BlackBerry 8820 Cell Phone Review - Multimedia

Mark Brezinski
Published on October 11, 2007 Comment on this

Accessing Music Software (3.58)

To test how easy it is to get a song playing we time how long the process takes. The 8820 was able to perform our trails in an average of 5.58 seconds. This was one of the rare instances where we ran into lag. Some phones let you continue to navigate through the lag, but trying this on the 8820 resulted in the phone taking even longer to load the next menu. Though we expected some lag when a song loaded, just opening the media menu actually took a little more than a second. While this time isn't horrible for a business device, phones with a dedicated music button are twice as fast.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry 8820	5.58	3.58
Nokia E90	7.31	2.74
Nokia N95	11.82	1.69
T-Mobile Wing	5.50	3.64
Palm Treo 750	4.36	4.59
Apple iPhone	3.10	6.45

Dedicated Music Controls (1.0)
The 8820 only has one music control: the volume rocker. Everything else must be controlled through the software.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (3.6)

The music player on the 8820 can play AAC, MP3, and WMA files. It recognized all our test tags (though it only displays title and artist), and could handle playlists, but couldn't create or edit them once they were on the device. Organizing songs isn't a strong point of the 8820, and it uses a file structure as opposed to a library that would allow you to sort by title, artist, album, or genre. Sorting through your music will most likely be a huge pain.

The 8820 supports album art, which is surprising on a business device. Music can also be played in the background, which is great since the 8820 puts emphasis on multitasking. The music player is lacking a few features, however, such as the ability to assign ratings or an equalizer. Still, while the media player isn't the best, it does its job.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
The 8820 doesn't support online song downloading.

Streaming (0.0)
You can't play back streaming audio files on the 8820.

Podcast Support (0.0)
There isn't any software support for podcasts.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
There are two ways to sync your music with the 8820. The first is simply connecting the phone as a mass storage device and using Windows Media Player. The second is using BlackBerry's desktop software.

Music Formats and DRM (4.0)
THe 8820 can play AAC, MP3, Windows Media, and WAV files. It won't play Real files, or some of the more obscure ones like Org Vorbis. The 8820 also won't play back any DRM files. Though not great music format support, this is about what we'd expect from a business device.

Music Interruption (10.0)
Music interruption refers to how the phone handles an incoming call when there is music playing. What we prefer is for the song to pause, then resume once the call has ended, which the 8820 does. The only way it would have been better is if it faded the song back in, as sudden music can often be jarring after a long conversation.

Video

Video Software Access (3.15)
This test is meant to judge how easily a user can access the video software. We begin the timer on the home screen, and stop as soon as we are able to get a video playing. On average, the 8820 took 6.34 seconds to get a video playing. This isn't particularly fast. As we mentioned, opening the Media menu causes some lag, as does opening the file itself. The 8820 simply isn't geared toward media playback.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry 8820	6.34	3.15
Nokia E90	7.55	2.65
Nokia N95	10.22	1.96
T-Mobile Wing	8.70	2.30
Palm Treo 750	6.88	2.91
Apple iPhone	3.20	6.25

Video Controls (2.0)
You select video controls by highlighting them with the trackball. Clicking the trackball initiates their functions — either play/pause or stop. The volume rocker performs its namesake duties. Skipping to the next or previous video is done using the menu button, which is awkward. Overall, the video controls aren't very good or intuitive.

Video Software & Organization (2.5)

Video files are organized by the same folder system as music files. This means there is no easy way to sort or organize files. We were pleased to see the phone could handle background video playback. Most phones don't allow this because letting a video play in the background seems to defeat the purpose of video playback, but it allows you to jot notes during a boring segment. Again, less than stellar performance by the phone's multimedia.

Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music files, video files can be synchronized through the BlackBerry software or Windows Media Player, provided you connect your 8820 as a mass storage device.

Video Formats (3.5)
The 8820 played our test 3GP files, including those encoded in H263. It wasn't able to handle those encoded in H264, and had some problems with MP4 encoded files. It also can't play Windows Media, QuickTime, Flash, or Real video files. The 8820 continues its multimedia mediocrity.

Video DRM (0.0)
The 8820 balks at any kind of video DRM.

Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
If there's one aspect of multimedia the 8820 can handle, it's video playback smoothness. The 8820 was able to play back all our test files, which have bitrates up to 768 Kbps. Once you find a video the phone will actually play, you won't have any troubles playing it back.

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The BlackBerry 8820 doesn't support any video downloading service.

Video Streaming unscored
As there is no industry standard which we could judge video streaming against, we leave this section unscored. This is good news for the 8820, as it can't handle video streaming anyway.

Previous Next

Shop for a wireless plan

Shop

Carrier

Type

Minutes

$/Min

Cost

Shop

Prepaid

0.1000

0.00

Reviews | About WI | Staff | Advertising |