Mobile Technology

BlackBerry’s latest offering in the 8520 Curve is going to give all the other business handsets a serious run for their money, including the other BlackBerrys. It may lack 3G but fares quite well without.

Form Factor
Keeping in tune with ALL the new BlackBerrys that made it out recently, except of course the Storm, the 8520 is a neat little handset. It’s smaller than the others and, kinda cute in a way. What pains me is that the 2.6-inch display has a resolution of 320 x 240, which is quite mundane. Then again what can you expect considering it’s one of the cheaper models, but having reviewed the higher-end models that just happen to look quite like this one, the display sort of stands out like a pimple on the tip of a nose. You’ll get used to it especially if you’re upgrading from any other handset with a resolution like that.
Instead of the ‘standard’ trackball or ‘Pearl’, RIM has decided to go with a Touch-sensitive optical trackpad. The sensitivity is just right and after just a little while navigation becomes extremely simple.

The full QWERTY keypad may seem a little squashed but believe me it’s easy to use. What makes the handset even more appealing are the media keys on the top and the 3.5mm earphone socket on the side. Other keys on the sides include volume/zoom keys, a shortcut to the voice dialing feature and a micro USB slot for the charger and PC connectivity. The hot swap slot for the microSD card is under the rear panel.