Monthly Archives: August 2009

It is my third day with the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and so far the general experience has been positive in almost every area. I’m going to break down the various parts as usual and highlight the good and bad of a BlackBerry which defies the previous pricing logic asserted with devices like this and see how useful it is in the real world.

General Performance (9/10)

No complaints here. It is fast all of the time (no lags anywhere) and the included memory is more than enough to keep things running smoothly. The original Curves suffered from low memory, but the 8520 has over 100MB free at start-up and this makes all of the difference. Videos run smoothly and even intensive games (intensive in the BlackBerry gaming world anyway) work without issue.

Battery (8/10)

The battery is not big, but has enough power to keep the 8520 running for days on end. Following the first charge I have used Wi-Fi for 3 hours, watched 2 hours of video, listened to 30 minutes of music and had email running constantly for 2 days. Add internet browsing, Twitter updates and all of the other organisation bits and a few phones calls, and I still have 50% power left. Seriously good…

Screen (7/10)

The screen is not big and is only QVGA, but it is bright and works well in all conditions. Movie watching is of course not ideal due to the size, but the colours are more vibrant than the iPhone for example. One film I watched looked a lot better on the 8520 than on the iPhone and only the size was an issue. Fonts can look slightly jagged when made small on the QVGA setup and web browsing could be better displayed, but for everything else it does the job nicely.

Connectivity (7/10)

The lack of 3G will knock the score straight away, but the Wi-Fi has been flawless on my home system. This is not always the case and only the Curve and iPhone have not had issues with it. 2G browsing is never ideal, but it does the job and emails of course fly in three seconds before someone sends you one…

Call Quality (7/10)

Call quality in the ear is quite good, but lacks the depth and roundness of devices like the Bold, Curve 8900 and some of the Nokia models. The speakerphone is very loud, but again the sound quality is a touch tinny and can strain the ears a little. It is still better than most and perfectly useable which is the most important aspect.

Music (3/10)

Music quality through the external speaker and headphones is one of the worst I have heard on a smartphone for a long time. The sound is poor on the included headphones and even through a much more expensive set. Nothing I have done with the equaliser has helped this, and this largely makes the media shortcut buttons at the top pointless. Why add shortcut functionality to a feature that does not work very well?

Video (7/10)

By contrast the video playback is very good for a QVGA device. Colours are vibrant and playback is smooth and so far I have enjoyed watching a couple of films on it. Strangely, the sound quality in the movies is quite good so I wonder if a software fix further down the line will help the music sound quality.

Data Entry / Buttons (9/10)

The keyboard is pure BlackBerry and thus exceptionally easy to use once you get used to the quirks of no dedicated full stop button. The flush call end/start, return and menu keys also work well and the new optical navigation pad is a revelation. After a few minutes getting used to it, it feels completely natural and I have had few issues with it. eReader struggles to recognise one swipe as a page turn, but pressing the space bar gets around this quite easily. Finally, I like the enclosed side buttons which still offer accessible usage despite being protected from the outside world.

Materials / Build Quality (7/10)

The build quality is very good and everything feels solid. I have read of squeaky battery covers, but have not experienced this with this particular unit. There appears to be few moving parts and its lightness means that any drops should not cause too much damage either.

Fingerprints are a slight problem, but are nothing in comparison to dust. For some reason it seems to attract dust like no other phone I have used before and when sat on my desk at home it is covered after 30 minutes. It does depend on the location and air conditioned offices are fine, but I will see how things fair over time.

Conclusion (9/10)

The Curve 8520 is very well built and extremely fast in use. The price helps as well and as an update to the original Curve, it is brilliant. The presence of the Curve 8900 makes the 8520 feel like a budget device, but when we break down the extra features the gap is small. Having a GPS antenna is useful of course, but is there a GPS software solution available for the BlackBerry platform that makes it worth having? The extra screen resolution makes a difference for some functions such as video playback, but for everything else QVGA works just fine. This also helps battery life.

Maybe it is the novelty of using BlackBerry again, but I feel refreshed and organised which is a feeling I have missed with the iPhone. I am 39 years old and need to organise my life more than I need to play Touch Cricket. The iPhone will stay, but so will the Curve as my main phone. It is possibly the best value smartphone on the market today and is the perfect tool for those of you who need to keep organised and connected 24 hours a day.

Available from Clove for £241.50.