BlackBerry Curve 8320 Review - Battery Life
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Alfredo Padilla Published on October 10, 2007 Comment on this |
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Call Time (8.88)
To see how well the BlackBerry Curve 8320's battery holds up during calls we make a test call to the phone using Skype and pipe an audio book over the connection to simulate conversation. We then time how long the battery lasts. The Curve lasted 7 hours and 24 minutes in our test, once we dealt with a minor problem: calls kept hanging up after 4 hours. We suspect that is some sort of protection put in by T-Mobile so you don't rack up a huge bill if you forget to hang up a call, but it made our lives more difficult. Still, if we called back on our testing system immediately after it hung up, the total call time was 7 hours and 24 minutes, which is an extremely respectable time. it's a little shorter than the AT&T Curve, but not by much, and it kept going for significantly longer than the iPhone and the HTC Mogul.
We are currently running an additional test to see if connecting over WiFi instead of the cell network makes any difference to calling time: we'll update this review when get those results.
Like many BlackBerries, the Curve on T-Mobile disconnected the call before the battery had completely run out, which allows you to still access phone functions for a few minutes, even when you can no longer make calls. we like this because it provides you with the ability to finish and save a note before the battery runs out; many other phones don't provide any warning before they die.. However, other BlackBerry devices last a lot longer before going into this reduced power mode. Given how well the Curve did in our other battery tests, however, we are inclined to think our call time result may be more of a bug than indicative of how long the Curve's battery will actually last.
| Cell Phone | Talk Time | Score |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 7 hours 24 mins |
8.88 |
| Nokia E90 | 7 hours 47 mins | 4.42 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T) | 8 hours 1 mins | 9.62 |
| HTC Mogul | 5 hours 30 mins | 6.60 |
| T-Mobile Dash | 8 hours 20 mins | 10.00 |
| Apple iPhone | 7 hours 4 mins | 8.48 |
Music Playback (8.66)
To see how long the battery lasts while playing back music we set a test album to play at maximum volume using the phone's speaker. We were pleased to see the Curve did significantly better in this test than it did in our talk time test, lasting 12 hours and 2 minutes. As you can see below, that's the best time among the phones we've chosen to compare the Curve to, some of which are no slouches themselves. It's not the longest time that we have seen (that was the Sprint Upstage, which lasted 25 hours 34 minutes), but it's a very decent time that means it could keep the tunes coming on a commute or transcontinental flight.
| Cell Phone | Music Playback Time | Score |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 12 hours 2 mins | 8.66 |
| Nokia E90 | 9 hours 57 mins | 6.31 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T) | 9 hours 48 mins | 6.97 |
| HTC Mogul | 11 hours 13 mins | 8.08 |
| T-Mobile Dash | 7 hours 24 mins | 5.33 |
| Apple iPhone | 10 hours 46 mins | 7.75 |
Web Browsing (11.66)
To test battery performance while browsing the Web we point the Curve's browser at a page that is set to refresh every 10 seconds. We make sure the backlight stays on and then time how long the battery lasts before running out. Thanks to the very battery efficient EDGE connection used by the Curve, it lasted an impressive 9 hours and 43 minutes in our Web browsing test. Once again this is one of the best times we've seen from a phone, with only the E90 and its massive 1500 mAh battery lasting longer (10 hours and 34 minutes).
| Cell Phone | Browsing Time | Score |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 9 hours 43 mins | 11.66 |
| Nokia E90 | 10 hours 34 mins | 12.68 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T) | 7 hours 2 mins | 8.44 |
| HTC Mogul | 4 hours 8 mins | 5.36 |
| T-Mobile Dash | 5 hours 25 mins | 6.50 |
| Apple iPhone | 5 hours 13 mins | 6.26 |
Idle Time unscored
In order to ensure we get reviews out in a timely fashion we don't do tests on idle time, which can last days. T-Mobile's stated standby time for the BlackBerry Curve 8320 is 17 days.
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