BlackBerry Curve 8520 review

Straight-up surfing the Web in the browser is okay. It's better than on a typical phone with a small screen and no trackpad, but worse than on a Webmeister like the iPhone. Web pages look clear and accurate, but we hated having to zoom in to click on smaller links. For some pages, that added a couple of clicks where none were necessary.

There's also no GPS, although you can use Google Maps, which triangulates your position using mobile-phone towers. It's not as accurate as GPS, though.

User-interface niggles
Most phones rock quite similar user interfaces, but the BlackBerry evolved along its own branch of the phone family tree, so it can take some getting used to if you're new to it. We found the 8520's UI generally easy to navigate, although we have a few niggling complaints. For example, the default menu icons are hard to make out, and there will be too many options for some people to handle.

The BlackBerry UI is also starting to feel rather dated compared to the jazzy UIs flaunted by bad asses like the HTC Hero. The address book, for example, is a boring list of names unembellished by any styling or added functionality. There are fun features in there -- open a contact and you can see their Facebook profile picture, for example -- but the list is as vanilla as a party at Cliff Richard's house. Happily, you can download apps that jazz up your contact list, home screen and other areas.

BlackBerry App World is also on-board, so finding and installing apps is as easy as baking a moderately easy-to-bake pie. There are plenty of great apps available, although they're pricier than in competitors' app stores, with a minimum price of about $3 (£1.80). What the heck are we quoting US dollar prices for? Good question. App World displays prices in dollars until you've logged into your UK PayPal account for the first time, and the prices in sterling are based on the US prices, so they'll fluctuate with the exchange rate. That, dear friends, is pants.

Media mogul
The screens on recent BlackBerry phones have been stunning, and the 8520's didn't disappoint either, despite having a lower resolution than the 8900's -- 320x240 pixels, compared to 480x360. Videos are very watchable and photos look good, although you won't get spectacular snaps out of the 8520's 2-megapixel camera. There's no flash, but the camera does shoot video.

Listening to music on the 8520 is a painless experience. There are three dedicated music keys on the top to control the good times. We like that the music plays on while you're doing other things, but we'd like to see some information on the home screen about what's playing. In fact, the home screen as a whole seems like a waste of real estate, since the default setting only includes six shortcuts along the bottom of the screen.

Although we appreciate the 8520's standard 3.5mm headphone jack, it's placement on the side of the phone is awkward. When we had a pair of headphones plugged in, the connector jutted out to the side, making the phone difficult to slide into a pocket or bag.

A 2GB microSD card and 256MB of on-board memory provide a great start for slapping a good number of tunes and photos onto the phone.

Conclusion
RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8520 is a solid, reasonably priced introduction into the world of the CrackBerry, and should give more people a chance to find out what the addiction is all about. Good social-networking and messaging apps, combined with a Qwerty keyboard, make the 8520 a worthy option for social butterflies, although they may miss having 3G connectivity on-board.

Edited by Charles Kloet