BlackBerry Curve 8520: The low-end BlackBerry phone is now in India

On August 4, 2009, Research In Motion (RIM) and Bharti Airtel, jointly launched BlackBerry Curve 8520, the newest member of the BlackBerry Curve family. In the launching ceremony, Raghunath Mandava, Chief Marketing Officers, Airtel said that his company is committed to introduce innovative and cutting edge echnology to its users and through the introduction of BlackBerry they kept their promise. Frenny Bawa, Vice President, RIM said that his company is delighted introduce the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 in India. The phone’s top quality messaging capability, user-friendly features and aggressive marketing would attract lots of people. RIM is going to launch BlackBerry Applications pretty soon. Mr. Bawa did not comment about the BlackBerry store but he said that his company had been hiring application experts in India.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 is not a high-end phone. It does not have a high resolution screen or GPS navigation. It has almost all the functions of the top-end BlackBerry models but the phone has an average performance.

Dimensions, weight and color:

Length: 109 mm

Width: 60 mm

Breadth: 13.90mm

Weight: 106 grams (including battery)

Advantages:

It is slim and lightweight.

Optical trackpad is a nice addition.

Media playback controls

Have almost all the functions of its expensive counterpart.

Disadvantages:

Does not have GPS or high speed internet.

Mediocre call quality.

Poor battery life.

• The phone is made of cheaper materials including glossy black plastic with rubber on sidewalls. Though optical trackpads can be found in high-end phones, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 is an exception. It works pretty well but if you are reading a long document then it might create some problems.
• The BlackBerry Curve 8520 featuers a QVGA screen with a resolution of 320X240 which very low compared to the high quality screen of BlackBerry Bold but it works fairly well. You may feel frustrated watching movies or reading a text but it is workable.
• The phone has an average call quality. Info Sync reports:

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 did a nice job with phone calls, and it has a few cool tricks up its sleeve that can save you money under the right circumstances. Call quality was okay, but disappointing compared to better BlackBerry devices. Voices sounded a bit muffled on our end, and our callers reported a slightly digitized effect on the other side. Voice quality overall was mediocre.

• The phone has voice dialing system and this has a “soft key by default.” There is also the speaker phone.
• You can see all your messages in one message inbox which is a great feature. Email, IM, SMS texts, Facebook messages can be found in one spot. Users can access the messages individually.
• BlackBerry Curve 8520 comes with a 1,150mAh battery. It can provide six hours of talk time.
• The BlackBerry Curve 8520 comes with a powerful calendar that keeps track of appointments.
• The Data Viz Documents software allows to read various documents on the phone. Users can not create any documents. It can be used to open e-mail attachments, MS Word and Excel documents.
• Dedicated media keys makes it easy to listen to music. Instead of going through menus you can directly play your songs. The phone comes with a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack.
• The phone comes with a 2-megapixel camera but it does not have auto-focus.

Price:

BlackBerry Curve 8520 was launched on August 7, 2009. The phone costs Rs. 15,990. Both pre-paid and post-paid customers can use the phone. Prepaid customers of Airtel can enjoy “unlimited” email for Rs. 299 per month.

Related articles:

Info Sync

Telecom Tiger