Blackberry Curve 8900 - Review Video

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Blackberry Curve 8900 - Review

Hey guys, Jon Rettinger here with a review for you of the Blackberry Curve 8900 for T-Mobile. Right now, there’s already a $149.99 after rebate and a two-year contract but definitely check T-Mobile’s website because prices on phones really can vary quite a bit. So, I was made really no secret that I'm a big Blackberry fan and the Curve 8900 picks up with a previous curve left off. It does have a lot of queues from other Blackberry devices and I'm going to show you those in just a minute. It does have a full QWERTY keyboard on the front, a 3.2 megapixel on the back and it is quad-band edge. There is no 3G on this device, but it does have WiFi and GPS, both are welcome additions. So first, let’s start with the keyboard. Your keyboard is your very typical curve keyboard and I’ll zoom it a little bit so you guys can see exactly what it looks like. You see my big mother right there. It’s a very nice, easy to use keyboard with a very decent amount of title feedback. Its fields just like the old Curve keyboard but even a little clickier if that make sense. So when you type, you really do know that you’re hitting a number and you’re hitting a letter. You’re really not wondering left what you’re hitting. You really have to sense what exactly that is. And the keys are space apart so there’s not that much overlapping. The keys are small and it will take some getting used to. What you do, you should be typing away with really little difficulty. This is a different keyboard and the keyboard that’s found on the—those who don’t have any spaces between them. This kind of have the—feel that the last curve has and I'm a big fan of it. I love the keyboards on Blackberry so just take some queues from the Blackberry Bold. It uses the new operating system. All the graphics have been updated. It’s go the new HTML table browser which is quite nice and we’ll talk about all that in just a minute. I want to zoom in there so you guys can see the operating system. Overall, the operating system is very fast. It was snappy, it was quick, it’s very typical Blackberry. It’s solid and it just works. One of the things that I really like about the Blackberry operating system is that it really doesn’t crash or freeze that often. And whenever it does, it did a frequent as that might be. Simply pulling the battery and putting it back in because this does have a removable battery, fixes the problem and really never comes back. I think the operating system is very solid. And with this of course, you get Blackberries, really I think industry—push email service so that is very nice. It has a really nice built quality to it as well. It’s got this metal backing. It really makes it feel a sole in the hand. The last curve at least to me, I found it a little bit cheap and this feels very, very solid and secure and really has a nice built quality to it. This has some rubber on the side in the edges to make you—when you hold, you don’t feel like you’re going to drop it which is nice, although if you do drop it, you’re really going to end up in a lot of trouble because I've seen this default just in the right place like most phones. You’re going to end up with a crack screen or even more as a broken device. These things are not meant—any phone really is not meant to be dropped so I definitely recommend investing in a case. It does have a built-in MP3 player and video player which aren’t the best but they are good for a Blackberry. And if you’re going to get either of those, you can use the 3.5mm headset jack. So, things I do like about this device are built quality, Blackberry’s finally updated browser, although it’s still you’re not going to get a browser experience like you get on Blackberry Storm and I can’t get any experience I could get on the iPhone and G1, but if you are a Blackberry—you are going to get probably one of the best Blackberry browsers that this out second only to the Storm. So, one of the nice thing that Blackberry particularly did with the device is it took some m ore queues from the Storm and the two buttons on top here, in the very top of the device. The one on my left side here lets you off the device. If you push that, it will lock it. And if you hold down the button on the other side, it will put in to standby, both handy shortcuts. When I choose to use Blackberry—always have to mop the Lock button to the side function and as always what that was for me but now I can use that for something else, camera or any other function that I like. I also do like the trackball in the middle, I think it really is a nice way to navigate it and I'm happy to properly switch from the screw wheel to the trackball. So, that’s something negative about the device. It actually has some of the weaker signal strength that I've seen on any of the phones I've tested. And as you guys know, I do test quite a bit. I don’t know if it’s the radio in here. The fact that it has a metal back that’s blocking it from transmitting but my edge signal has not been very strong and this may vary by location to location. But comparing this with other T-Mobile phone and particularly T-Mobile 3G phones, my 3G signal is much higher than edge so I'm really only down to one bar anywhere I go and really anywhere I've been. I very rarely see this go all the way up to full bar and I know that I do have full edge service wherever I'm at. So, the reception here is not always the best. Although once you do every second, call quality was very good. There really wasn’t any white noise on my end or the callers other end, something to keep in mind. WiFi works great, GPS works as advertised on most Blackberry devices, you can use it on the Google maps or any other mapping servers that’s compatible with Blackberry. It’s not locked to down which is quite nice. So, if I have to rate this phone on a one to 10 scale, I give it a very solid six and a half. And it’s losing out on points just because lack of 3G, lack of a full rich HTML browsing experience. Other reasons there, it doesn’t get a much higher score they can give into to other devices, but if you do like Blackberry and you don’t need 3G, and you just want something for great email on a decent web browser to make good calls, this is a very, very solid option. And I can certainly recommend it if you fall into that demographic. Anyway, this is Jon Rettinger with a review for you of the Blackberry Curve 8900. For exclusive content, be sure to follow me on Twitter, twitter.com/jon4lakers and I’ll see you guys in the next video, bye-bye.

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Hey guys, Jon Rettinger here with a review for you of the Blackberry Curve 8900 for T-Mobile.

Right now, there’s already a $149.99 after rebate and a two-year contract but definitely check T-Mobile’s website because prices on phones really can vary quite a bit. So, I was made really no secret that I'm a big Blackberry fan and the Curve 8900 picks up with a previous curve left off. It does have a lot of queues from other Blackberry devices and I'm going to show you those in just a minute. It does have a full QWERTY keyboard on the front, a 3.2 megapixel on the back and it is quad-band edge. There is no 3G on this device, but it does have WiFi and GPS, both are welcome additions.

So first, let’s start with the keyboard. Your keyboard is your very typical curve keyboard and I’ll zoom it a little bit so you guys can see exactly what it looks like. You see my big mother right there. It’s a very nice, easy to use keyboard with a very decent amount of title feedback. Its fields just like the old Curve keyboard but even a little clickier if that make sense. So when you type, you really do know that you’re hitting a number and you’re hitting a letter. You’re really not wondering left what you’re hitting. You really have to sense what exactly that is. And the keys are space apart so there’s not that much overlapping. The keys are small and it will take some getting used to. What you do, you should be typing away with really little difficulty.

This is a different keyboard and the keyboard that’s found on the—those who don’t have any spaces between them. This kind of have the—feel that the last curve has and I'm a big fan of it. I love the keyboards on Blackberry so just take some queues from the Blackberry Bold. It uses the new operating system. All the graphics have been updated. It’s go the new HTML table browser which is quite nice and we’ll talk about all that in just a minute. I want to zoom in there so you guys can see the operating system.

Overall, the operating system is very fast. It was snappy, it was quick, it’s very typical Blackberry. It’s solid and it just works. One of the things that I really like about the Blackberry operating system is that it really doesn’t crash or freeze that often. And whenever it does, it did a frequent as that might be. Simply pulling the battery and putting it back in because this does have a removable battery, fixes the problem and really never comes back. I think the operating system is very solid. And with this of course, you get Blackberries, really I think industry—push email service so that is very nice.

It has a really nice built quality to it as well. It’s got this metal backing. It really makes it feel a sole in the hand. The last curve at least to me, I found it a little bit cheap and this feels very, very solid and secure and really has a nice built quality to it. This has some rubber on the side in the edges to make you—when you hold, you don’t feel like you’re going to drop it which is nice, although if you do drop it, you’re really going to end up in a lot of trouble because I've seen this default just in the right place like most phones. You’re going to end up with a crack screen or even more as a broken device. These things are not meant—any phone really is not meant to be dropped so I definitely recommend investing in a case.

It does have a built-in MP3 player and video player which aren’t the best but they are good for a Blackberry. And if you’re going to get either of those, you can use the 3.5mm headset jack. So, things I do like about this device are built quality, Blackberry’s finally updated browser, although it’s still you’re not going to get a browser experience like you get on Blackberry Storm and I can’t get any experience I could get on the iPhone and G1, but if you are a Blackberry—you are going to get probably one of the best Blackberry browsers that this out second only to the Storm.

So, one of the nice thing that Blackberry particularly did with the device is it took some m ore queues from the Storm and the two buttons on top here, in the very top of the device. The one on my left side here lets you off the device. If you push that, it will lock it. And if you hold down the button on the other side, it will put in to standby, both handy shortcuts. When I choose to use Blackberry—always have to mop the Lock button to the side function and as always what that was for me but now I can use that for something else, camera or any other function that I like.

I also do like the trackball in the middle, I think it really is a nice way to navigate it and I'm happy to properly switch from the screw wheel to the trackball. So, that’s something negative about the device. It actually has some of the weaker signal strength that I've seen on any of the phones I've tested. And as you guys know, I do test quite a bit. I don’t know if it’s the radio in here. The fact that it has a metal back that’s blocking it from transmitting but my edge signal has not been very strong and this may vary by location to location. But comparing this with other T-Mobile phone and particularly T-Mobile 3G phones, my 3G signal is much higher than edge so I'm really only down to one bar anywhere I go and really anywhere I've been. I very rarely see this go all the way up to full bar and I know that I do have full edge service wherever I'm at.

So, the reception here is not always the best. Although once you do every second, call quality was very good. There really wasn’t any white noise on my end or the callers other end, something to keep in mind. WiFi works great, GPS works as advertised on most Blackberry devices, you can use it on the Google maps or any other mapping servers that’s compatible with Blackberry. It’s not locked to down which is quite nice. So, if I have to rate this phone on a one to 10 scale, I give it a very solid six and a half. And it’s losing out on points just because lack of 3G, lack of a full rich HTML browsing experience. Other reasons there, it doesn’t get a much higher score they can give into to other devices, but if you do like Blackberry and you don’t need 3G, and you just want something for great email on a decent web browser to make good calls, this is a very, very solid option. And I can certainly recommend it if you fall into that demographic.

Anyway, this is Jon Rettinger with a review for you of the Blackberry Curve 8900. For exclusive content, be sure to follow me on Twitter, twitter.com/jon4lakers and I’ll see you guys in the next video, bye-bye.

Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services