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In a technology world full of Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile, Blackberry releases another smartphone with QWERTY keyboard – Black Berry Curve 8900. The device wears the mark of the Canadian company especially when it comes to design and software. The brand fans will most likely be happy, because this device is one of the few RIM released last year. After they tried to enter the touch screen smartphones market, it seems that RIM continues to run on the same conservative line announcing a new phone that comes with nothing really new in terms of design and technical features. So do not expect new things, because the Black Berry Curve 8900 is just a standard smartphone , but solid, which has as a target the Blackberry fans of the series that have an average budget.

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Black Berry Curve 8900 is a middle-class smartphone, so do not expect to find technologies such as 3G and HSDPA. Users will benefit only from EDGE and GPRS Class 10. Fortunately, RIM has also included Wi-Fi 802.11b / g - a great option for users to reduce costs for Internet browsing and data transfer. Although the integrated browser is decent, you can choose the MiniOpera browser, which is fully compatible. Unfortunately, you will have to wait when accessing Web sites with richer graphics when using an EDGE connection. I suggest finding a Wi-Fi hotspot, when you plan to visit these types of sites or if you want to transfer more data. Tested in EDGE networks, the phone results were mediocre, as was also expected - 138 Kbit / s download and 74 Kbit / s upload (EDGE).

In terms of messaging services, Black Berry Curve 8900 offers the whole package of standard Blackberry features. If you want to receive messages from multiple accounts or you need the instant messaging services, the smartphone has it all. Unfortunately, you will be limited to e-mail accounts from the BlackBerry Internet service. However, unlike the Bold, Curve 8900 includes two new services, instant messaging (Windows Live Messenger and GoogleTalk), in addition to your usual Blackberry Messenger. In addition, installing the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is required, to integrate the BlackBerry into a company system. The synchronizing with your PC can be done very easily with BlackBerry Desktop Manager. The transfer is very fast, whether you synchronize e-mails and messages or simply fill the smartphone with files.



Black Berry Curve 8900 has a built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS and BlackBerry Maps. The GPS module works perfect and completes the technical features of a smartphone that Blackberry fans wanted included in one device. Black Berry Curve 8900 is a quad-band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900), including GPRS and EDGE class 10. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and microUSB for PC synchronization (including charging). We recommend using the dedicated charger in the sales package, because charging with the USB cable will last more than 2 hours. The conversation quality is good, but it cannot be compared with the conversation we experienced using the model Bold 9000. The GSM signal is very good in EDGE network.

Black Berry Curve 8900 benefits from a single processor 512MHz Marvell, which makes it one of the fastest Blackberry smartphones on the market. The most modern Blackberry models include ARM9 family processors. Some Blackberry phones include ARM7 family processors so are a bit slower. Even if the 8900 Curve is part of the first category, unfortunately, I noticed that the phone has lags when making multi-tasking among multiple applications. Furthermore, we did not experienced operating system blocks, in addition to those annoying lags when using two or more applications. Blackberry Bold 9000 is certainly faster than this model, but the difference is barely noticeable, which makes the 8900 Curve a very good option.

The smartphone includes 120 MB user available memory and 256 MB flash memory. The storage space can be expanded up to 16 GB via the hot swappable microSD memory slot.

There is not much to say about the multimedia, only that it wears the same conservative print, business, but this is understandable since we are talking about a smartphone, which has as a target the business segment. The music player supports the function "album art", but it does not have an equalizer. It also supports music files such as MP3/WMA/WAV/WMA-DRM +, which can be sorted by artist, album and genre. Users will be able to make their own playlists in just a few minutes.

Moreover, even if the music player has only standard features, I was surprised to find a good sound quality, especially when using the headphones other than those in the sales package. This is possible thanks to the 3.5 mm audio port so you can easily attach your own headphones. Another disadvantage that I found can be the placement of the audio jack on the right side of the phone, which will make it almost impossible to keep the phone in your pocket when the headphones are inserted into the port.

The music player can be minimized in the background, and because of the connectivity through Bluetooth, you can enjoy your music through wireless stereo headphones. The music played by the external speaker is loud and clear enough, but the lack of an equalizer makes the music sound to be pretty much the same, regardless of the song. Overall, even if poorly in equipment, the multimedia features are surprisingly good for a business phone, and especially for BlackBerry devices.

The Li-Ion 1400 mAh has an official autonomy of 356 hours in standby mode and about 5 hours and 30 minutes in talk time. Our test unit required a recharge after about 3 days of average use. However, those who frequently use the phone will need to recharge the phone every 1-2 days. The autonomy is acceptable for a Curve 8900 owner, which uses only the Blackberry specific services, namely messaging services, but if you have long telephone conversations you may have a problem regarding the battery.

Well, I was not too impressed with this smartphone, as it looks like a normal Blackberry phone. If you are not used to the "pie" form of the Blackberry devices, you might find this smartphone interesting in terms of design. However, Black Berry Curve 8900 is just a cheaper version of Bold, but that does not mean that its performance is much lower. I found the device quite well built and solid, with an attractive aspect, which will certainly appeal to fans of the RIM Company. The average range of features is well balanced and it works reliable, providing stability to users when they are not in the office.

The launch of Storm radically changes the design we have been used from the BlackBerry's. Enough with the QWERTY keyboard hardware, we will now use a virtual one. The full touchscreen phones is one promising field. While the iPhone remains the phone with the best graphical interface, it is not so unique as it was at its release. All important manufacturers have released or announced iPhone competitors.

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RIMs move is among the most surprising. So far, they have kept the design that made them famous, rarely emerge from these patterns. I think the only exception from its typical design was the Pearl Flip 8220 model.

BlackBerry Storm comes in a black box, of medium size, with a very simplistic design. In the box are all the accessories you need for such a smartphone. Besides the charger, the software CD and the manual, we find a microUSB cable, a cover and stereo headphones.

The phone has a nice design and looks very solid. All materials are quality materials, although the plastic dominates. Apparently, it is pretty heavy, it has 155 grams, but it's a smartphone, so I did not expect less. The thickness has only 14 mm, so the phone feels great in hand.

The front side is dominated by a 3.25 inch screen. Under the screen are four buttons of any BlackBerry standard: the response or finish calls buttons, the menu key and the Back key. Under these four keys is an empty piece of about half a centimeter. Although apparently it has no role, this area is very useful. If the four buttons were exactly on the bottom edge it would have been very hard to click on them without dropping the phone. On both sides there is one button to open the battery cover. You need to simultaneously press both buttons so you can remove the cover. On the left side, we find the microUSB port. BlackBerry used the miniUSB port until recently, but it seems to have abandoned this in favor of the newest port. On the right side, there are the volume keys, camera key and a 3.5 mm audio jack. On the back, the phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera and its related flash. The battery cover is made of aluminum, which contributes to a solid feeling of the phone.

Storm has a graphical interface optimized for finger use. It does not come with a stylus. Although the Blackberry is new in this field (because until now Blackberry had no touch screen phones), they did a good job, I did not felt the need to use a stylus. Most buttons are large enough not to press wrong. However, there are situations when certain buttons are closer, and you can possibly make a mistake when you type something.

The new function of this phone is the SurePress function. This function wants to solve one problem, namely pressing the wrong keys on touch screens. On Blackberry Storm, if you touch a button on the screen, it will illuminate, and if what you wanted to type is correct, you must click on the screen. The entire full screen is actually a button. This function has good sides and bad sides. Indeed, the probability you will press something wrong is reduced, but it's also tiring to write on this screen than on a normal touchscreen. I prefer the classical touchscreen, even if sometimes we do wrong, it is easier to delete and correct. Storm's hardly attracts you to write long texts, so people that are used to their full QWERTY keyboards will remain at Bold. The good thing is that we have copy / paste in all places where text appears.

The screen is 3.25 inches wide and the resolution is 360 x 480 pixels. The colors are very vivid and the contrast is good. You can watch movies in landscape mode in very good conditions. The plastic from which the screen is made seems very durable, do not think it will scratch too easily.

On the big, high quality screen is a pleasure to look at both pictures and movies. Images appear clearly and vividly colored. Landscape mode is ideal to go through pictures taken with the phone or taken from elsewhere.

When it comes to music, things are better. Besides the included 1 GB of memory, you can put an 8 GB microSD card (or even 16 GB if the phone supports). You will then have enough memory for your favorite MP3s. The phone has a 3.5 mm audio jack, so you will be able to connect your headphones. RIM has made some excellent headphones in the box. If you get bored of the music on memory cards, you will have to download something new from the Internet or listen to something in streaming mode, because the phone does not have FM radio.

The camera is quite good, although it has only 3.2 megapixels. Most competitors make room for 5 or 8 megapixels, but Storm it is not quite the phone for pictures, so the 3.2 megapixel is enough. The pictures come out really well but only those made on the natural light. The flash is quite weak, and the darkness will not get good photos. The camera can also film, but films are very weak. Resolution is only 320 x 240 pixels.

Storm can connect to the Internet via GPRS, EDGE, 3G or HSDPA. Therefore, if you have a good network coverage, you can surf the Internet at a good speed. A big and unexpected minus on Storm's is the lack of WiFi connection. For a business phone, which would rival other super equipped phones, this minus is simply not acceptable. Why RIM chose not to equip this phone with WiFi is hard to say. The phone can connect to the computer using the microUSB cable or Bluetooth.

RIM has a application store comparable with Apple's AppStore, where you can download applications that are approved by RIM. There are lots of interesting and useful programs there, including instant messaging (Yahoo, Google, Facebook, etc.).

Storm has GPS, which you can use with its own navigation application made by BlackBerry, or you can install Google Maps. See what you like best. The BlackBerry has an advantage over Google Maps, because it also has voice navigation, so you can use it in your car.

BlackBerry Storm is a good phone, but not a revolutionary one.  Overall, Storm is not going to disappoint you, it's a good phone if you want something simultaneously suitable for business and multimedia. Unfortunately, it is only a medium on both.

Can we say that Bold is the most popular Blackberry phone? I say so. Although I am not sure that the sales volume surpassed other Blackberry's, I see this phone almost everywhere. There are people who do not have necessarily need of push email, but they got this smartphone because it is very good. In addition, compared to older phones from RIM, it has good multimedia features; you may want to listen to some music or to watch a movie. So let's look at the Blackbery Bold review.

Blackberry Bold comes in a black box, of medium size, with a simple and sober design. I can say that even the box is made in a business style. In the box, we find all the accessories, which I would want for a phone like this one. As like any other BlackBerry phones, it has a very practical cover. The phone comes with a handsfree headset, a charger adapter, Blackberry Desktop Manager software version 4.6 and a USB cable.

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The phone looks very good, I think that it is the most beautiful Blackberry made so far. Black plastic and chrome metal combines perfectly on the edges. The leather on its back shows that it is a great phone but it also has a practical role: the phone stays very well in your hand; you cannot drop it. BlackberryBold is very compact and solid. It has 133 grams, a good weight for a smartphone. It is quite thin, with only 14 mm thick. The phone has a 114 mm length and a width of 66 mm.

The front is dominated by the screen and the QWERTY keyboard. Above the display, are placed the loudspeaker and a LED, which blinks when the phone is switched on or when filming something with it. The keyboard has several large buttons (that are used most frequently): response / reject calls, the menu key and a backspace key. The trackball, that any user of the BlackBerry is used, is also present.

On the left side, the phone has a 3.5 mm audio jack, the microUSB port, a keypad lock button and a microSD memory card slot. On the right side, we find the volume buttons and the camera button. At the bottom, we have the button that opens the battery cover, the microphone and the support for the hand strap. The back of the phone is very simple. Here we find the battery cap, covered with leather, and the 2 megapixel camera, with a flash LED technology.

Blackberry Bold has its own operating system, very stable and very rich in functions. It is not hard to realize that it is a business phone only by looking a little through the menu. Even if it has no physical keys for direct access to certain functions often used, there are shortcuts directly on the screen, which you can access with the trackball.

The keypad is glossy, but the keys do not slip when you press them. They are pleasant to the touch and gives the feeling of soft keys. It is a little difficult at first to get used to them, especially if you had a phone before without a QWERTY keyboard.

The menus are very well structured. If you have used a Blackberry before, you will have no problem adjusting. If you are a new Blackberry user, it will take several days until you get used to the phone, some things are not that intuitive at first.

The Blackberry Bold's screen is an LCD with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels and 65,000 colors. You don't need to be scared because it has not 16 million colors, as other phones, you will  not notice any difference. It is so nice that you will want to touch it. You would think it is a touchscreen. It is easy to use in bright lights; it is perfect for watching movies. It is a pleasure to view photos and movies on this high quality screen. Colors are vivid and the images are clear. Having a landscape mode screen, you will not be forced to rotate the device if you wish to view videos.

The BlackBerry Bold music player disappoints slightly. The interface has been improved over older models, improvements made to the organization of songs. You can work with lists of songs, but not with the equalizer presets. Even if you do not want to waste money on a memory card, Bold can save enough songs in its internal memory of 1GB. With such a phone, is a shame not buy a microSD card, especially since these are not too expensive. The speaker is doing pretty well, I had not expected too much from him, with Blackberry Bold being a business phone. However, you can use headphones and connect them to the 3.5 mm jack. I have not felt the need to change them; RIM has made some excellent headphones in the box. If you get bored of the music from the memory card, you must download more songs from the Internet or listen to something in streaming mode, because the phone does not have FM radio.

The camera disappoints in terms of the number of megapixels. It has only 2 megapixels, although this is almost the standard size for business mobiles. The associated camera application starts very fast. Once started, the image displayed on the screen is clear and bright. If it had at least 3.2 megapixels, maybe I would have forgiven the people from RIM. The camera has a geotagging function, so you can print the coordinates of the places where you had pictures.

Blackberry Bold can connect to the Internet via GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, and via WiFi. Setting up internet connection is pretty difficult, in BlackBerry's spirit. Do not get me wrong, when you activate the Blackberry from your operator, your service automatically configures your phone, including the Internet configuration. The difficulty comes when you want to manually change these settings, it is not at all very intuitive. For example, although I enabled WiFi, I am not at all clear if I now connect to the Internet via WiFi or through a connection from the mobile phone operator. The web browser is clearly much faster than a iPhone browser, but unfortunately it is under those offered by Nokia or Opera. Pages are rendered well, pretty fast and look great on screen. With the trackball, you can surf without problems on the page. Problems appear when you load pages that have too much JavaScript, so that the browser begins to move slowly. The phone can connect to the computer with the microUSB cable or Bluetooth. You can also connect a handsfree via Bluetooth (for legal driving).

Although there are not many standard applications installed on Bold, you can download many compatible applications from the internet. The installation can be done directly from the phone or from the computer using the BlackBerry Desktop Manager 4.6. Being a business phone, Bold offers you the possibility to view and modify Word, Excel, PowerPoint files. You can even open PDF files.

Bold is currently the best BlackBerry phone. I did not forget about Storm, but that is a controversial phone. There are very few users who truly appreciate Blackberry's Storm.

I truly hope that you will find this Blackberry Bold review very helpful mostly if you wish to buy a Blackberry.

RIM is creating more attractive devices for some time. Even without being the latest or greatest of RIM devices, the Bold 9000 is the pioneer in the new direction chosen by RIM for its gadgets. RIM was initially the only company that offered push e-mail. This was and still is a very attractive feature for the business customers who depend on information. But the other mobile phones manufacturers started to release devices who offered this kind of e-mail. Therefore Blackberry devices were upgraded with modern features.
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The Blackberry Bold sports an excellent connectivity, a magnificent screen and one of the best QWERTY keyboards. The Bold 9000 is extremely well equipped regarding the emission standards; because a PDA phone from Canada usually is not equipped with HSDPA. By doing so RIM wanted to increase quality in its devices. The Bold 9000 entered the market at a later date than initially announced. Therefore all the issues with the software were fixed before the official release.

The first impression when you hold the Bold is that RIM really improves the Blackberry's design using a much more commercial look. The Bold precedes both Storm and the Curve 8900 so the different design choices are understandable. The glossy black front is pretty nice and the false leather at the back looks good. The overall design of the Bold 9000 is a great, but the profile is not as sharp and neat as the Curve 8900. The chrome frame on the left is not a great element. It only adds a few more millimeters of thickness to the Bold. Even more is not actually chrome, more a chrome-like plastic. The front panel of the Bold 9000 respects the standard of its class. Great features here are the excellent landscape display and the flawless QWERTY keyboard. The left side of the Bold 9000 features one of the loudspeaker, the 3.5 mm jack and the mini USB port. On the right we have the second loudspeaker, the volume keys and other feature keys. There called feature keys because you can assign them whatever function you would like. The top of the Bold 9000 features the mute key while at the bottom the device sports the microphone.

The Blackberry Bold is still a big phone if you compare it to the Nokia E71. Its height reaches 114 mm, wide of 66 mm and deep of 14 mm the Bold weight 133 g. It looks like the weight or volume played a smaller role in comfort than the extremely friendly keyboard and the wide display. The Blackberry Bold is equipped with a TFT display of HVGA resolution - 480 x 320 pixels, with a 6.8 cm diagonal - 2.6". The 6.8 cm diagonal really helps you work with Office documents or web pages. The Bold 9000 has a fabulously bright and vibrant display, while the Trans reflective technology improves the quality of reading from the display in bright light. Landscape displays are more natural to work with. The reason of why manufacturers don't pick this feature in their phones is to save space.

The Bold 9000 has the best display from the Blackberry series. Because of the ergonomic keypad and the excellent organized menu working with the Bold is a real treat. Bold is playing in the smart phone line so the connectivity is well ensured by all standards. It works in 2G network, GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, and in the 3G network, HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100. Also it has GPRS Class 10 (4 + 1 / 3 + 2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps, EDGE, Class 10, 236.8 kbps, HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps, WLAN is represented by Wi-Fi with 802.11 a/b/g standard, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and micro USB v2.0. The HSDPA comes without the rapid upload option HSUPA. The Blackberry Bold is equipped with a great CPU. This CPU runs on a 6524 MHz frequency. Tanks to this feature all the work you will be doing on the Bold will run smoothly.

As for the operating system, the Blackberry Bold 9000 runs on the Blackberry OS v4.6.0112. The home screen and the main menu have nice and simple icons. You can customize your menu but also the standby appearance of the display. Beside the great CPU, the Bold boosts a 874 MB usable memory. Therefore the RIM device provides with one of the largest storage capacity for data and music in the PDA phone line with only one exception, the Samsung i900. The memory can be expanded by using a micro SD card. Be careful, the Bold 9000 will not work with a 16 GB card, it barely runs with an 8GB model. The specs list is completed with GPS module and a 2 MP digital camera, 1600 x 1200 pixels, LED flash.



The hardware is also convincing because Bold offers good signal quality. However the loudspeaker is not the great. You could end up missing a call or two. Therefore it is a good idea to keep the Bold within reach. The autonomy is excellent for a PDA phone when features are used proportional. Some users might be less fortunate if they are only using the call function or the push e-mail. If you think about it, this is the users Bold 9000 is trying to impress. So, with a standard Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery the Bold has a stand by time up to 310 hours and a talk time up to 5 hours. In the UMTS mode Bold has up to 3 hours call time.

The Bold leading menu includes 28 symbols - here we can find beside the messaging button for e-mail, MMS and SMS symbols for PIM features: address, calendar, tasks and notes. RIM united under the same symbol videos, MP3, photos, ringtones and voice memos which don't impact in a negative way the usability. However the music player lacks some extras like equalizer presets, track repeat option and also if you minimize the player in the background you will not have any indication of the currently playing song. At the Application symbol you can find features that will let you view and edit Word and Excel documents.



The Blackberry Bold 9000 also offers a web browser, pocket calculator and Blackberry software navigation that will download maps from the network. Overall RIM Blackberry Bold offers up to date technology wrapped under a mature design.

Smartphones, by definition, are smart cell phones, and they offer their users a lot of features: they can make calls, they can send/receive e-mail, surf the Web, be connected with their friends, family and work colleagues, they have multimedia centers on the mobile device, what could they want more? A smartphone is like a Swiss Army Knife for professionals.
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New tools are added to smartphones, and people seem to like them more and more daily. For example, more and more people use the built-in GPS and find it very useful, because it helps them to find specific locations and the best thing is that the number of the GPS-equipped models is continuously growing. Cell phone carriers understand its utility and they started to create special services for GPS devices, like Verizon's VZ Navigator, Sprint's Sprint Navigation and AT&T's TeleNav GPS Navigator.

GPS capabilities started to show their utility, and now they are not seen anymore like a luxury show-off. It really helps smartphone users to get real-time position tracking, they get text and voice guidance for reaching destinations, and a lot of points of interest. There are also trade-offs, not only advantages: the small screens are not suitable for car usage, and the GPS radio will affect battery life, in a negative direction, of course, but the voice prompts and helps you to avoid these problems, by announcing you when the battery is almost over.

GPS manufacturers are trying to enter mobile devices market, and they created a navigator-phone which offers part of a smartphone's features, but its design is focused on the GPS feature, and it somehow is a novelty, but it cannot be compared with the smartphones available on the market.

There are a lot of smartphones which have GPS capabilities, but if you already have one which cannot help you with this feature, you can add it this functionality with a Bluetooth receiver. Taking into account that a standalone GPS device is not anymore the only way to get navigation guidance, you can think of smartphones or cell phones which have GPS support, and if they do not have it, you can add software or accessories to transform your mobile phone into a navigation device.



If you have a Bluetooth enabled smartphone, you can pair it with a receiver, and this is how you will get real-time tracking on your mobile device. A lot of receivers come with mapping software, but you should check on the manufacturer's website on in the device's manual to see if it is compatible with the phone. If you don't need to deal with external gadgets, you can just get a car kit, which is a standalone GPS, with maps preloaded on an SD card.

With the solutions offered by network carriers you can get turn by turn driving directions and colored maps; moreover you can search for local businesses or interest points, and in some cases you can get the traffic updates so you can take the shortest and less crowded road to your destination. These solutions from the big carriers require a subscription fee, and as an alternative, you can use Google Maps for Mobile to get the same features (it is free, but you need a data plan for maps and traffic information).

Here are some good smartphones, GPS enabled, and for each of them a short description about how GPS works on them.



BlackBerry has released the latest device with a large touchscreen which can switch immediately between vertical and horizontal views. This large screen is perfect for GPS applications and it works better with business applications that its predecessors.



T-Mobile G1 is the first mobile device which runs the Android OS, and it includes a GPS receiver (built-in) and it has also location-based applications, like Loopt.



Palm Pre provides the standard locating information and the directions, and it is also linked to Pre's universal searching feature, which includes Wikipedia, Google, and Google Maps. Sprint Navigation is installed on the phone when you purchase it, and this application includes: driving directions (turn by turn), business finder with more than 10 million points of interest, traffic alerts and fuel prices, but full nationwide color maps too.

In the Apple AppStore, there are more than 400 navigation dedicated applications available for iPhone 3G, and it remains the champion in services and applications too. Just to mention some applications, I would name Snocatore, GPS Lite and Groundspeak for geocaching.



The only winner in all this competition is the customer, which has only benefits from this war between the smartphones manufacturers, because the features which are added in this competition between the companies only help the users and they make their smartphone user life easier.