Photo gallery: BlackBerry Curve 8520This review was originally published on CNET UK and at this time the 8520 isn't available through Australia's mobile phone carriers.
As that creepy guy said at the beginning of The Twilight Zone: there's a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to humanity. We like to call it "The BlackBerry Zone". In this parallel world of mobile phones, everything works slightly differently — all screens are landscape displays, for example. RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8520 provides an inexpensive entry into this alternate phone reality, and we think you might just like it. You'll be burning up the social networks thanks to its QWERTY keyboard and solid apps, and a decent collection of media options means it's fun time, baby.
Cheap and cheerful
The BlackBerry family is rowing a lonely boat from the island of suit-wearing business types to the sweet shores of everyday consumers, and it's making good headway. The 8520 should give its kin a boost, thanks to an entry-level price and a solid range of fun features that will tempt even the most die-hard suit-hater.
The 8520 feels like a stripped-down version of the BlackBerry Curve 8900, forgoing the jazzy chrome trim for a rubbery edge. You can feel it's a less expensive phone, but it still feels solid and sturdy, and the rubber edge should help those with sweaty fingers hang on to the device.
To highlight the 8520's fun-loving attitude, the phone comes in a few different colours. We had the purple version. We recommend that — unless you're a teenager or trying to thwart thieves — you get the black version. We really can't stress this enough. The black version looks quite appealing. The purple model looks like baby puke.
Touch my trackpad
The biggest difference between the 8520 and other devices on the BlackBerry bush is its trackpad, which replaces the trackball you may know and love. The trackpad is a flat surface that responds to your touch like a mouse pad on a laptop, but it's insanely sensitive to make up for its tiny size.
The trackpad isn't quite as accurate as the trackball, but it's very good, and it makes the phone easier to pop into a pocket, since it doesn't stick out from the body and get gunged up with dirt and crud. It's no wonder that RIM says the trackpad will be a feature on most new BlackBerry models, and we're happy to see this innovation making its debut on a cheaper phone.
Rocking the QWERTY
The 8520's real strength lies in its QWERTY keyboard and messaging features, which make it a great phone for social networkers. You can set up as many as 10 email accounts, and, because the phone supports "push" email, you'll get messages as they arrive, rather than waiting for your inbox to update itself.
We like the solidly built applications for sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as the instant-messaging app. They combine with a full QWERTY keyboard to make a social butterfly's fantasy phone, since long messages can be easily and accurately typed. Dialling isn't as straightforward as on other phones, however, since the number keys are mixed in with the letters. On our purple model, they were hard to read.
The lack of 3G support put the brakes on our surfing while we were out and about, but it's still possible — especially for data-light tasks like sending tweets. Happily, the phone does have Wi-Fi connectivity, which speeds things up when you're on a wireless network.
Straight-up surfing the web in the browser is OK. It's better than on a typical phone with a small screen and no trackpad, but worse than on a webmeister like the iPhone. Web pages look clear and accurate, but we hated having to zoom in to click on smaller links. For some pages, it added a couple of clicks where none were necessary.
There's also no GPS, although you can use Google Maps, which triangulates your position using mobile-phone towers. It's not as accurate as GPS, though.
User-interface niggles
Most phones rock quite similar user interfaces, but the BlackBerry evolved along its own branch of the phone family tree, so it can take some getting used to if you're new to it. We found the 8520's UI generally easy to navigate, although we have a few niggling complaints. For example, the default menu icons are hard to make out, and there will be too many options for some people to handle.
The BlackBerry UI is also starting to feel rather dated compared to the jazzy UIs flaunted by bad asses like the HTC Hero. The address book, for example, is a boring list of names unembellished by any styling or added functionality. There are fun features in there — open a contact and you can see their Facebook profile picture, for example — but the list is as vanilla as a party at Cliff Richard's house. Happily, you can download apps that jazz up your contact list, home screen and other areas.
Media mogul
The screens on recent BlackBerry phones have been stunning, and the 8520's didn't disappoint either, despite having a lower resolution than the 8900's — 320x240 pixels, compared to 480x360. Videos are very watchable and photos look good, although you won't get spectacular snaps out of the 8520's 2-megapixel camera. There's no flash, but the camera does shoot video.
Listening to music on the 8520 is a painless experience. There are three dedicated music keys on the top to control the good times. We like that the music plays on while you're doing other things, but we'd like to see some information on the home screen about what's playing. In fact, the home screen as a whole seems like a waste of real estate, since the default setting only includes six shortcuts along the bottom of the screen.
Although we appreciate the 8520's standard 3.5mm headphone jack, its placement on the side of the phone is awkward. When we had a pair of headphones plugged in, the connector jutted out to the side, making the phone difficult to slide into a pocket or bag.
A 2GB microSD card and 256MB of on-board memory provide a great start for slapping a good number of tunes and photos onto the phone.
Conclusion
RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8520 is a solid, reasonably priced introduction into the world of the CrackBerry, and should give more people a chance to find out what the addiction is all about. Good social-networking and messaging apps, combined with a QWERTY keyboard, make the 8520 a worthy option for social butterflies, although they may miss having 3G connectivity on-board.
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