Stereo Bluetooth and a real headphone jack make this the best BlackBerry yet for music, but will it convert consumers to the push e-mail cause?
Review summary of the RIM Blackberry Curve:
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 It's no wonder that in the weeks leading up to the iPhone's release, we're seeing a new category of "consumer" or "multimedia" smartphone peek its head out of the earth to look for its shadow. The Curve aims to bring the BlackBerry line to a more general audience, and to accomplish this RIM has improved the media player and, well, that's about it. Aside from our lousy experience with the Roxio software, the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo Bluetooth means that this could be a decent music phone. Otherwise, the Curve is still a BlackBerry, which is good for calls, e-mail, and other hardcore smartphone functions. Still, the aging interface and the heavily textual menus might scare away folks who don't want to nitpick onscreen font sizes, or adjust network settings. Excellent battery life deserves high praise, but every BlackBerry has excellent battery life. We're not sure if this is the one to win over the masses. Release: May 2007. Price: $100.
Pros: Excellent call handling. Push e-mail is business class for consumers. BlackBerry phones have the best battery life of any device.
Cons: No popular IM clients. Ugly calendar. Disappointing music app, with abysmal transfer software. Slow EDGE networking.
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64%
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Full RIM Blackberry Curve Review:
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The BlackBerry Curve is meant to strike a balance between the more consumer-oriented Pearl, and the all-business BlackBerry 8800. In judging the phone, we kept this in mind, and gave more weight to the most popular consumer multimedia features, like music playback and Web browsing, and less to productivity features, like Office document editing.
Design - Very good
In terms of size, the Curve falls neatly between the larger 8800 and the more narrow Pearl. The keyboard, a full QWERTY pad, has keys that more closely resemble the older 8700-series phones than the strangely angled keys on the 8800. Typing was comfortable, and though we can't declare our preference between the Curve and the 8800, we had no problems with either. Holding a key creates a capital letter, which is convenient, but we prefer the T-Mobile Dash's method of activating the symbols above the key when you hold it. The ball is the same on this device as on the other recent BlackBerry phones; we definitely liked it more than the clickwheel, but navigation wasn't perfect, and sometimes, while selecting an option from the long menus, we would accidentally click one step too high or too low.
The screen on the Curve is very nice, a 2.5-inch, QVGA display. The skinny BlackBerry font looks clean, very legible, and a little mechanical, but makes for easy reading, which is supposed to be the point of this device, anyway. The operating system, disappointingly, is nearly identical to the BlackBerry 8800, with a few minor additions that we noticed. Still, the BlackBerry interface was showing its age last September when the Pearl was released. Now, its just plain out of date. Come June 29th, it may be obsolete. Besides the aging icons, the BlackBerry relies heavily on very long lists of options. While some, and by no means most, business users might find the dense customization options to their liking, we think most business people, and nearly all consumers, would prefer fewer options in favor of elegant simplicity, of which the Curve will never be accused.
Calling - Very good
Though we were disappointed by call quality on the Curve, in every other aspect of call handling, from the address book to Bluetooth, the device is at the top of its class. Calls suffered from static on AT&T's EDGE network in lower Manhattan, and occasionally we lost EDGE entirely. The address book features live, while-you-type searching from the standby screen, which we like, and this feature is available almost everywhere you need to type a name. Conference calling and Bluetooth were both easy to setup, with no surprises, though we'd prefer a bit less menu digging. The phone supports profiles for alerts, and can use song files from the media player as ring tones. Even the speakerphone worked well, though it, too, suffered from some static. Still, the quality wasn't bad enough to keep it from earning our highest rating in this category.
Messaging - Very good
The BlackBerry is made for e-mail, and the Curve can handle up to 10 e-mail accounts. We're not fond of the Desktop Redirector software, which we found intrusive, but if you have any sort of push e-mail setup that works with the BlackBerry, you'll be pleased to find it a snappy, competent device. Since we're thinking of this phone as a consumer handset, we found the lack of popular IM clients to be disappointing, but instant messaging between BlackBerry devices is easy, if you have the other person's device number. Unlike the 8800, which lacks a camera, the Curve makes MMS messaging as easy as SMS, and we had no trouble sending pictures via MMS or e-mail.
Scheduling - Good
The calendar on the Curve is as good as you'll find on any BlackBerry device, but it should be much better. Clearly a carry-over from the old monochromatic days, the calendar is bare and square. It may be easy to read, but it isn't pleasant. After the menus, we'd like to see some graphic designers go to town on the scheduling app and create something truly fetching. Until then, we were happy with the Outlook synchronization, though again the ultra-long menus and options may put off the average consumer. Less is more, RIM.
Music - Mediocre
Though music has been improved on the Curve even since the Pearl, the changes don't extend all the way into the media player, which is basically unchanged. Playlist creation is easy, and there are options for shuffling songs, but the media player is very basic, with little control over playback and no EQ options. The device sports a 3.5mm jack, which happily surprised us, and also works well with stereo Bluetooth, so you'd expect it to be a music powerhouse. Instead, RIM brings the entire category to a halt with Roxio's horrid Media Manager software. The program seems to be aimed more at Engineers than consumers, and we found it confusing, unfriendly, counterintuitive, and just plain difficult to use. Though simpler offerings from Nokia and Samsung leave us wanting, we'd prefer them any day to the confusing Media Manager. In the end, we decided to use the device in mass storage mode and drag our music files to the device manually.
Web browsing - Mediocre
Web browsing on the Curve should have been better, and the device was fearless when it came to loading large, complicated pages, like the New York Times homepage and our graphically rich site. Not that pages loaded correctly, mind you, but the Curve didn't crash when we tried. Graphics looked okay, but layout is all over the place. The Curve features a Page Overview, which is sort of like the mini-map we adore on Nokia's N-series Web browser, except much uglier, and with scrolling that isn't as smooth. In fact, scrolling was a problem for us across the board. Though we prefer the trackball to the clickwheel in scrolling long and wide pages, the Curve needs some sort of accelerated scroll capability, as we found ourselves flicking the ball relentlessly while navigating even moderately large pages.
Battery life - Excellent
There is no phone that can match the BlackBerry in terms of battery life. In our calling tests, though the phone is rated at just under five hours, we made a single call that lasted 10 hours, and then we had to hang up. Seriously, 10 hours. We would have tested standby times, but we don't have access to the review unit for long enough to make a real assessment. If you go on vacation for a week with your BlackBerry, you won't need your charger.
Price and availability
The BlackBerry Curve is available from AT&T for $200 with a contract agreement. A mail-in rebate of $100 is available, when signing up for a qualifying data and voice plan.
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