What if you took the design of the BlackBerry Storm, the features, and some smaller design elements of the BlackBerry Bold 9000, and then put them all into the form-factor of a Curve 8300 series device?
You’d end up with the Curve 8900, RIM’s second newest consumer oriented BlackBerry offering.
The Curve 8900 has been available across many parts of Europe since early/mid 2008, but wasn’t announced or officially offered by a carrier in the states until CES 2009 in January of this year. When it was announced as RIM’s “Thinnest and Lightest Full QWERTY BlackBerry Smartphone”
And for once, the PR statement actually holds true (rather then being an over-hyped line dreamt up by a drowsy PR-bloke at his desk.) the Curve 8900 is, shockingly thin and light, most photos online fail to do it justice, and is actually a very nice device to hold in hand as well as to actually use.
The QWERTY keyboard may be a bit small for some with larger thumbs (but the Curve 8300 series is still available for those who need a keyboard with larger spacing between each individual key, but you do loose somethings such as RIM’s new 4.6 operating system).
The selling point on the device for many, would be the screen, Its a 480X360 Half VGA screen featuring 65,000 Colours, It wouldn’t be too far fetched to compared this display to that of an iPod Touch or iPhone, Colours show to be a bit warmer when compared with the display on the BlackBerry Storm, but this, in use, is really a non-issue. Photos display brilliantly on the device, colours pop and the display manages to show a nice amount of detail, while remaining crisp. Video is nearly the same story, Ghosting or “artifacting” is no where to be found while watching videos on the display, and it was extremely easy to watch a 27 minute telly programme on the display
The 8900 also features a 3.1 megapixel Camera, with auto-focus and an LED flash, Photos from the device are equally as impressive as the screen you’ll view them on. Once downloaded to your PC (with the included BlackBerry Desktop Application) or Mac, the photos are even more impressive, managing to compare to those off a Nokia N-Series device, or Motorola’s ROKR E9, Resolution for photos when quality settings are set to maximum, and compression settings set to minimum, are 2048 x 1536 for Portrait, or 1536 x 2048 for Landscape, and will size to be between 375KB to 650KB once downloaded. The 8900 supports a MicroSD card of up to 16GB, so this is again, not an issue. It should be noted that the right-side of the device features a two-stage user-programmable connivence key, which by default is set to the Camera, Depress the button slightly to focus, and depress fully to take the photo, just like that on many modern day cameras.
Battery Life from the D-X1 battery does vary depending on your usage, I’m more of a texter (Sending, on average, 10-12,000/month) then lets say, a web-browser, meaning I’m not using the device’s radio constantly, rather, using it for a few seconds at a time to send an SMS to the network, I’m able to go an entire day, to a day and a half without a recharge, Those using the device more, or using more draining features such as WiFi or Bluetooth may experience shorter battery life. It seems to be an internal policy that the mAH (or capacity) is never listed on RIM’s batteries, but its generally accepted that the D-X1 is 1600 mAH. You can expect a recharge time of 3.5 to 4.5 hours when charging from the “Low Battery” threshold (when the battery reaches about 10% of its fully charged capacity).
Now to the part that seems to grab the attention of some, The 4.6 version operating system, OS 4.6 was first introduced on the Pearl 8220 (also known as the Pearl Flip) and has now been brought to RIM’s other devices, Version 4.6 is the first “drastic” change in the operating system since 2004, It features a highly modernised look and pre-defined folders for Downloads, Applications and things like Settings. Some may like this change in navigation, but some may not, as it does mean your forced to scroll about a bit more to get to where you wish to go in some cases. Personally, I like it the new UI, I feel the update was far past due, OS 4.5 which shipped on the previous Curve/Pearl models was showing its age, in more then one front.
The Conclusion
The 8900 is a welcomed update for a device which was beginning to show its age, its chock full of new features, some not even mentioned here, like GPS, video recording, support for the playback of different video standards, and quite a bit more. The new design is a refreshing change from that of the 8300, following RIM’s recent change in styling for its devices (Black and Silver, with subtle yet interesting differences between each device.)
The Curve 8900 is certainly not something that should be compared with the Bold. The Bold is RIM’s current “flagship” top-of-the-line model and its apparent in almost every-way, from the faux leather back-plate to the brushed-aluminium BlackBerry logo below the camera.
The Curve 8900 would be an ideal choice for someone who wants a higher-end device, without the larger overall dimensions of the Bold, while still wanting the high resolution display, full QWERTY keyboard, and GPS mapping functionality. I’m not one to assign “stars” to a product, but the 8900 would be provided with 4.5 to 5 stars by me.
The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is available in the UK on O2 for between £0 and £235 (depending on your contract, tariff and selected data plan.) and is also available in the US on T-Mobile USA for US149 on the basis of a two-year agreement.
