Blackberry Curve 8300 - the curvy smartphone from Blackberry

After the Pearl, Blackberry launches another good-looker - the Blackberry Curve 8300.

3 May, 2007

Blackberry has launched the all new curvy smartphone, the Blackberry Curve 8300. The Blackberry Curve 8300 is gently curved and rounded at the corners and sports a QWERTY keypad. This one has a true QWERTY keypad though, unlike the Pearl, which had keys with two letters, and replied on prediction software to guess the appropriate letter. True Blackberry fans did not like it, despite the overall sophistication levels of the Pearl, and the Curve hopes to redeem that.

The Blackberry Curve 8300 adds that extra style and elegance that the Research In Motion's QWERTY-handheld phones so far lacked a bit. This smartphone from Blackberry is extremely consumer-oriented and is loaded with lots of features to make it user-friendly.

Multimedia features that are normally lacking in a high-end business phone are included in the Blackberry Curve 8300. There is a 2-megapixel camera with built-in flash and 3X digital zoom (not very useful, if you ask us). A new desktop media management software which is co-developed with Roxio is also included in the Blackberry Curve 8300.

The Curve 8300 phone supports 4 GSM frequencies ((800, 850, 1800, and 1900 MHz) and the data transfer speeds are up to 2.5-G EDGE speeds. But the few negatives of the Curve include lack of Wi-Fi and HSDPA support. Price of the Blackberry Curve 8300 is not known yet, and AT&T has said that the customers in the US will first have their hands on the newest addition to the Blackberry lineup this Spring.

The dimensions of the Curve 8300 are 4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches, which is quite impressive. The weight is also not that bad; just under 4 ounces. Battery life of the Blackberry is expected to be good, though no official information is available yet.

The Blackberry Curve 8300 sports a gorgeous 320 X 240 display screen and looks good at first sight. The small, marble-like trackball and its fluid movement are also elegant. To set-up a Gmail account adds only takes a few minutes and once it is done, then the mail appears neatly in an inbox. The camera quality is not that high, but comparing the image quality with other phones, the image quality is okay. There is a better browser, and better media player too in the Curve.

The lack of 3G or Wi-Fi support makes the media downloads relatively slow. But overall, the Blackberry Curve 8300 looks like a good alternative to the other Windows Mobile PDA hybrids.