RIM BlackBerry® Curve™ 8330 Cell Phone

My husband and I both needed new phones because our aging Motorola Razrs could only handle a 2-3 minute conversation before dying. After much thought and debate, we purchased Blackberry Curves since Verizon was having their Buy One, Get One Free offer.

The Product
The Blackberry Curve 8330 is a quite the smartphone.

Features and Capabilities
- Email and Web browser
- Media player
- Memory: 96 MB flash/32 MB ram
- Text, picture, video messaging
- 2.0 Megapixel Camera with video capture
- Hearing aid compatibility = M4/T4

The Package Contents
- Blackberry Curve 8330 smartphone
- Standard lithium ion battery
- 3.5 mm 4 Pole Stereo headset
- Blackberry travel charger
- Blackberry pocket
- USB data cable
- Documentation kit
- VZAccess Manager (CD-ROM)
- Quick Reference Guide

My Experience
We have Verizon Wireless as our carrier and have been quite pleased with the service from Verizon. We went into a Verizon store to check out the different phones available and settled on the Blackberry Curve.

:: Price ::
The Blackberry Curve is said to have a retail cost of $429.99. We paid $120 for one of the Blackberries, and paid tax (off of the $429.99) for the other one. In total, we paid $199.53 for two Blackberry Curves. There was also a $70 rebate, which we sent away for and received quickly from Verizon, making the grand total to be less than $65 per Blackberry Curve. We did have to increase our total monthly bill since we added on texting and the plan for unlimited data for the Blackberry.

:: Size ::
The Blackberry Curve is compact and fits easily into my purse or workbag. The phone measures 4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6 in and weighs about 4 ounces. The Blackberry Curve fits easily into one hand. The screen size is decent and allows for easy viewing. I have turned down the active screen time to conserve battery.

:: Battery Life ::
I use the Blackberry to check my email, text, and for short calls. I have found the Blackberry Curve to have a fantastic battery life. I can go several days before I need a charge.

:: Keypad ::
I like the hard keypad over a virtual one, such as on the iPhone. I have used an iPhone keypad several times and have had difficulties typing on its virtual keypad. With the Blackberry's hard keypad, I can type easier and with fewer mistakes. The main obstacle to hurdle with the Blackberry was pushing the "Alt" key for numbers (when typing). When dialing a straight phone number, it isn't necessary to hold down the Alt key to type in numbers. Despite months of use, I also have had problems remembering where the # and * buttons are located, which I think is more from habit of using a "regular" phone pad that had those two buttons located on either side of the 0.

:: Camera ::
Though I love the convenience of having the camera on the Blackberry, I'm not so fond of its properties and capabilities on the Blackberry Curve. It is a 2.0 Megapixels camera with video capturing capabilities. I find the quality of the images to be sub-par, as they are often grainy and dull, especially if taking close up pictures. I haven't used the video aspect of the camera because I don't have a memory chip for my Blackberry, but I have taken many photos with the camera as I can do Mobile Uploads now to Facebook. Taking pictures with the camera is easy; the trackball can be used to either zoom in or out. In the end, the camera is useful and convenient to have. It doesn't take the best quality pictures, but it is a camera on a phone afterall.

:: Web ::
I use the built in web browser to surf the Internet. It's not as easy as surfing on a computer, but it does come in handy to search for information away from the computer. I have used it mostly to search for places to eat on Yelp when traveling. For news, I use the Yahoo app that I downloaded since it has a lot of other Yahoo features.

:: Applications ::
I haven't added too many extra applications onto my Blackberry Curve. My husband added Weatherbug for me, which is a nice way of knowing the temperature. One of the applications that was already on the Blackberry was the Facebook application. This fuels my Facebook addiction because I am able to check and update my Facebook wherever and whenever I please! I also like the Yahoo! Go application, which allows me to check news, weather, sports, Flickr, stocks, etc.

:: Navigation ::
The trackball makes it easy to navigate through the Blackberry system. I like that one can choose which five applications can go on the front page, and which can go on the additional page. It is easy to order and arrange the application icons. I like that folders can be created and applications can be deposited into folders, making it less cluttered.

:: Miscellaneous ::
Calendar - I don't use the calendar much on the Blackberry, even though it is easy to use. I still am old-school in that I like to write things down with a paper and pencil when it comes to keeping track of my appointments.

Calculator - It's a bit difficult to use the calculator, particularly plugging in numbers. I use the trackball to scroll about the keypad on the screen to plug in the numbers and to hit the correct signs. I don't find myself using the calculator as much as the one on my old phone.

Overall Thoughts
I love my Blackberry Curve 8330! It keeps me connected to my email, allows me to surf the web, and is easy to use. My only regret is that I didn't invest in the Blackberry earlier!

Thanks for reading.
Pooks
Copyright 2009