Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Blackberry Curve 8900

The Blackberry 8900 Curve is just 13.5 mm thin, being branded as the thinnest Blackberry with a full QWERTY keypad. It looks and feels just as a usual blackberry, while measuring 109 x 60 mm. The weight of the Curve 8900 makes it stable for one-handed typing, quick navigation around menus and features. It is sure one of the lightest full keyboarded Blackberry navigator at 109 grams. The screen of the Curve 8900 is a high-density screen measuring 2.44 inches diagonally. The dedicated lock button above the screen definitely improves usability. Below the screen is the evenly spaced keyboard Blackberrys are popular for. The keyboard has a total 35 keys, with the numeric pad integrated into the QWERTY keys. The trackball on the Blackberry Curve 8900 makes it easy to navigate through the intuitive menus. The overall feel of the device is that of a sophisticated communicator.

On the feature side, the Blackberry Curve 8900 has a good back up. The Blackberry 8900 has an integrated 3.2 Megapixel camera with AutoFocus and Image Stabilization features. The lacking part still is video recording. There's only support for 240x180 videos, which is not good for any purposes. The Curve 8900 is popular for its integrated GPS. The assisted-GPS works well with Blackberry Maps application for quick locking with the satellite. One of the delights of the modern Blackberry is its high-resolution, high-density screen supporting 480x360 pixels at 65K colors. There's support for Push- Email and Exchange on the 8900 like on most Blackberrys. The media player was enhanced with support for Divx and Xvid, making it a pleasure to watch high res videos encoded in the latest formats, on the great screen of the Blackberry Curve. Almost every video and audio format conceivable is supported on the Blackberry 8900, making full use of the SDHC capability to turn it into a portable Media player. The Blackberry 8900 currently supports SDHC cards of a capacity up to 32 GB. The full HTML browser included on the 8900 could render pages almost as beautifully as on a desktop browser. All these features make up for the lack of 3G connectivity on the Blackberry Curve 8900.

The Blackberry Curve 8900 is a Quad-band GSM handset supporting 850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequencies for anywhere connectivity in the Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe regions. The blackberry includes EDGE Class 10 and GPRS support for over-the-air data connectivity. The Curve 8900 lacks any form of third generation connectivity. However, it is fully equipped for data with support for Wi-Fi networks and WPA/WPA2 P&E certifications. It further supports DirectIP browsing, UMA/GAN on WLAN 802.1 b/g networks. For local connectivity with devices and computers, the Curve 8900 has Bluetooth 2.0 and A2DP support.

The Curve 8900, though slim, is equipped with a 1400 mAh Li-ion, backing it up for a 5.5-hour talk time. The rated standby for this device on GSM networks is a generous 350 hours, or about 15 days.

The Curve 8900 is one Blackberry of a phone, we have no issues using it as a business device. The pricing is apt considering the features it offers. Even when bought outright, the Curve delivers value for money as a full featured GSM business phone. However, we don't endorse this phone as a future-proof investment, unless you absolutely want no 3G connectivity.