Blackberry 8520 Curve

Written on 8/14/2009 05:55:00 PM by poison_ivy

When I received a newsletter from Vodafone a few weeks ago stating that they will have a new Blackberry available this August, I was pretty excited and thought that it was the Blackberry Storm 2. So to my disappointment, it turns out that it's just the Blackberry 8520 Curve mobile phone.

Design

The Blackberry 8520 has the same design as far as Blackberries go, except for their D-Pad which in the case of the 8520, you'll find an optical D-Pad similar to the one on the Samsung i780, Omnia, Xperia X1, etc.

Features and Performance

The Blackberry 8520 Curve is RIM's Blackberry for the masses, hence, it lacks any of the high end features found on other mobile phones such as GPS, and 3G. However, The Blackberry Curve 8520 does have WiFi, dedicated multimedia keys, and onboard 3.5mm headset jack. The camera, particularly is very low-end at only 2 megapixels, most of Nokia's lower-end models now sports 3.2 megapixel cameras.

So, what are the compelling reasons that you should buy the Blackberry Curve 8520? Well, first, if you're a message-centric person and you need to access your emails and you want to type on a physical keyboard rather than a touchscreen, then that's one of the reasons why you should get the Blackberry 8520 as your next mobile phone: It's primarily a messaging phone. Next, for a music player phone, the Blackberry 8520 is also not bad as it has dedicated music keys and onboard 3.5mm headset jack. Don't get the 8520 if you're looking for a good camera phone, a phone with a good web browser and connectivity options or one that's stylish because the Blackberry 8520 Curve isn't any of those.

Conclusion

Vodafone offers the Blackberry 8520 Curve for free under a £25 a month mobile phone contract plan. Other alternatives you might want to try is the Nokia 5530, which is also a good music phone, stylish, has a better camera, also has WiFi, however, its a touchscreen phone so don't expect it to be messaging-friendly.