I first had a Blackberry mobile phone for Christmas last year. I loved it as it was so much more up-to-date than my old phone. I consider myself to be more of a 'computer' person rather than a 'phone' person, and so I was really pleased that my new phone was like a Blackberry. Unfortunately, (and carelessly) - one day whilst out shopping, I had my Blackberry and a bottle of water in my bag - the water leaked all over my phone and...killed it!! L

Being skint...that was the last thing I needed!! Yet, I couldn't live without my Blackberry, and so off I went to Carphone Warehouse for a new phone. I was hoping to have the same phone again, although they didn't have it in stock and said that the 'nearest' one to the one I had was this one; Blackberry Curve 9320 Smartphone which I paid £120 for.

The phone is very smart to look at. It's black and silver and very 'up-to-date' looking. It has a professional and an expensive look. I love showing it off. It is quite 'slim' and small enough to fit in the pocket of your jeans. The keyboard is a bit squashed, but the screen is large and clear; easy to see. You can also 'zoom' in to see websites better which is good. The phone is very light. It does scratch (the back of it) very easily which is a shame. Although you can buy special plastic / rubber covers for them - make sure that they are for the right model. I tried to use the ones I had for my old blackberry (which is the same size etc) and yet the cover was covering the camera and other things, so I took it off. I have dropped the phone once or twice and it has survived...up until now! It hasn't switched itself off like a lot of phones I have had in the past have done (switiching themselves off when I dropped them, meaning that all my photos,messages etc were lost)

The phone switches on quite quickly, and so you are away to go in no time. When switching the phone off, it gives you the option of turning it off (I think a bit like stand by) or completely turning it off - if you have set your alarm clock on it won't go off if you turn the phone of completely.

The time and day and date feature on the homepage which is great for me as I am one of these people who always wants to know what the time is, but never wear a watch. It's also good to check quickly what the date is. The amount of signal and battery power is also displayed on the home screen. The phone picks up signal easily and I always seem to be 'in signal' which is great.

The icons are all on the 'homepage' and so you do not have to go searching under different menu categories to find what you are looking for. All you need to do is scroll up or down. It also has a 'favourites' and 'frequent' menu which shows the icons you go on the most - making them easier to find.

The phone has a huge range of features: Text messaging, Email, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Phonebook, Camera, Video Camera, Music, Videos, Radio, Alarm Clock, Youtube, BBM Chat, calendar, Instant Messaging (Msn, Yahoo, Talk Talk),App World, Maps, Social Feeds, Games, Calculator...plus many, many more features.

To be honest, there are so many features on this phone, that I haven't come across them all. I tend to stick to the basics though. I use the text messaging feature to text people who don't have BBM Chat (more on this later). I like the fact that on the text message feature - you can see the message before (and loads of others) so that you can refer back to what the person who has texted you may have said in the text. This is also good if you can't remember a date or similar detail someone texted you last week for example - you don't have to go through all of your messages, you just find the person under your messages, scroll up and see the whole conversation. This is also great for when...you know those certain people who sometimes text back 'yes' or 'don't know' and don't explain what they mean, you can look back to the previous messages to find out what they are on about. My only concern about this is that, say you have been 'bitching about someone', and they might say 'can I see your phone' - they would be able to see your conversation. I'm sure you can delete the conversation just like a normal text message, although I always think, what if it hasn't deleted the whole conversation.

I use to alarm clock every morning and find it to be very trustworthy. It always goes off when I tell it too. So it's very reliable. One thing which is annoying about is that - say the alarm goes off - I hit 'snooze' by accident and rather than 'dismiss' (its very easy to hit the wrong button with the silly scroller) - I then get up and go for a shower, if I have hit the wrong button it will go on and on (waking everyone else up). Then again, I suppose it is good if you do happen to fall back to sleep, as it will continue to ring and ring.

I sometimes use the calendar, although not very often. I may start fiddling with it if I am bored, putting in certain events I have coming up (which it will remind me about). Although I mainly use a proper calendar on the wall as opposed to this one. The calendar is good for example if someone says 'can you do the 20th' and then I can go on here and see what day it is or vice versa. So that aspect of it is useful. The calendar also has different 'view' options. For example you can 'view day' and it will show all of times for that day. Or you could 'view week' or 'view month'. I definitely use 'view month' the most, and this I find to be very useful.

I find the calendar useful - I mainly use it to work out what my wages for that week will be. Or if I am in shop to sometimes 'tot up' what the total is to check I have enough money etc.

I use Facebook and Twitter a lot. It helps me to keep up to date with all that's going on even if I am not by a computer. Also, all my notifications, messages from Twitter and Facebook are sent through to my phone. I sometimes use this rather than texting to save money, especially if the message I want to send is not urgent.

I don't tend to listen to music on this phone as I am either at home and have the computer, in the car (where I have Cds or the radio) or at work where we don't listen to music. I don't use the instant messaging (MSN, Yahoo etc) as no one I know uses that anymore, and so I tend to stick to the BBM chat which is just as good, and very fast and has all the features like MSN.

There is a 'sat nav' like thing on this phone. It was automatically switched on when I first had this phone - I actually had to look on the internet to find out how to switch it off). Basically it automatically updates your social networking sites on your whereabouts. For example it will say 'Donna has checked in at....'. I work in a restaurant - and it wasn't until having had the phone for a few weeks and learning about this feature and seeing 'all the places I had checked in' - it had been checking me in at work. So when I went on this feature it had all times and dates of when I had checked in at work (naming the place and address and everything). I had also been to visit a friend and it said that I had checked in at the house across the road from her, even though I had only driven past in the car. I think that this is a very dangerous feature and do not think that it should be 'switched on' when you receive the phone. I didn't know about it until I saw on face book that I had checked in somewhere. So if you buy this phone, I would definitely recommend switching this feature off straight away.

To make a phone call you need to press the call button first and then type in the number. I find that phone calls are always very clear and when speaking on the phone, it feels as though the person is right next to you, as the line is so clear. There is also a 'loudspeaker' option which I sometimes use, and the quality of the phone call is just as good.

One thing which I absolutely hate about this phone is it's 'poor battery'. The phone takes forever to charge. My old Blackberry would charge from 'empty' to 'full' battery within around 40 minutes. This one takes around 3 hours, and even takes over an hour when the battery isn't even flat and has only gone down a little bit. The battery wears down really quickly - just by being on. For example the other day, I charged it fully, switched it on and sent (and received) two messages and the battery went down to ¾ full straight away. This for me is quite worrying, because say I am out for the day (shopping or something) I have to travel an hour there and an hour back and like to keep my phone on the whole time in case someone needs to contact me and yet I want to switch it off to save the battery so in case I break down on the way home. So the battery is a huge problem for me. You can adjust your settings so that it uses less battery power when a certain percent of battery is remaining. For example, one day to see if it made any difference - so I put 'reduce battery power' when batter is 70% or less, but it still didn't make a difference. It's supposed to reduce lighting on the screen etc. things which should save battery power. I didn't notice a difference though.

I love that the phone has 'BBM Chat'. Remember MSN? (the chat where you could talk to your friends on the internet)- well BBM is similar to that except it is a 'phone thing'. You can only chat to other BBM users. Whilst the chat is free - you do need the internet to be able to use it. I have to pay £5 a month for internet which is annoying when I already pay £10 top up a month as part of the 'Orange Dolphin Rewards Package' which gives me 300 free text messages and free internet a month. So I don't really understand why I have to pay a separate £5 for the internet - when I should already get it free with the 'Dolphin Package'.

I love the BBM feature though. Messages are 'instant' and you can see when the message has been received by the other phone as it will display a 'D' by your message. When the other person has read it, a 'R' will show by your message. This is useful, especially if you are desperate to contact someone, as you can see if they have read it. When you have a BBM message, your phone will make a sound and flash red and it will have a 'red star' by the BBM icon.

The phone has a QWERTY keyboard (like a computer keyboard and not like a normal phone keyboard). At first, I thought that this was great as I didn't have to press 'number 1' three times to get a 'C', but now I think it is a pain as there are many buttons which are very close together. It's very easy to 'press' the wrong button. I can text without looking on a normal phone, and so I am disappointed that I can't do the same with this keyboard. I also have quite chubby fingers and so I am always pressing the wrong buttons. Come to think of it, I think people with 'skinny fingers' would have problems with this keyboard too, as the keys are very small and my finger tips are bigger than them. Another disadvantage is that with my old (normal) mobile phones, I could text with one hand. But because there are so many keys on here, I always have to use two hands which is a shame, especially if I have something in my other hand.

In order to 'move around' - there is a scroller button on the keyboard. Sometimes this gets stuck and won't move which is annoying as it means that sometimes I can't use the phone for a few seconds. It does eventually come back, but I don't think it should 'get stuck' in the first place - especially as I have only have this phone for around 8 weeks - it was doing it as soon as I had it.


The internet is very fast which is great as I am big internet user. My old Blackberry used to take forever to load and so it was frustrating. This phone is very fast though. For example, a few weeks ago, we were on the way to a restaurant (which is located in the middle of nowhere). We got lost and didn't have a contact number. So I went on my phone, went on their website and got the telephone number within around 30 seconds - so that was impressive.

The phone is very fiddly and I often find it quite difficult to find what I am looking for as there as so many options - this is also made difficult by the 'silly' scroller which either whizzes around too fast or gets stuck. The phone is also 'opposite' how other phones work in some ways. For example, with most phones, you type in the number and then press call. Whereas with this phone you have to press the 'call' button and then type in the number, which was confusing at first, as I couldn't understand why 'letters' were coming up instead of numbers'.

One thing which I think is fantastic about this phone is its camera. It's brilliant and takes really good clear pictures. It's not like other mobile phone cameras I have had, where the pictures are blurry. The pictures taken with this camera are very clear and of high quality. I am forever taking photos with this phone as it is so quick and easy. The phone stores loads of photos - I am not sure how many in total it stores, although I have well over 500 pictures on mine which is great.

My Blackberry is linked up to my other accounts (email address, face book, twitter) and so I can quickly click on the 'face book' or 'twitter' page, and because I am logged on it will take me straight to my account. I can also update my statuses on the social networking sites quickly. Also, I love the I can take a picture and click on 'send to' (and choose face book, twitter etc) and within seconds it will be uploaded onto whichever account (face book or twitter) I have chosen. This is great for me, because when I used to take photos on my digital camera - it would take hours to upload them on the computer, and then more hours again to add them on to face book. So to be able to upload my photos within seconds as opposed to hours is a huge improvement for me.

If like me, you are one of those people who are forever checking their phone, just to see if anyone has texted you, then you will be pleased to know that the phone will flash a colour when someone has texted/face booked/tweeted you. This is good because it means you do not have to keep checking your phone. I get really excited when I see my phone flash. I think that this feature actually helps me concentrate better in college. Before I would be constantly checking my phone to see if 'so n so' had texted back, whereas now, the flashing will instantly catch my attention. You can also change the colour of the flash to each person. For example, red may be your best friend and blue may be your boyfriend etc.

The phone has great memory - I can store loads of photos (probably have around 50 stored on my phone at the moment) - without a memory card. My last phone would only store 5 picture without a memory card.

Despite the negative points I have stated, I do like this phone and the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. I wouldn't recommend this as a 'first phone' or as phone for an elderly person as it is very, very technical, and not as 'straight forward' as a normal phone. I like to think of myself as a technical person and yet even I struggle with this phone at times.

Thanks for reading!
September 2012
Xdonzx / xd-o-n-z-x