Blackberry Curve 8520 review

6:05 PM Lrence 3 comments

The Blackberry Curve 8520 is one of the cheapest smartphone Research In Motion (RIM) has to offer at 10,999 pesos it’s no where near cheap, but it’s as low as Research In Motion could get, that is why they always get the notion of being an overpriced and under supported handhelds. Research In Motion (RIM) has announced recently that the company is suffering huge losses, the reason? Well iOS and Android of course, it seems like the two are joining forces to put Research In Motion out of its misery and now Nokia’s Windows Phone is rising up to join the two super powers, and maybe a large portion of their losses comes from their pricing strategy, selling expensive handhelds in times of recession is a dumb move considering the tight competition in the smartphone market, but RIM is a tough nut to crack, they won’t give up without a fight, they did everything possible to cope up with the smartphone competition, like total restructuring of the company and they are always in constant motion to develop more powerful handhelds and Os, my advice a web-based support is a good idea, that’s one thing Blackberry lacks.

The Blackberry Curve 8520 Sells at around 10,999 pesos in the Philippine market, at that price tag it’s almost a guaranty from RIM that nothing could go wrong with the BB Curve 8520, but that is not the case, the phone hangs and lags a lot, and some applications will stop working unless rebooted, lags and crashes are end products of fragmentation, and fragmentation could only mean one thing OS optimization is not 100% or not even close, a simple firmware update “if there is” for the 8520 could resolve these problems, and one thing I hate about the BB Curve 8520 is the built quality, it is made entirely of plastic, once you get hold of it, you won’t be impress by its cheap feel, the Nokia C3 looks more elegant than the 8520, but the price tags are worlds apart.

To every bad story there’s always a good one, that could very well define the BB Curve 8520, it’s not all bad for this phone, the BB Curve 8520 also has an arsenal of good features, like its traditional Blackberry QWERTY keyboard, it still remains unbeaten in the QWERTY phone line-up, and its 512Mhz processor performs well in browsing the web using its proprietary Blackberry internet browser, the BB Appworld also works well, but it lacks serious and useful free apps. Its 2.4 inch screen is sharp, giving your eyes less strain in reading long messages and e-mails. The integrated 3.0 megapixel camera takes good pictures but only in a well lit area, though, video quality is substandard for its price, the music player however, is a bonus it actually sounds good for a business phone and it uses a 3.5 mm jack, now try using Dr.Dre headphones! It also has a dedicated music buttons on top giving you instant access to your music, MP3 player anyone! Overall the BB Curve 8520 is not a bad phone the only thing that’s bringing it down is the price, if only Research In Motion could lower its price, then the 8520 will surely make its way up to the hearts of the qwerty phone lovers.

BLACKBERRY CURVE 8520 SPECS:

NETWORK: 2G GSM 850/900/1800/1900
DIMENSIONS: 109x60x13.9mm
WEIGHT: 106 g
KEYBOARD: QWERTY, Touch sensitive optical trackpad
DISPLAY: TFT 65k colors, 320 x 240 pixels, 2.46 inches (163ppi pixel density)
SOUND: vibration, polyphonic(32), MP3 ringtones, loudspeaker, 3.5 mm jack.
MEMORY: expandable upto 32 gig sd card, Internal 256 MB
DATA: GPRS class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps, EDGE class 10, 236.8 kbps
WLAN wi-fi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, Micro USB
CAMERA: Rear - 2megapixels 1600 x1200 pixel, Video QVGA
OS: Blackberry OS 5.0
CPU: 512mhz
MESSAGING: SMS( threaded view), MMS, E-mail, IM... BROWSER: HTML
OTHERS: Java, MP3/eAAc+/WMA/WMV player, MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player, Organizer, voice memo dial, predictive text input
BATTERY: Standby: up to 408 hrs, Talk time: 4 hrs 30 mins.

Posted in: Cellphone Review