RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 – Entry level smartphone

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Has support for GPS and 3G, phone is compact, has 2 MP camera, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

Thumbs Down:

The phone feels a bit cheap in hand and the screen has low resolution screen. Apps can be saved only on the phone’s internal memory

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 is 2.36 inches wide, 0.55 inch deep, 4.29 inches high and weighs about 3.7 oz. The phone has a candy bar design. Wireless interface options include Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, IEEE 802.11g, and IEEE 802.11b. Additional features include microSD card slot, Voice dialing, Trackpad and GPS. Bundled OS is BlackBerry Handheld Software. For messaging services – there is RIM BlackBerry VM Client. Included services are VZ Navigator and VCAST. Data/Messaging features include E-mail, Instant messages, Multimedia messages (MMS) and Text messages. There are 32 polyphonic ringtones and MIDI and MP3 formats are supported.

Supported video formats are H.263 video and AMR audio, MPEG-4 and H.264. The phone has two megapixels camera, video recorder resolution is 320 x 240 (QVGA) and 176 x 144 (QCIF). It has 5x digital zoom. PIM features include alarm clock, calendar, reminder and calculator. The display is 2.5 inches big and has a resolution of 320×240 pixels. Supported audio formats include eAAC+, AAC+, WMA, MP3, AMR and AAC. The phone has 1150 mAh battery with 270 minutes of talk time and 252 hours of standby time.

Razzle Dazzle:

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530’s design is similar to Curve 8520. It is 4.3 inches tall, 0.5 inch thick, 2.3 inches wide and weighs about 3.7 ounces. The phone feels a bit plasticky in the hand. However there is soft touch finish around the outside edges which doesn’t let the phone feel to sleek. Color options for this phone is frost and black.

Inside Dope:

This is almost the same device as the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520, it is more of an entry level phone so don’t expect high end features on this device like high resolution display and world roaming capabilities. However, there are some worthy upgrades to this device like a faster processor, optical trackpad, discrete media controls and Wi-Fi. We didn’t like the design of the phone much but the feature set is more than what you get on the T-Mobile edition. The cost of this phone is $99.99 and you have to sign a two year contract with Verizon Wireless.

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 comes along with AC adapter, software disc, USB cord and also reference material. The feature set on this phone is pretty good even though this is an entry level phone. This handset has speakerphone, smart dialing, voice activated dialing, speed dial, conference calling, and multimedia and text messaging along with threaded chat view. Verizon’s service of Visual Voice Mail can be accessed for a fee of $2.99 per month. You also get link to MyVerizon which gives you information on your account like data usage and voice, account balance and other features. Other services by the service provider include VZ Navigator, and V Cast Music.

There is no limit for the phone book; you can keep entering till memory permits. A single entry can take multiple phone numbers, home and work addresses, e-mail addresses, etc. Photo caller ID is supported and you can make groups of your contacts. Custom ringtone feature is also there. A VzwTones shortcut comes preloaded on to the handset and this lets you download additional ringtones to the phone. Apart from address book, there are other PIM tools like calculator, voice recorder, memo pad, task list and calendar.

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 has built in Bluetooth and the handset supports stereo and mono Bluetooth headsets, video/audio remote control, hands free kits, dial up networking and serial port. This phone comes with GPS/A-GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G. Verizon is getting plenty of Wi-Fi handsets to its repertoire and we are really glad to see it as it gives you an alternate way to get online. Now all we would like to see is a better browser which would keep this handset almost flawless. BlackBerry has a lot of hardwork to do with regards to browser. There have been updates in the past but this phone is still miles behind our current favorite the iPhone. The handset runs on BlackBerry OS 5.0 and the browser is better than what we saw in its predecessor. But we still feel that there is room for improvement.

Just like previous BlackBerry models, this phone’s messaging offerings are its strong point. You can sync the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 along with your company’s BlackBerry Enterprise server which offers support for IBM Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise or Microsoft Exchange for getting corporate e-mail as soon as it reaches your inbox. Through BlackBerry Internet Service, you can access up to ten personal or business IMAP4 or POP3 e-mail accounts. This phones comes preloaded with lots of IMs like Google Talk, Windows Live, Aim, BlackBerry Messenger and Yahoo

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 comes with attachment viewer built in, which lets you open Microsoft Excel, Word, Corel WordPerfect, PowerPoint, PDF, GIF and JPEG files. Apart from this, the phone also comes with DataViz’s Document to Go Suite Standard Edition but for creating new documents, you will have to purchase the Premium Edition. BlackBerry App World lets you download travel aids, games, tools, etc. Just remember that the phone has 256 MB flash memory and as much of RAM. You can save the apps only to the phone’s internal memory.

Behind the battery compartment, there is a microSD expansion card slot which can take in up to 16 GB of memory cards. Supported file formats are MIDI, AMR-NB, eAAC+, AAC+, AAC-LC, WMA9/WMA9 Pro/WMA 10 and MP3. Supported video formats are H.264, H.263, WMV2 and MPEG4. Supported photo formats are WBMP, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, and BMP.

Nitty Gritty:

We didn’t like the design of the phone much but this is still a good phone if you are haven’t bought a smartphone before.