RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 Review

Introduction:

The Curve 8300 series has been an immensely successful line for RIM, helping push the manufacturer out of the board room and into the family room.  There have been attempts at consumer friendly devices since, such as the Pearl and Storm, but nothing has quite hit the sweet spot like the Curve.  So, how do you create a follow up to arguably the best device you’ve ever put out?  Make it sleeker, of course.  Enter the Curve 8900, a rework on the original with a better screen, better in hand feel, better camera and better OS. It’s conservative enough for the suits but modern enough for the everyday user.  It’s gorgeous to look at and a joy to use.  In the box you’ll find: Li-Ion battery, AC adapter, 3.5mm stereo headphones, 256MB microSD card, Leather pouch

Design:

The new Curve feels distinctively different from the original.  The dimensions haven’t changed drastically, but it is narrower and lighter.  It fits great in the hand, although the keyboard is more cramped than other RIM offerings.



You can compare the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The screen is what immediately grabs your attention.  Measuring in at 2.4” it has a resolution of 480x360, bettering the Bold’s 480x320 and matching the Storm.  It is only 65K colors (like the others) but is still one of the sharpest and crisp displays we’ve ever used.  It stood up well to all lighting conditions, even direct sunlight.



Below the display is the standard RIM layout; a trackball flanked by two keys on either side above a full QWERTY keyboard.  The shift keys are regular size now, not elongated as they were on 83xx models, and the narrower phone means a narrower keyboard.  It doesn’t lose much in the way of functionality though.  If the 8350i is a 10 in terms of usability, the 8900 is an 8.5.  It is better than most keyboards on the market, and only those with very large mitts will complain about the smaller size.  With our moderately large fingers we had no issues tapping out messages.



The back of the device is in line with other RIM units.  The large battery door takes up most of the real estate, with the 3.2 megapixel camera and LED flash perched up top.  It looks like brushed aluminum, but unlike the Storm the door is actually plastic.  The phone has a ring of matte chrome trim around it, which is also plastic.  Neither of them cheapen the new Curve though, which feels more solid than the original.

The microSD slot has moved to below the battery, next to the SIM card, making it hot swappable.  RIM has still managed to mess it up though; rather than a spring mechanism that is found on nearly every other device out there, they have gone with a locking mechanism that requires two hands to operate.  Needless to say, this can be cumbersome at times.

The left side has a lanyard loop at the top and silver convenience key.  The right is busier, with a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top followed by the volume rocker, another convenience key and the microUSB charging/data port.  Like the Storm, the top of the Curve has a Lock and Mute key that are integrated into the housing.  The convenience keys have plenty of travel and feel, but the volume rocker could use some more tactile feedback.


We were really impressed with the design of the Curve 8900.  There are no doubt some that will prefer the slightly larger Bold, but in our opinion the Curve is the best designed QWERTY device we’ve come across.  Our one gripe is the microSD, which is finally hot swappable but is a pain to remove.  There is a little catch that holds the card in place, and you have to pull it down and the card out at the same time which took us a good minute to do the first time.  It’s a minor thing, however, and much better than the under-the-battery placement on the 8300.

User Interface:

Like the Bold and 8350i, the 8900 runs on RIM’s new 4.6 OS.  It is beautiful; with modern icons and a more refined look overall.  Functionality, however, remains basically the same as past OS versions.  There have been some minor adjustments and tweaks to the categories, but anyone who has used the BlackBerry OS before will find themselves right at home on 4.6.

The layout is for the most part straightforward, but for a new user can still be intimidating at first glance.  Since every program has its own icon the user is inundated with 19 icons on the main menu, some of which are merely folders which lead to more icons.  It is slightly cleaner on the Curve, with fewer main level icons and a bit more folder organization, but there are still redundant instances like the Music icon which can also be accessed via Media.  This can be overwhelming for someone first picking up a BlackBerry, but once you use it you realize that the OS is very customizable and on the whole RIM’s approach is much better than, say, Windows Mobile (TouchFLO 3D aside.)  Its constant request for confirmation is very Windows XPish though, and quite frustrating.

We said the 8350i ran as smooth as we’d ever seen, and the 8900 is definitely on par with it.  There is no hint of the issues reported with the Bold and Storm (which runs the 4.7 OS, a touchscreen version of 4.6.)  Business users, the target audience, will be happy to see that their stable BlackBerry has returned and can go back to focusing on business instead of if their device will crash or not.

Phonebook:

There isn’t anything new about the phonebook, which is a good thing.  It’s as simple and straightforward as ever, and you can store virtually an unlimited amount of contacts.  Each contact can hold three email addresses, two work phone numbers, two home numbers, a mobile, pager, fax and “other” number as well as a space for a BlackBerry PIN number.  There is a slot for both a home and work address, as well as dates for anniversary and birthdays. Contacts can be sorted by user definable categories, each entry can have a custom ringer and picture ID, and there is a section for a webpage and notes.


Users can search directly from the main screen by typing in either the first or last name, and as you start to type a number in the phone application the Curve matches it with the contact list. When an entry is highlighted from the main contacts view the user can hit the send button to initiate a call. If the entry has multiple numbers it will bring up a popup window where you can select which one you want to call.

Organizer:

Again, nothing new here.  Like the phonebook, the calendar function is very robust. It can be managed either on your phone or on your PC, and when paired to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) it can be remotely managed and synced over the air. Creating an appointment is simple, and options such as reminders and recurrence are present. Appointments can also be marked as private for added security.

Other basic PIM functions are available, such as Tasks and a Memo Pad. Tasks is very basic, but reminders can be set and they can also be grouped into categories. The Memo Pad is a basic notepad, no bells and whistles. A Voice Note Recorder is present for taking notes on the go, and a basic calculator is also available.

Messaging:

Like any BlackBerry, the Curve supports a whole slew of messaging options. Standards like SMS and MMS are onboard, as is support for multiple email accounts and BlackBerry PIN messaging.  Other preloaded IM clients are AIM, GTalk, ICQ, Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger allowing you to keep in touch with virtually anyone.

Email setup on the BlackBerry is about as perfect as it gets, we simply put in our email and password and that was it. Even with our uncommon work email we didn’t have to enter any server information. The push email arrived nearly instantaneously in our testing. With the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) the user can have up to 10 email addresses on one device.

After our Storm debacle we were quite happy to get back to a real BlackBerry keyboard.  We were again reminded of why BlackBerries will continue to remain the standard for mobile email and messaging.

Connectivity and Data:

The Curve is a quad-band GSM device which unfortunately features only EDGE data.  It somewhat makes up for the 3G omission with Wi-Fi, but those not near a hotspot will be left in 2G purgatory.  Unlike the original Curve, where GPS and Wi-Fi were mutually exclusive, the 8900 packs both into one device which means we probably won’t be seeing an 8910 and 8920, though a 3G 8930 for Sprint and Verizon is expected in the first half of this year.  The 8900 has Bluetooth 2.0 and supports the HSP, HFP 1.5, DUN, SAP, PBA, A2DP, AVRC profiles.

The browser appears to be the same reworked browser first found on the Bold.  It looks similar to the BlackBerry browser of old, but has some improvements that lead to a better experience.  For starters, the standard mouse curser has been replaced with an eyeglass and a simple press of the trackball zooms in.  Rendering is better as well, and speed has increased though isn’t what we’d call fast, even over Wi-Fi.


BlackBerry Desktop Manager handles desktop sync as always.  It is used to manage calendar, tasks, contacts and email synchronization with your desktop.  You can also use the data cable to load media onto the memory card, and Media Sync will allow for iTunes syncing of non-DRM files, like we’ve seen with other recent BlackBerries.

Multimedia:

The 8900 Curve upgrades to a 3.2 megapixel camera and a centralized media player, which allows the user to play and manage music, videos, ringtones, pictures and voice notes.

The media player is good and simple to use, but not overly loaded with features. It supports folders, and will sort your music by Artist, Album and Genres. It also supports album art and playlists, which the user can create on the go, and the other options are Repeat and Shuffle. Audio formats supported are MP3, AMR-NB, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, WMA and WAV, while the video formats are MPEG4, H.263 and WMV.  As you would expect videos look wonderful on the high resolution screen.  The included stereo headphones are pretty poor, but the 3.5mm jack means you can use any headphones you want.  With our higher quality headphones music sounded very good.


The 3.2 megapixel camera performed well, better than the 3.2MP shooter found in the Storm.  Pictures were crisp and color saturation was natural. They were still a little dark, but we really had to nitpick to find something wrong with it. Options are sparse, the only real adjustment is the white balance, but the results speak for themselves. Especially since the camera is almost an ancillary feature we were pleasantly surprised with its performance on the Curve.


Video performance was more pedestrian. It records at 240x180 in normal mode or 176x144 for MMS mode, and is more on-par with what you’d expect from a cell phone. Performance isn’t bad, it’s just not good. The only option is Color Effect, and videos can only be recorded when using a memory card.

Software:

The Curve 8900 doubles the memory of the most well-endowed 83xx Curve with 256MB on board, and allows for microSD expansion up to 16GB.  The OS ran smoothly, and we did not experience any lockups or even momentary hangs.  This is even more impressive given that it runs the graphically richer 4.6 OS, as opposed to older versions found on previous Curves.

Included software is very sparse, with only a few standards along for the ride.  DataViz’s Documents to Go Standard Edition adds Word, Excel and Power Point support.  RIM has packaged four games with the 8900: Word Mole, Texas Hold ‘Em King 2, Klondike (solitaire) and of course the ever-popular Briack Breaker.  BlackBerry maps takes advantage of the internal GPS, but unlike the other major carriers there is no other GPS software included.

Third party GPS solutions are of course available, such as Google Maps.  Other third party applications can be downloaded also; our favorites include Opera Mini, Facebook and Flickr.  There is decent third party support for BlackBerry, but it is not as extensive as Windows Mobile, Palm or the iPhone.

Performance:

The Curve is not only a top notch business device but just as importantly performs well as a phone.  Like the 8350i we thought the speaker sounded recessed within the device leading to a very hollow.  We still could hear them just fine, but voice quality wasn’t top notch.  Callers said we sounded “quite good” and were impressed with the clarity.   We did experience a few dropped calls during testing, but we have a feeling that this has as much to do with T-Mobile than it does with RIM.  Battery life is rated at 5.5 hours of talk time, but as usual RIM has underrated their product.  In our testing we fell just short of 8.5 hours, which is as respectable as it gets.

Conclusion:

The 8900 is a worthy successor to the wildly successful 8300.  It combines all of the features we loved the first time around with a better form factor and increased specs.  The display is the on par with the Storm as the best we’ve ever seen from RIM, and though the keyboard is a bit small the overall feel is also RIM’s best effort.  The 4.6 OS is shiny and polished, though with Palm’s recent Pre announcement we feel RIM is about due for a drastic change that goes beyond cosmetics.  It doesn’t detract from the Curve’s performance too much though, and all in all we love what we see.