As I stated yesterday, I am going to review the BlackBerry Curve, likely over a series of the next few days. There will probably be some posts about other things in between these posts, but I will make sure that it is easy for you to find this series of blog posts if that’s what you are here to read.
Out of the box I noticed an immediate disappointment with my BlackBerry Curve: the case. With the 8700g, the box
BlackBerry Curve Leather Case
supplied the belt-clip case that was perfectly designed for easy access and included the magnetic screen-turner-offer to preserve battery life (and also lock the device upon holstering if you so chose to set it up that way). With the Curve, the box hands you a little leather sleeve with no clip, but fortunately with the magnetic piece to help preserve battery life. Still, the case seems like a sure way to scratch the phone up in no time, and I can’t stand having things jammed into my pocket. Enter the Cowskin leather case with magnetic top flap. I was fortunate to own one of these for a Pearl I had a short while ago, and this case is the best in the business. It is easy access, it has a swivel clip to position it the way you need to when, for example, you need to slide your seat belt by it, and it protects both the front and the back of the phone (very important for these BlackBerry devices with the built-in camera). Fortunately for me, I was able to find one of these new on eBay for $15 and free shipping.
The second thing I noticed about the Curve was the size; that it actually felt like a phone. I remember feeling quite ridiculous holding the 8700g up to my ear (initially — I got over it) as it felt like I was holding a small laptop up over the side of my face. Still, for the lack of device size, the screen size doesn’t seem to take a noticeable size hit, and the keyboard is still incredibly functional.
Of course, at that point it was time to test the Wifi calling. You see, our offices are down in the basement of a large building. There is a lot of cement between us and the nearest cell tower, and so we were practically cut off from the world when we weren’t sitting at a computer. Wifi would change all that. Initially I thought the call quality was pretty decent. That is, until I had a few calls drop after 30-90 seconds. I had a similar experience at home until I realized that I was going to need to give preference to the cell service as it was far more dependable than the wifi. I will say that the bandwidth from these devices is not given special priority on either the work network or my home network, so I don’t want to villify the device’s capabilities completely. Still, it was a eureka moment when the emails started pouring in over the wireless network. On a day full of meetings, all of a sudden I didn’t have to fear what would be in my email or voicemail inboxes when I checked for the first time in several hours.
The immediate things I noticed weren’t all good, however, or even all neutral. My first big complaint is the trackball. For those of you who got very good with the click wheel, it is going to take some getting used to. I realize the benefits of it when browsing web pages and making corrections in a somewhat lengthy email (by BlackBerry standards anyway), but I had gotten to the point of being pretty solid with the clickwheel, learning all of the ins and outs and how to get around pretty well. Part of my dismay was due to the default sensitivity settings (and I still contend there is no perfect spot), and part of it was knowing that this little white ball wasn’t going to be nearly as rugged as that click wheel. Most importantly, though, the device actually has become a little less of a one-handed device as a result of this wheel, and also slightly due to the smaller size.
That leads me to the other thing that bothered me initially, and bothers me even more today: the caps key on the bottom right of the keyboard. I had gotten so used to using the return key as the “click” with the click wheel for clicking a link because, as any of you with experience know when you click the wheel (or now the trackball) you can slide off of what you intended to click on and onto something else. Now, though, the biggest, fattest button on the keyboard other than the spacebar is the caps key. Making matters worse, it is in the spot that the return key should be in order to more effectively make the device a one-handed tool.
All in all my first impressions were good. I’ve grown to like the trackball a little bit, and the keyboard button still bothers me. The size of the phone and the exponentially greater browsing speed over wifi more than outweighs the initial disappointments. Now that we have gotten through the first impression, the next in the series of Everyday Joe reviews of the BlackBerry Curve will delve into the phone-media realm — something that was entirely missing from my life as it depended on the 8700g.
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