RIM BlackBerry 8830 Review

The BlackBerry 8830 is a bar type phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. There is a 2.6” display, with a resolution of 320 x 240, but due to the phones size, it seems relatively small. It does not disappoint, however, as the colors are very realistic and bright. There are two brightness levels available. The first is a default level and in normal light is very visible. If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot make out the display, pressing the power button once will brighten it. This should not be an issue as the 8830 is equipped with light-sensing technology which will adjust the brightness of the screen according to the environment.




The 8830 manages to be slim and big at the same time. It measures 4.4” x 2.6” x 0.5” and weighs 4.7 ounces. It is comfortable to hold and does not feel heavy at all. Using the functions with one hand proves to be no problem.

Model	Dimension (Inches)	Dimension (MM)	Weight (OZ)	Weight (Gramms)
Blackberry 8830	4.49" x 2.60" x 0.55"	114 x 66 x 14	4,6	130
Blackberry Pearl	4.20" x 2.00" x 0.57"	107 x 50 x 14.5	3,2	89,5
Motorola Q	4.57" x 2.48" x 0.45"	116 x 63 x 11.5	4,1	115
Samsung BlackJack	4.44" x 2.32" x 0.46"	113 x 59 x 11.8	3,5	100

Instead of using a D-pad, the 8830 lets you navigate through the menu using a trackball. We found that the trackball is nice but if little movement was applied, it seemed as if it didn’t read the trackball at all. Browsing through the menu is much faster than using a traditional D-pad. To the left of the trackball are the menu and call buttons and to the right are the back and hand-up buttons.

Just below the trackball is the keyboard. To make sure that it would fit, the keys had to be really small. We did run into a few problems because of this. First, due to their small size, we ended up hitting a few keys at the same time when typing quickly. Secondly, the “D” key and the spacebar seemed to not want to respond when pressed. You can feel the other keys click when pressed but the “D” key and the spacebar refused to move. Lastly, the “D” key and the spacebar did not respond when pressed. It wasn’t until another key was pressed simultaneously that the others started to work.

The number pad is in the keyboard itself on the left side. The “W” key acts as 1 and the pattern follows like any normal number pad.


On the left side of the phone is the 2.5mm audio jack, USB connection, voice-dialing shortcut, and cradle connection. The volume rocker is located on the right side towards the top. On the top are the hands-free speaker, power button, and the speaker button. The battery cover takes up half of the back and removing it will revile the micro SD slot and the battery. We did not like the location of the micro SD slot and thought it could have been placed in a much better location. Thankfully, the battery does not need to be removed to insert the micro SD card.