RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 Review

Messaging:

Like any BlackBerry, the Curve 8330 supports a whole slew of messaging options. Standards like SMS and MMS are onboard, as is support for multiple email accounts and BlackBerry PIN messaging. It should be noted that Sprint Smartphones do not fully support MMS; they are received in the form of an SMS and the user must click the link to view the picture via the browser, and pictures must be sent as an email attachment rather than a typical MMS.

PIN messaging is similar to SMS, except that it is sent securely over RIM’s servers and does not use an SMS gateway. Each BlackBerry, regardless of carrier, has its own unique PIN. You simply chose the PIN Message option, enter their PIN in the To field and send the message. Though similar to SMS, it does not count towards SMS packages but does use data.

The Sprint Curve includes AIM, GTalk and Yahoo Messenger clients. The Verizon version has nothing loaded, though an AIM/Yahoo/MSN client is available via their portal.

Email setup on the BlackBerry is about as perfect as it gets, we simply put in our email and password and that was it. Even with our uncommon work email we didn’t have to enter any server information. The push email arrived nearly instantaneously in our testing. With the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) the user can have up to 10 email addresses on one device.


Connectivity and Data:

The Curve 8330 features EVDO Rev. 0 data, which makes browsing much better than the original 3G-less 8300. It was also much better than the Pearl 8130, and we did not have a problem with slow page loads. Within the browser the trackball is utilized like a mouse, making it easier to navigate. There are two viewing modes, Page and Column. The former shrinks the page and the user can pan around and zoom in on specific areas, but it is not quite the desktop experience that Opera Mini offers, it’s more like Mobile Internet Explorer. It works, but it’s not the best browsing experience and we’d like to see RIM drastically overhaul their browser.

WAP pages loaded best (for example, espn.com redirected to the WAP page) but the browser does have the ability to handle HTML pages. Phonearena.com took about a minute to load, but did not render all that well. YouTube videos work via m.youtube.com (which it does not automatically redirect you to) but videos are small even when played in full screen mode. Interestingly, the VZW portal, however, gave us issues and either partially loaded or more often than not didn’t load at all. We were able to download applications such as Live Search relatively quickly, and they automatically installed to the main menu.



The Curve features Bluetooth 2.0 and lists compatibility with the HSP, HFP, SPP, A2DP and AVRC profiles, meaning basically, you can only use it with a mono or stereo headset. However, via an extremely complicated and unintuitive process you can transfer files to the Media Player. While in the Media Player open the context menu and choose “Receive Using Bluetooth.” Initiate the transfer from your computer (or whatever other device) and receive the file on your BlackBerry. Choosing what location to save it to is a hassle as well, moving through folders in the tree requires two clicks instead of just pressing the trackball to select, and when you finally find the folder you want you have to bring up the context menu and choose select folder, as opposed to selecting open which would display any subfolders. You can actually send any file type this way, but the only file explorer the Curve has is within the Media Player and it will only open media files, so even though you can view Office documents from an email, you cannot save them to your memory card and view them. You can see why we’re a bit frustrated with the UI.

The BlackBerry desktop software is included with the Curve, and it is used to manage calendar, tasks, contacts and email synchronization with your desktop. The user can sync data with ASCII importer/exporter, Outlook Express, Outlook and Yahoo, though some users have reported issues with Outlook 2007. You can also use the data cable to load media onto the memory card.