Blackberry Curve 8900 Review
Blackberry 8900 Review
When most people think of RIM, the first thing that comes to mind is email. Over the past decade, the Blackberry has become the champion device for email while on the go, with millions of users coming to know and love these tiny keyboard devices asCrackberries . In May of 2007, RIM launched their newest device, the Curve, which dropped the scroll wheel on the side in favor of the popular Trackball of the Pearl. Finally, RIM had a phone that would not only be used by business professionals around the world, but began to penetrate the consumer market. Then in May of 2008, the Blackberry Bold was announced, and brought an all new bright vibrant screen to the new line of devices. Users loved the new functionality, but the size of the Bold was close to the 8800 series devices. Enter, the Blackberry Curve 8900, which keeps the size of the original Curve, but adds some styling changes that are well received. The Curve 8900 is available on T-Mobile for $149.99 with 2-year contract.
In the Box
- Blackberry Curve 8900
- 1 Standard 1400 mAh Lithium Ion Battery
- 256MB MicroSD card
- T-Mobile SIM card
- MicroUSB AC Charger
- 3.5mm Stereo Headset with microphone
- MicroUSB Sync/Charge Cable
- Carrying Case
- Various guides and CD’s
Specs
- Technology: GSM/EDGE
- Wi-Fi with UMA calling
- Frequencies: 850/900/1800/1900
- Weight: 3.87 oz
- Size: 4.29″ x 2.36″ x 0.53″
- Cubic Volume: 5.36”
- Screen: 480 x 360 (HVGA)
- Camera: 3.2MP
- Headphone Jack: 3.5mm
Phone/Data
As a phone, the quality is as good as any other Blackberry. I’ve never felt them to be exceptional, but it sounds fine, and didn’t have any complaints for callers. As with other T-Mobile Blackberries, since the phone isUMA compatible, calling over Wi-Fi networks is possible. Pairing the phone to recognize both home and work Wi-Fi networks was simple, and using the service then becomes seamless. Anytime the phone is within range of one of the hotspots , it automatically connects and routes all data and voice traffic through the connection. The result is clearer conversations, and faster web browsing. The T-Mobile Curve with theUMA technology was the first Blackberry to do simultaneous voice and data connections at the same time. Because the phone isn’t running over theGSM network, you are able to switch over to the web browser or other applications that use data while on a call and use them.
Signal quality with the phone was great on the T-Mobile network, and i had no issues when out and about making calls. One additional item to note, when using the phone overWi-Fi, power consumption increases, and the phone battery will drain quicker. Using the phone with UMA constantly on had me struggling to get through 2 days before charging. Use with EDGE only gave the phone 3 days of use.
Hardware
The Curve 8900 hardware looks like a blend of the Curve 8300 and the Storm, with it’s sleek rounded corners. On the front is the beautiful 480 by 360 display, plus keyboard, Trackball and standard send, end, Blackberry, and back keys.
Compared to the original Curve.
Compared to the HTC Touch Diamond, Apple iPhone 3G, and Verizon Blackberry 8330.
Side comparison to Diamond, iPhone and 8330
Showing a profile view, the 8900 is a tad thinner.
Closeup of the keyboard
Closeup of the screen
Slingbox on the 8900
On the left side is a user definable button.
On the right side are the 3.5mm headset jack, volume rocker buttons, user definable button, and microUSB jack.
On the top are dedicated lock, and mute buttons.
On the bottom is the microphone port.
The back has the 3.2MP camera with auto-focus and LED flash as well as a release switch to remove the brushed aluminum cover for access to the battery, SIM card andmicroSD card.
Software/Features
The Curve 8900 comes with the latest 4.6 version of the Blackberry OS. The new version 4.6.1.114 is very fast, and new styling of icons make more sense than 4.5 and earlier software. Along with the standardPIM applications you expect on every smartphone, the 8900 comes Word To Go, Sheet To Go and Slideshow To Go from Documents To Go. These applications allow you to open and view your Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. A premium edition is available for purchase for $49.99 for one year or $69.99 for life that enables features such as creation and editing of these files. Also, Instant Messaging applications have been added to the suite of messaging functionality with AOL, Google,ICQ , Yahoo and even Windows Live Messenger. Blackberry Messenger is still of course on the phone, one of my personal favorites. Email integration is done either through a corporate Blackberry Enterprise Server, or the Blackberry Internet Service.
RIM’s recently introduced App World brings the Blackberry into the world of easy to download apps directly to the phone. By heading to blackberry.com/appworld users can now download the application to their device that allows them to load applications easily and quickly to the device. A few notable ones that I installed to test were Slacker Radio,Viigo and Twitterberry. Of course I had to try out the new Slingplayer client as well on the device, which gives a great viewing experience over Wi-Fi and decent quality over EDGE.
The 3.2MP camera on the 8900 steps up quality big time over previous Blackberries. The autofocus definitely assists in the resolution, and in both indoor and outdoor conditions, it is arguably a point and shoot replacement. Here are a few photos taken with the 8900′s camera on the highest resolution setting:
Outdoor landscape photo
Outdoor closeup photo
Indoor photo with flash
Indoor photo without flash
Overall
Original Blackberry Curve owners that are looking for an upgrade to their current hardware should seriously consider the 8900 as a worthy upgrade, if you can handle an EDGE only device on the T-Mobile network.
This is an awesome review! I’m switching over from my iPhone to a curve 8900 today, I’m excited to be back to my Blackberry OS. While the iPhone is a really amazing phone, I feel like it’s more for play than anything else. With applications like save kitty and ocarina, it’s not the best phone for a business setting. I think the biggest thing the iPhone lacks in is it’s email, it’s really archaic. As we all know, Blackberry takes the cake when it comes to email! Thanks for this great review.
Great review and great phone! This review helped a lot thanks!
I have just ordered the 8900. Your review made up my mind! Thank you. There is very little else I now need to know. I have been a BlackBerry user for around 4 years but with the Pearl. I now definitely need to “grow up” hence the acquistion of the 8900! Many thanks again for the work you obviously put in to compiling the review.
Blackberry curve 8900 is amazing phone with great features.3.2 Mega pixel camera gave added advantage.sleek in style.light weight.Battery life is perfect.Its really an improved version and Blackberry is taking very nice steps to improve the products.
Thanks to blackberry Canada
-Venkat
Thanks a lot for the very informative review on the Blackberry 8900. I’ve been a Crackberry user since Nov. 2004, starting with the now-antique 7730 twice. Then I switched to Curve 8300 and still using it since Nov. 2007. I like Curve 8900 better than Bold or Storm. I plan to get a Curve 8900. Your review helped me a lot. Regards.
Edd,
Glad this review was able to help you out!
I’ve just upgraded from a Pearl 8100 to the 8900, and I’m LOVING it. The .250 OS upgrade seems to have improved battery life quite a bit over the .114 version that Tmobile supplied. I was struggling to make it through the day on a single charge before, but now I can easily go morning till night with pretty heavy usage (wifi, GPS, UMA calls, bluetooth).
The camera is surprisingly good for such a small device, and video recording is decent too. I took side-by-side photos with a friend’s iPhone 3Gs, and her images appeared noticeably softer and colors duller compared to the 8900. I’ve taken photos from 3 inches with excellent clarity (photos of business cards upoaded to Evernote).
Shutter speed is also about a second faster on the .250 OS upgrade, BTW. Autofocus seems to slow down the shutter speed as compared to older models of camera that don’t have autofocus.
The image stabilization on the video is a very welcome feature. We also just got a Flip Ultra HD video camera, which while it has better resolution than the 8900, has no image stabilization which makes it quite jittery and in a way, less pleasant to watch than lower-res videos recorded with the 8900.
I have the Tmobile @home service to get free calls from home over UMA, and it’s been good, although I’ve experienced some dropped calls. Could be my imagination, but this 8900 seems to drop more calls than my old Pearl 8100 over Edge.
3G would’ve been nice to have, but considering how much more it drains the battery and how spotty 3G coverage is, and how it isn’t really necessary for voice calls, texts or email (the primary uses of the phone), I don’t think it’s a big loss.
I debated whether to switch to AT&T for the iPhone and its excellent array of applications, but Blackberry beats iPhone hands down in the main areas I need a phone: for voice calls, email, and text/mms. Also, the Blackberry allows you to multitask which the iPhone doesn’t. I can take the Blackberry running, listen to music, and track my mileage with a GPS tracker, and even answer phone calls… iPhone requires the GPS program be active and in the foreground.
Another thing I should mention is the screen on this thing. Beautiful, extremely high resolution. I turn down brightness to 10% to save battery, and still it’s plenty easy to see. Comparison of resolutions:
BBerry 8900: 480×360 (184ppi) – 2.44″ display
iPhone: 480×320 (163ppi) – 3.5″ display
The 8900 is noticeably crisper than the iPhone, although in the iPhone’s defense, I’ve never had any complaints about its lower resolution screen. The 8900 is SO clear and sharp that some of the text can be extremely tiny, which arguably could make it less useful.
For those who need to stick with Blackberry and don’t mind not having 3G, I think the 8900 is a really solid choice.
My first smart phone, and the 8900 is simply amazing!
thanks for the review. it has helped me make up my mind for this phone. thanks again.