Digital Trends

BlackBerry Curve 8320 February 4th, 2008 | by Damon Brown

Features and Design

While not as cozy as the younger-skewing Pearl, the Blackberry Curve is a compact phone. It is thin, at no thicker than a half inch, and weighs just a few ounces. It is about the width of a woman’s palm. The model we used was metallic, almost brown silver, with black trim on the sides where the additional buttons laid. The well-lit, high resolution monitor takes up the top half of the front. Below the monitor is a row of four buttons for start and stop, current menu and previous screen. In the middle is a small trackball (in other words, a computer mouse with no covering) about the size of a pinky nail.

The bottom has a compressed, but nicely organized QWERTY keyboard. The numpad, numbers 9 – 0, are alternative buttons on the extreme left keys, starting with WER/123 on the top row. The bottom row has 0 as well as the Space button, Shift and symbols.

Blackberry has kept the sides very simple. On the left are a headphone jack, a USB port and a voice command button. On the right are the two volume keys and a camera quick key. The lens itself on the back of the camera, right below a small internal flash bulb.

Image Courtesy of RIM

Setup and Use

The Blackberry Curve 8320 comes with a USB cord, a carrying case, a wall plug, and earphones. There is also a PC disc of basic Blackberry hotsync software. (T-Mobile notes that advanced Blackberry software is available separately.)

The Curve is easy to use. The track pad isn’t too sticky, and it responds quickly to a light thumb or finger push. Pictures of your five MyFaves are listed at the top of the main menu. At the bottom are icons for text messages, MyFaves display options, calendar, address book and web browser. Press the menu button to the left of the track pad and a wide, long display of icons will appear. However, pretty much every link needed to get the Blackberry do something is here. The icons help make navigating the 30-odd options pretty straightforward.

WiFi setup is one of the icon options. Click on it and the Blackberry will search for local networks, ask for the password (if necessary) and connect to the router. It took us about one minute total, including the time to enter the network password. The WiFi worked fine, but actually was just a hair or two faster than T-Mobile’s already fast EDGE/GPRS network. The Blackberry is also compatible with T-Mobile@Home, a wireless setup that allows you to combine cell phone minutes and Skype-style VoIP calling. More information is available at www.t-mobile.com.

Email and attachments seemed straightforward, and the 2 Megapixel camera was took surprisingly supple pictures. The automatic flash on the back helps.