RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i – A bit sluggish
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Offers capabilities of Direct Connect push-to-talk, comes integrated with Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi. The handset has an updated OS, good multimedia capabilities and full HTML Web browser.
Thumbs Down:
Sluggish performance, problems in sending e-mails.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: iDEN
Band: iDEN 800/900 (Dual Band)
Phone design: Candy bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Camera, Bluetooth, music player, etc.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The design and shape of the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i is similar to other Curve models but it is also a bit bigger due to all the features that have gone inside. The casing is not as rugged as we have seen on other Nextel phones like Motorola i365. This handset has a soft touch finish but still feels solid in the hand.
Razzle Dazzle:
The 2.4 inches TFT LCD display has a resolution of 320×240 pixels and has a 16 bit color depth. It supports 65k colors. Connectors include USB and headphones jack. The 1400 mAh lithium ion battery has a rated talk time of 240 minutes. The phone comes with two megapixel camera with 5x digital zoom. It also has a flash and self portrait mirror. The handset is 2.4 inches wide, 0.7 inches deep, 4.4 inches high and weighs 0.3 lbs.
Inside Dope:
RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i’s display is 2.4 inches big and has a resolution of 320×240 pixels with support for 65,536 colors. The screen looks sharp and it is well complemented by BlackBerry OS 4.6’s user interface. Our small gripe here is that the icons in the menu looks quite similar and hence it is difficult to tell them apart even though they come with a description. Just like latest Blackberry phones, this handset comes with a light sensing technology which automatically adjusts the backlight of the display depending on the environment. Home screen can be customizable with various background images and themes.
Underneath the display, there is a navigation array which consists of Talk and End button, back button, Menu shortcut, and trackball navigator. The latter is a bit deeper than we would have liked and it is not as comfortable as compared to the previous Blackberry phones but you will get used to it after a while. The full QWERTY keyboard has smallish keys and they feel plasticky but typing on them is comfortable since there is plenty of spacing between the keys.
On the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i’s left, there is a 2.5 mm headphones jack, Direct Connect key, and mini-USB port. On the right, there is a user programmable short cut key (by default used for the camera) and a volume rocker button. The handset’s top has mute button and on the back there is a camera with self portrait mirror and flash. The phone comes bundled with reference material, software CD, swivel belt holster, a gig of microSD card, SIM card, wired stereo headset, USB cord and travel charger.
It is been two years since Blackberry gave us a cellphone (previous model was RIM BlackBerry 7100i) and with this phone, the customers now get additional features and lots of improvements. Other features on the phone includes multimedia messaging, text messaging, speed dial, voice activated dialing, and speakerphone. There is no limit for the address book as long as you are not running out of internal memory. A single entry can take multiple phone numbers, home and work addresses, e-mail IDs, job title, etc. You can tag a contact as Buisness or Personal and there are 45 ringtones to choose from.
Bluetooth 2.0 too is there with support for stereo and mono headsets, Bluetooth peripherals and hands free kits. The handset also comes with built in GPS which is both assisted and autonomous using cellular and satellite triangulation for finding your position. You can access maps and text based turn by turn directions for driving through apps Google Maps for Mobile and BlackBerry Maps. You will have to use service which is location based like TeleNav GPS Navigator for voice guided instruction and real time tracking.
RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i has a media player which supports the following media formats – AMR-NB, eAAC+, AAC+, AAC, WMA and MP3. Suported video formats are H.263, WMV, and MPEG-4. RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i has a two megapixel camera along with video recording and digital zoom. For pictures, there are three options for sizes and three choices for quality. Apart from flash, you can fiddle with white balance and also add color effects. The built in GPS in the smartphone lets you geotag your photos. For using video camera, you have to install the microSD card first or else you cannot record. Video recording options are limited; there are only two formats, MMS and normal mode and effects for color. Photo quality wasn’t that good but objects were clear and colors looked pretty flat. Quality of the recorded videos was subpar, everything looked blurry.
When tested for call quality, the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i was quite decent. We would hear the audio loud and clear but calls were a bit hollow. It was like talking in an empty room. Speakerphone calls too gave us similar results, but the volume was loud enough. We could carry on our conversations quite well and didn’t have any dropped calls. For Bluetooth calls, we used Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones and Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and they worked well.
RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i comes with 1,400mAh lithium ion battery and the rated talk time is of four hours. In our tests, we got a talk time of 8.25 hours which is really impressive.
Nitty Gritty:
We will recommend you this handset if you are looking for smartphone with tons of features.
