|
|
BLACKBERRY CURVE 8320
A strong smartphone, a notch above its predecessor 8300 , it includes Wifi and UMA which supports phone calling over networks. And its not only for geeks, this one has got some nice multimedia features too. Lets explore more.
DESIGN
The feel is the familiar round and chubby, and the overall design is good. The QWERTY keypad has lighting feature and typing in dark is a breeze. The phone is available in gray and champagne-gold colors. Its quite thin for a PDA, and is light, small , sturdy with absolutely no creaking. The Mini-USB port and headset jack are present on the left side. The Camera lens, and LED are at the back, but unfortunately, MicroSD slot is under the battery, so you need to power down the phone to swap memory cards. The screen quality is great , sharp , and a pleasure to look at. The phone is very ergonomically designed for a PDA.
INTERNET AND EMAIL CAPABILITIES
The WiFi , when configured properly , lets you send emails, IMs over the Internet. No email account , may it be POP, IMAP, are a trouble for this one. The browser supports Javascript, CSS and is quite capable and a quick performer, capable of displaying the web content as in a PC. The Trackball acts like a virtual cursor which makes browsing an easy task. Yahoo, AIM , Windows Live, ICQ , Gtalk every messenger is included in the phone by default.
NETWORK AND CONNECTIVITY
The phone has great voice quality and clarity both. The reception was strong too, and calls were not dropped. A great addition is UMA , which enables the phone to make calls over the WiFi network, and these calls have excellent quality. Moreover, the phone can easily switch between GSM and UMA.
SOUND
The sound quality over bluetooth was simply great. The provided Media player handles music , videos , photos easily, and has various options to group and select the media. The player can play MP3, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+ and WMA files. Sound quality via speakers is average, and via headphone its good, but no match for the quality through Bluetooth device.
CAMERA
The camera inclusion was a good idea in the phone , but still , the quality of the photos isn’t good. The camera is a 2MP one, capable of taking photos at 1600×1200 resolution, but no video recording is supported. The overall image quality was bad.
CONCLUSION
The product is a great device when it comes to performing the functions it has been designed for. Business applications are just great, but video capabilities are not. Sound quality is great and so is the ergonomic design of the phone. Calling in UMA and GPRS both is awesome, but the battery life of the phone is quite short. So, a great buy for those who desperately require a PDA.