Blackberry Curve 8520 Black Review
By Ruben Corbo on March 2nd, 2010
With the Curve 8520 you still get a high quality device that puts a lot of emphasis on email and messaging, which is what people have come to expect from RIM. The phone is designed to look a lot like other Curve models, but it is made mostly of a high gloss plastic with rubber finish on the sidewalls.
The BlackBerry Curve 8520 Black provides fair call quality, though voices can seem a little muffled. Data transfer is also not too fast with this phone. The battery life of the 8520 Curve is adequate; you will get about 6 hours of talk time before you will need to recharge the phone.
The WiFi feature of the BlackBerry Curve 8520 is great; with this feature it is easy to keep your cell phone bill low because you can make unlimited calls using WiFi hotspots. Another useful feature of the Curve 8520 is the numerous email and instant messaging options that you have. Like many BlackBerry models, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 Black has the option of having up to 10 email accounts, and several ways that you can access corporate email in real time. Aside from email, there is also support for instant messaging; including Yahoo Messaging, AIM and now you can even get messages from your Facebook account.
When you have a Curve 8520 you can stay productive, even when you are away from your desk; this phone offers several tools including a document viewer so that you can view email attachments. For multimedia the BlackBerry Curve 8520 Black comes with a good music and video player with support for several different file formats, plus there is a basic 2-megapixel camera that is adequate for taking quick snapshots but will not replace your digital camera.
Browsing the web with this phone won’t give you the same satisfaction that you can get with a lot of other smartphones, but it isn’t too bad. You cannot view web pages the same as you would on a laptop or PC.
Although you won’t get 3G radio, GPS, or a high quality display with the BlackBerry Curve 8520 Black, you do get most everything else you need in a smartphone, which is great for a basic entry level phone. If you are on a budget but want a new smartphone, the Curve 8520 is a good choice.
