Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/01/28/review_smartphone_rim_blackberry_8900/

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900

Bold junior

By Dave Oliver

Posted in Personal Tech, 28th January 2009 13:02 GMT

Review Looking a lot like Blackberry's flagship, the Bold 9000, the latest handset from Canadian email maestro Research in Motion (RIM), is a slightly more compact version of that phone but still manages to pack in almost all of the same features.

There's Wi-Fi, GPS and a gloriously detailed screen, as well as Blackberry's trademark ease with email. But the 8900's glaring omission is 3G connectivity. Yes, that helps to reduce both price and size, but this is a smartphone, and good web access is essential to get the most out of it, so this seems like an unnecessary handicap. With its Wi-Fi connection, fast surfing isn't impossible, but it does severely limit your options as to where you can do it.

RIM BlackBerry 8900

RIM's BlackBerry 8900: Bold junior

Looks-wise, the 8900 clearly takes after the Bold rather than its immediate predecessors in the Curve series, which, lacking the new model's delicately curving style, tended to come over rather blocky and corporate. Just because it's efficient doesn't mean a smartphone can't look cool.

The 8900 also manages to be significantly smaller than the Bold, measuring 109 x 60 x 14mm and weighing 110g to the Bold's 114 x 66 x 15mm and 136g. Anything that helps a Blackberry fit more easily in your pocket has got to be a good thing, and this one manages it without sacrificing any usability.

The 2.4in, 480 x 360, 65,000-colour screen looks great, as does the icon-based menu system from the latest BlackBerry 4.6 OS, which we've seen on both Blackberry's recent Bold and Storm models. There's a quick, six-icon bar on the home screen for easy access to the most-used functions, and the menu button brings up a feast of apps, all easily accessed using the Blackberry's rather lovely trackball. Incidentally, the 8900 comes with a little leather-look pouch to protect the screen which is effective, but does bulk it out quite considerably.

The four-line keyboard looks the same as the Bold's, but it's a teeny bit more cramped, and during attempts at speed typing we noticed the difference, experiencing more errors than we'd anticipated. A little practice and more concentration seemed to solve that problem, however. We guess it just takes some getting used to.

Around the sides are volume buttons, a dedicated shutter button for the camera, a mini USB power socket, a voice-dialling key and a keyboard lock button. The latter, on top of the phone, is certainly convenient, but the fact that it requires a single press means it's not difficult to unlock the handset accidentally, which could potentially leave you open to Alistair Campbell-style accidental email debacles. We're just saying…

RIM BlackBerry 8900

More pocket-friendly than past Curves

The main functional improvement on the Bold comes with the camera, a 3.2Mp job as opposed to the 2Mp type seen on both the Bold and the 8300. Not only that, but it has autofocus and an LED flash – a grown-up camera for a grown-up handset.

It's quick to access using the shutter button on the side of the handset - it's ready to shoot in around two seconds - and includes a 2x digital zoom controlled using the volume buttons. There are three picture sizes available, with the largest being 2048 x 1536, plus three compression settings increments, from Normal to Superfine, to trade file size for clarity. Snaps can be geo-tagged.

There's video too, which wasn't available on the last Curve we saw. It's not great, it has to be said, offering a resolution of only 240 x 180, but has less of a tendency to blur with movement than many other comparable cameraphones we've looked at.

Taking pictures using autofocus wasn't as speedy as we'd have liked, since it takes another three seconds to focus and snap, which isn't ideal if you want to capture the moment. Colours tend to look a little flat but there's a fair amount of detail in pics taken in decent light - the flash is only really effective when you're within a metre or so of your subject.

The media player handles a good range of formats, including MP3, WMA, AAC (including 'e' and '+'), MIDI and WAV for audio, plus DivX, XviD, MPEG 4, H.263 and WMV 3 for video. It comes with a pair of decidedly ordinary earphones but thankfully there's a 3.5mm socket on the side which allows you to add your own, or you can connect a wireless pair using an A2DP stereo Bluetooth connection.

RIM BlackBerry 8900

The 3.2Mp camera has autofocus, but it's not fast

On-board memory is nothing to shout about, though, at 256MB, it's better than most Blackberrys. The 8900 can handle Micro SD cards of up to 16GB capacity should you need it. There's none supplied as standard, though.

The current version of the Blackberry browser is efficient without being flash. The landscape resolution of the screen is good for viewing web pages, and there's a clever automatic zoom function that becomes available when you move the trackball. It's also easy to move around pages by pushing the cursor against the edges of the screen.

The lack of 3G actually isn't quite as debilitating as it might have been, since the GPRS connection means you can get around most web pages without too much delay. But you'll really notice the difference when downloading.

Blackberry Maps is OK but far from the best phone-borne satnav system we've used. It had difficulty locating satellites when indoors, unless we stood right next to a window, and gave some wrong positions for streets in north London that we searched for. To move the map around, you need to select an option from Maps' menu system, which is daft but a result of using the trackball for zooming.

RIM BlackBerry 8900

Excels at email - but other apps could better

Fortunately, Google Maps and, if you're on the right network, Vodafone Sat Nav are also available and either will give you a better cartographical experience than Blackberry's home-grown offering.

Speaking of additional apps, there are plenty available for the Blackberry these days, with those that focus on social networking being of particular popularity. There's a Facebook app preloaded, but you can also add others for MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and more, all of them made even more addictive by the ease of text-entry the Qwerty keyboard provides. But, as we say, GPRS links aren't the best for ad hoc app acquisition.

Battery life proved to be pretty decent. We got a good two days of moderate use out of it even with Wi-Fi switched on. Dock it at work or overnight, and you're not likely to run of charge while out and about. Call quality wasn't bad either.

Verdict

The 8900 looks good and does everything you'd want a BlackBerry to do. The only question is, do you want HSDPA and 3G? If you don't - and with the 8900's Wi-Fi, you might well not - this Bold Junior is rather cheaper than the RIM flagship, and comes with the added benefit of a better camera. ®

More BlackBerry Reviews...


Storm

Bold 9000

Pearl Flip 8220

Pearl 8120