones. The sound quality and volume are reasonably impressive for a phone handset but with only six volume levels, it's kind of either quiet or REALLY LOUD. Having the jack point on the side is ridiculous for anyone who wants to slide the phone in and out of a pocket too.

Sadly, the web browser is not 3G, which means slower page loading times for avid web users. The pages generally open up full screen, which, understandably, makes them very small indeed, and as such you have to zoom in a couple of time before you can actually click links on the page. There are java script issues on certain pages, particularly those that require encryption or password-protected accounts and generally, it's recommended that you stick to less interactive content. Web browsing is still, however, much, much better than on the previous model. The new map application is complete rubbish though. It takes forever to load and you just wouldn't bother in real life.

So, overall the verdict here is good. The handset has improved in nearly every way compared to previous Curve models and now has the capability to operate sensibly for both a business or a personal user - or if you're like me, maybe a bit of both. It's not the iPhone though and for pure 'wow!' factor it's still left lagging behind the Apple masterpiece. Nonetheless, it's the most 'useful' handset that I've ever owned, as evidenced by the amount of different 'things" I use on it. Given that it's very easy to get for free as well, it's still highly recommended from me.

Recommended

Summary: A fruity little handset

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