Blackberry Curve 8300 Review - A Closer Look
Blackberry has always been a phone company to develop stylish, useful, practical, user friendly, and functional phones that are also good value for your money, and this time around, the Blackberry Curve 8300 is definitely no exception.
A Glimpse of the Features
The Blackberry Curve 8300 has features similar to that of other Blackberry phones, particularly the 8800, and while some Blackberry qwerty phones have been criticized for having keys that are too small or scrunched up together, the Blackberry Curve 8300 is not one of them. While it sports small keys, they are spaced well apart and are easy to use, especially when combined with the tactile and responsive features that make navigation, typing and text messaging easy. On the other hand, some might have a bit of difficulty with the navigational controls, but its just one of those thing you can get used to in time, so there’s really no problem there. Another advantage of the Blackberry Curve 8300 from other similar phones is its smaller form factor, as it is more lightweight, and a bit smaller and thinner than many of the qwerty phones of its generation. This more convenient size make it better to hold while sending or composing text messages or calling. While it does not have a GPS antenna, the Blackberry Curve 8300 is also capable of downloading maps (fees depend on your plan and your provider) but you have to attach a Bluetooth GPS antenna to be able to receive the images from Blackberry Maps.
Regular features like a music player, as well as 2 megapixel camera with a 5x zoom magnification are available, but are not major features of the Blackberry Curve 8300. There is also a 3.5mm jack for plugging in a headset or speakers (but the inboard speakers are very well too). The screen has 65,000 colors with a 320×240 pixel resolution, or a 2.5 inch screen. One of the smaller cooler things are the keyboard LEDs, which automatically adjust to compensate for lack of ambient light. It is also possible to transfer date from and into the phone through USB connectivity.
The Downside
The downside for the Blackberry Curve 8300 is its lack of Wi-Fi or even 3G connectivity, which is a definite turn-off for people who are looking to use this as a primary business phone. The internal memory is also a bit lacking, standing at 64 megabyte, but can me remedied through external microSD memory. The camera is good for still photos but it cannot record video, which is a bit of a bummer. However, it can still play good video.
Basically, the Blackberry Curve is reliant on technology and applications that are reliant on Bluetooth, which puts a big damper on what would otherwise be a great phone. It might have something to do with the scaling down of the phone to become slimmer and lighter – which is really either a good thing or bad thing, depending on the person who plans to use it. If you’re planning to use it primarily for business purposes and / or are in need of Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity, then this phone is not for you. However, if these lacking features are not a hindrance, then except for the lack of video recording capability, this phone does well in all other aspects – battery life, user friendliness, value for money, tactile and responsive keypad, stable operating system (which is of course, the Blackberry OS). This is definitely one of Blackberry’s phones that are geared to more casual users, who have no need of frequently connecting to the internet to check on important messages all the time. It’s a very casual phone, despite its qwerty nature, so the final decision really rests on the buyer, depending on his or her needs.
Specifications:
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