I am a first time Blackberry user and have been using the Blackberry Curve 8320 through TMobile for approx. 2 months now. Here's my view on it:
Set up was very easy. Since using a Blackberry was new to me, I called techsupport. As usual, they were very helpful & knowledgeable and I was up & running in 15 minutes. (As a sidenote, I have been with TMobile for approx. 7 years now and I must commend them on their customer service/tech support. Whenever I have had contact with them, they have been very courteous, knowledgble, and a pleasure to deal with it. In this day & age, that is something truly remarkable.)
As a small business owner, I have found it amazing how useful it is to be able to access and reply to your emails anytime, anywhere. My previous phone was a Sony Ericsson k790a, with a 3.2MP camera built in. It was a great phone with a great built-in camera but the Blackberry has turned out to be MUCH more useful. I cannot believe I resisted going the Blackberry route for so long.
The keyboard is easy to get used to and the the trackball is a very useful device for navigating. I thought I might miss having a touchscreen but that is definately not the case. Everything is logically placed and the level of customization is very high. The AutoText feature is incredibly useful as you can start adding your own shorthand which will automatically insert the full word or phrase you are trying to type. After 2 months, it is amazing how fast I can type messages on this device.
Call quality has been great. Works without a hitch with my bluetooth Jawbone headset and the bluetooth in my Acura TL. I have also recently added a Motorola S9 bluetooth stereo headset, which along with the 2GB MicroSD card, makes it a great MP3 player. I have been using it to workout and find it awesome.
One of the unique features of this phone is the Hotspot@Home, which uses the built-in Wi-Fi to send/receive calls instead of the cell towers. Only TMobile offers this service as of Dec 2007 & I must say, it is awesome.
At home, at my retail store, or my warehouse, my phone is using Wi-Fi. Since this is where I spend 95% of my time during the day, all my calls are free & I have been able to reduce my plan from 1500 minutes/month to 500. Not only that, but basically ANYWHERE where you can get wi-fi access, your phone calls will be free & not count towards your minutes. The phone automatically connects to all Starbucks Wi-Fi. This feature works very well & I have been impressed. There are a few glitches here & there. If I am on a call & I leave the store, the phone has to switch to the cell towers. This transition is supposed to be instantaneous but I would say about 30-40% of the time, the call gets dropped. Since this scenario doesn't happen very often, I am fine with it. Plus, as the technology matures, I'm sure it will get even better.
The camera is fairly good, with an LED flash. Unfortunately, I came from the SE K790A with the 3.2MP camera/Xenon flash, which took amazing images, so I can't help but be disappointed with the quality of these images. However, compared to most cell phones, the picture quality is rather good and the LED flash is brighter than I expected. The most difficult aspect of the camera is that you have to hold it VERY STILL to take 99% of the pics, so a lot of them end up being blurry.
The calendar/contacts are top notch and sycn with Outlook incredibly well. The synchronization is the best that I have ever used. My points of reference on this aspect are my previous Sony Ericsson P910i & my Treo 600. In my experience, the 8320 syncs faster & with much better accuracy than the 2 others listed above.
Battery life has been ok. With the phone using Wi-Fi most of the day, I still have about 25% left when I go to bed at night. This may or may not be good based on your own personal experience. Since I charge my phone every night, it has been fine for me.
One other idiosyncrasy. Once in a while, the phone gets into a mode that I cannot get out of. This usually happens when I get 2 or 3 alarms go off at once and a text message comes in etc. One of the screens for the alarm will be frozen on the screen and you can't get rid of it. Turning the power button off doesn't help. The only way to fix it is to take the battery out. Since this is a rare occurence, it doesn't bother me.
There seem to be a decent amount of software out there for this device. I have not used any so far but am planning to.
Another great feature about this phone is that when used with official Blackberry cases, there is some sort of magnetic sensor that allows the phone to tell if it is in it s holster or not. This is a great feature since you can set up alerts/vibration/ringer type&volume separately depending on whether the phone is in the holster or not. Again, another small but very useful feature.
I could go on and I think you should have a pretty good idea by now how much I like this phone and why. It has been great & I see myself as a Blackberry user for the foreseeable future.
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