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BlackBerry Curve 8320 Review

Alfredo Padilla Published on October 10, 2007 Comment on this

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Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

The BlackBerry Curve 8320 is a slightly updated version of the very successful Curve lineup of BlackBerry cell phones. The 8320's only major upgrade over the 8300 line is the addition of Wi-Fi, which can also be used with T-Mobile's Hotspot at Home service to make calls over Wi-Fi. The BlackBerry Curve 8320 provides very good messaging and organizational functionality on an easy-to-use and stable device, as is typical of BlackBerry devices. The addition of multimedia features on BlackBerry devices is a welcome addition, and we found the Curve's music and video playback functions to be good, but not great. The 2-megapixel camera takes good pictures for a cell phone, although it doesn't compare to high-end cameras found on some Nokia and Sony-Ericsson phones. Battery life on the Curve was also solid. Overall, the Curve is a very well rounded device. Those looking for an all-in-one phone with excellent business functionality won't be disappointed by the Curve.

The BlackBerry Curve 8320 is currently available from T-Mobile for $249.99 with a two-year contract. This particular model is not available from other carriers, although other iterations of the Curve are.

Tour & Design - The Curve is a fairly small phone considering it packs a good-sized screen and full QWERTY keyboard into the design.

Audio Quality - Call quality on the Curve was very good, and you shouldn't experience any major problems in this area.

Imaging - The Curve's 2-megapixel camera does a solid job for a camera phone, but it's not on par with some of the high-end cameras we're starting to see on phones.

Making/Receiving Calls - The Curve provides the usual BlackBerry goodness, with solid calling options and easy-to-make calls.

Messaging - The strong suit of any BlackBerry device, the Curve doesn't disappoint, with excellent messaging capabilities and support for push e-mail.

Organizer - Organizational support on the Curve is very good and can be easily integrated with business tools like Exchange Server.

Multimedia - RIM has made strides in this area, but the multimedia experience on the Curve still lags behind Windows Mobile and Series 60 devices, not to mention the iPhone.

Software - BlackBerry OS is stable and easy to learn, and the ability to address any shortcoming with third-party software is a major bonus.

Battery Life - Excellent results in all of our battery tests indicates it should hold up well for most users.

Connectivity - With Wi-Fi on board, the Curve is a well connected device, although we would like to start seeing 3G devices from RIM for GSM networks.

Hardware - The Curve's hardware is generally solid, although we found the keyboard a little cramped.

Other Features - The Curve can be used as a dial-up modem and supports T-Mobile's Hotspot at Home service for Wi-Fi calling.

Value & Comparisons - The Curve is a solid value at $249.99 with a two-year contract, although you should note prices in the cell phone business do tend to drop fairly quickly.

[page title="Tour & Design"]

Front
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 has  the same  deisgn as its younger sibling, the BlackBerry Curve 8300. From the front you see the typical BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard on the lower half, with control keys just above it. The top half of the front is taken up by the 2.2-inch QVGA (320 x 240-pixel) screen. Above the screen is the BlackBerry logo, speaker, and an LED.

Left
The left side of the BlackBerry Curve 8320 houses the headset port and Mini USB port near the top and a customizable shortcut key in the middle.

Top
The only feature at the top of the phone is the mute button.

Bottom
The bottom of the BlackBerry Curve 8320 has a small pinhole for the microphone.

Right
On the right of the handset are volume rocker keys near the top and a dedicated camera key near the middle.

Back
The back of the BlackBerry Curve 8320 is taken up for the most part by the battery cover, with a release switch near the bottom. At the top is the lens for the 2-megapixel camera, with an LED flash just above it and a self-portrait mirror just below.

Battery Out
When you remove the battery cover you reveal the 1100 mAh battery. Below the battery is a slot for your SIM card and another slot for Micro SD cards. The battery has to be removed to gain access to both, which is a pain as the phone then takes some time to start up again.

In the Box (6.5)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 comes with a fairly decent set of accessories. In addition to manuals and a CD with synchronization software, you also get a battery charger, stereo headset, USB cable, and carrying case. The only other thing we would have liked to see is a memory card to get you started, but these are pretty cheap these days; you can pick up a 2GB micro SD card for under $40.

Handling (8.0)
The Curve is well named, as it has soft lines and fits easily into the palm of your hand. The controls are within easy reach thanks to the trackball interface, an improvement on older BlackBerries that used a scroll wheel on the right side of the phone. At 3.9 ounces, it won't weigh you down, even if you have to hold it up to your head for a long call. When you compare the Curve to older BlackBerries like the 8700 series it becomes obvious that RIM has spent time on developing a more ergonomic design, and it works.

Portability (8.0)
The Curve isn't the smallest of phones, but compared to other smart phones it is rather diminutive at 4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches. It's small enough to fit comfortably into most pockets or bags, but certainly isn't a Razr by any stretch of the imagination. Still, given that some smart phones like the BlackBerry 8800 or HTC Mogul are significantly larger and heavier, we feel portability is one of the Curve's strong points. The Pearl is smaller if you are looking for the most portable BlackBerry, but the Curve is one the smallest we've seen with a full QWERTY keyboard.

Aesthetics (6.0)
Although the Curve is definitely prettier to look at than older BlackBerries, it's still no beauty. You do have a choice of two colors from T-Mobile, however (Titanium and Pale Gold; our review unit is in the Pale Gold), so you can choose whichever you think better suits your outfit. No one will be swooning over the Curve, though. The best that can be said is that it could be worse.

Durability (6.5)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 doesn't have any moving parts, which is a plus when considering durability. The keyboard feels like it can hold up well, but the body of the phone is made from cheap-feeling plastic that can be easily scratched. We'd suggest investing in a cover if you shove it in your pocket and want to keep it looking nice.

[page title="Audio Quality"]

To test the quality of audio sent and received by the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we use a combination of professional software and hardware that allows us to make precise measurements. A Head and Torso Simulator (HATS) is used to simulate the human head and ear, while sound is analyzed by Listen Inc.'s SoundCheck software. This combination is used by many handset manufacturers in their own testing. To learn more about how we test see this article.

Sound Receive Frequency Response (8.30)
The chart above is a measure of the sound received by the BlackBerry Curve 8320. This is how others will sound to you while using the phone. The blue line indicates the phone's frequency response, while the two red lines indicate the limits against which we test; a good phone's frequency response should fall between the two limits. As you can see, the Curve 8320 generally stayed within our limits, with small excursions at the very low end frequencies and a quick peak at the high end. These slight deviations won't affect the quality of sound you receive on the Curve very much, though. We were generally pleased with the performance in this test.

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320	Nokia E90 (on AT&T)	BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T) (on AT&T)
Score	8.30	6.09	9.82
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	HTC Mogul (on Sprint)	T-Mobile Dash (on T-Mobile)	Apple iPhone (on AT&T)
Score	7.33	7.09	7.58
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Sound Send Frequency Response (7.51)
In this test we measure the quality of sound sent by the BlackBerry Curve 8320. This is how your voice will sound to those on the other end of the call. The chart above again indicates the Curve's performance with a blue line, while the red lines are the limits we test against. As you can see, the Curve 8320 once again performed well, with its performance falling solidly within our limits. The only possible glitch is that sound drops off a little quickly at the high frequencies, which may make those with high voices sound a little clipped. Even there, however, it's just barely within our limits. The BlackBerry Curve 8320 performed as well as or better in this test than most of our comparison phones.

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320	Nokia E90 (on AT&T)	BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T) (on AT&T)
Score	7.51	5.74	5.18
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	HTC Mogul (on Sprint)	T-Mobile Dash (on T-Mobile)	Apple iPhone (on AT&T)
Score	7.68	7.59	7.58
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Handset Side Tone (9.88)
Side tone is the small amount of your own voice piped back into your ear by cell phones so you can judge how loudly you are speaking. Lower side tone means your voice will sound too low to you, and you will raise your voice to compensate. Higher side tone has the opposite effect. The BlackBerry Curve 8320's average side tone was 17.88 decibels, which is right about where we want it. Our ideal side tone would be 18 decibels. As you can see below, the Curve 8320 put up the best score of any of our comparison handsets.

Cell Phone	Sidetone Measurement	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	17.88	9.88
Nokia E90	21.23	6.77
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	19.39	8.61
HTC Mogul	17.12	9.12
T-Mobile Dash	18.23	9.77
Apple iPhone	8.8	0.8

[page title="Imaging"]

Resolution (5.25)
To test the resolution of images produced by the BlackBerry Curve 8320's camera we take a series of photos of an industry standard resolution chart. These photos are then run through Imatest, which analyzes how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned before they begin blurring together. Imatest produces a score based on this called line width per pixel height (lw/ph).


The Curve's camera scored 1087 lw/ph horizontal and 933 lw/ph vertical. This is a pretty good score — as good as the Nokia E90's 3-megapixel camera, as you can see from the chart below. It's also significantly better than the Curve we tested from AT&T's network, which indicated there have been software changes in the new version of the Curve. This isn't unusual; most of the carriers tweak the settings of their phones to their requirements, so we often see different results from similar handsets on different carriers.

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320	Nokia E90	BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)
Score	5.25	5.27	2.97
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1087 / 933	1089 / 992.9	816.9 / 397.9
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	HTC Mogul	T-Mobile Dash	Apple iPhone
Score	3.57	1.22	4.18
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	895.9 / 831.6	541.5 / 586.2	970 / 879
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Color (4.92)
To test the quality of the color in photos produced by the Curve we take shots of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart, which shows 24 different colors. The photos are then run through the Imatest software, which compares the captured colors to the original ones. Imatest produces the two charts below. On the left you see the GretagMacbeth chart, with the original colors in the small vertical rectangle, the captured colors in the outer square, and the captured colors adjusted for luminance in the inner square.

GretagMacbeth Color Chart (adjusted)	Color Drift

The chart on the right gives a better graphical representation of what's going on with the captured colors. The squares represent where the ideal color would be, while the circles represent the actual captured color. The longer the line between the two, the worse the accuracy of the color capture. You can see the Curve did an OK, but not great job here. There's definitely some serious undersaturation in the yellows, but that's the only major issue. Other colors were just about where we would like them. The Curve put up a solid, but not outstanding score in this test.

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320	Nokia E90	BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)
Score	4.92	5.77	4.96
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	HTC Mogul	T-Mobile Dash	Apple iPhone
Score	1.82	5.41	5.22
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Noise (1.41)
To test the noise of photos produced by the Curve's camera we took photos of the GretabMacbeth color chart at four different lighting levels. These photos are then run through Imatest, which produces a noise score for each. We consider the total noise at each lighting level and the consistency of noise at all lighting levels in our final score. The Curve produced noise levels higher than we would like at every lighting level, but it was very consistent. This works out to a pretty decent score for a cell phone. It should be noted, however, that a decent score for a cell phone would be completely unacceptable for a real digital camera.

Cell Phone	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	1.41
Nokia E90	1.34
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	1.18
HTC Mogul	1.45
T-Mobile Dash	1.26
Apple iPhone	1.20

Live Preview (7.0)
The live preview on the Curve doesn't use the whole screen by default, but you can switch to a full screen view by hitting the symbol key. You lose the indicators when you do this, however. We found the live preview does a good job when panning, with very little pixelation or artifacts. It also did a good job giving a solid reproduction of what the final photo will look like. On some phones colors are different in the live preview compared to what you actually end up with, but this didn't happen with the Curve. We should also note that we found the live preview on the Curve 8320 from T-Mobile to be significantly better than the AT&T version's, which shows how the same phone from a different carrier can vary.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (6.90)
This test measures how quickly you can take a photo with the BlackBerry Curve 8320 from the home screen. We do this test repeatedly until we get a consistent result. The Curve 8320 was able to take a photo from standby in 2.9 seconds. This is a very good time; only the iPhone put up a better time than the Curve here. Interestingly, this is one of the few times we see the 8320 do better on a timed test than the older Curve we reviewed on AT&T.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	2.90	6.90
Nokia E90	7.55	2.65
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	4.70	4.26
HTC Mogul	3.30	6.06
T-Mobile Dash	5.00	4.00
Apple iPhone	2.43	8.23

Shot to Shot Time (1.05)
Shot to shot time is a measure of how quickly a phone can take a series of photos. When possible we use a phone's Burst mode. The Curve lacks such a Burst mode, however, so we had to perform this test manually. This significantly slows down the Curve's performance, and we were only able to take photos at a rate of 0.35 frames per second (fps). This is about what we saw from the old Curve, but significantly slower than the HTC Mogul and T-Mobile Wing, both of which have a Burst mode.

Cell Phone	FPS	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	0.35	1.05
Nokia E90	0.61	1.83
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	0.30	0.90
HTC Mogul	1.90	5.70
T-Mobile Dash	3.13	9.38
Apple iPhone	0.40	1.20

Shutter to Shot Time (4.65)
Shutter to shot time measures how long it takes a phone to capture a photo once you have pressed the capture button. We do this test until we get a consistently repeatable result. With the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we found it took 0.43 seconds to capture a photo once we depressed the shutter button. This isn't a very impressive time; it's the worst time among our comparison phones. What this means is that action shots are likely not going to come out well with the Curve, so you'd better make sure your subject is standing still.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	0.43	4.65
Nokia E90	0.25	8.10
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	0.34	5.88
HTC Mogul	0.21	9.52
T-Mobile Dash	0.30	6.67
Apple iPhone	0.40	5.00

Interface (5.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320's camera interface is unchanged compared to its previous iteration. The space bar switches between the different flash modes, while either direction on the trackball or the volume keys controls the digital zoom. To take a photo you can use the dedicated camera key on the left, press in on the trackball, or hit the enter key on the keyboard. You can also hit the alt key on the keyboard to turn the full screen viewfinder on or off. The menu key brings up the menu, where you can access additional functions. We've seen better interfaces; we especially like the camera interfaces on Nokia Series 60 smart phones. This does the job well enough, though.

Photo Album Software Internal (5.0)
The photo album software on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 does a solid, if unspectacular job. Photos are displayed in a thumbnail view. How many thumbnails are displayed can be adjusted in settings. You can sort photos by name or date taken and can create slide shows. The slide show settings are pretty basic, simply allowing you to choose the delay between photos. The menu key brings up a menu where you can copy, move, or delete photos, as well as send them by e-mail or MMS. All in all it's pretty basic functionality, but we found it easy to use and navigate.

Manual Control (0.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 does not offer any manual controls. This includes functions like manual white balance and Scene modes, which we have found on other cell phones, and Shutter Priority mode, which hasn't made it to phones yet.

Zoom (1.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 has up to a 5x digital zoom. All digital zoom does is crop and resize what you are seeing, however, which degrades the quality of the photo you are taking. As such, we don't award many points for it.

Focus (0.0)
The Curve's camera is fixed focus, which means what you see is what you get. Some phones are starting to provide auto focus lenses that allow you to take better photos, but at the cost of longer shot times. We do not award points for fixed focus phones.

Flash (3.0)
We were pleased to see a flash on the Curve, something you don't often see on business devices. It's an LED flash that only works to a range of 2-3 feet, but it's better than nothing.

Metering (2.0)
There are no metering controls on the BlackBerry Curve 8320, not even the manual brightness settings you'll find on most phones.

White Balance (0.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 provides several preset options for white balance, as is common on cell phones. More advanced white balance settings, like evaluative white balance, are not on board.

Image Handling (2.0)
Image handling on the Curve is very basic; you can only rename images. There are rotate and zoom options available when you are viewing an image, but these cannot be saved.

Video

Overall Video Score (0.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 does not support video recording, which means it will receive a zero in most of these sections. Video recording has become standard on most phones with cameras, if even to just send MMS video. Some phones, like the N95, provide fairly decent video quality. We hope RIM addresses this in future devices; even if the results are poor, it's ncie to ahve the option to capture a short video if something interesting happens.

Video Resolution (0.0)
No video recording.

Video Compression (0.0)
No video recording.

Interface (0.0)
No video recording.

Manual Control (0.0)
No video recording.

Zoom (0.0)
No video recording.

Editing (0.0)
Although the Curve can view videos, it does not support any video editing features.

Modes (0.0)
No video recording.

[page title="Making/Receiving Calls"]

Dialing Speed (6.33)
To see how easy it is to dial a number on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have dialed each of five different test phone numbers. We take the average time of these tests for our score. We found it took an average of 3.16 seconds to dial a number. This is slower than the AT&T version of the Curve. We blame the slower speed on a slight amount of lag we encountered when initially dialing a number. Given that BlackBerries are famously free of lag we were surprised to see this; it might have been caused by T-Mobile's myFaves interface, which is shown on the home screen by default. To test this turned myFaves off and ran the test again. This time, we found dialing sped up by about half a second, although we still did notice some lag. We also felt the number keys, which are built into the QWERTY keyboard, were very small and prone to errors. This phone is going to take some getting used to. Despite these concerns, though, the table below shows it could be worse; the curve is pretty speed y at dialling once you get used to the keyboard layout.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	3.16	6.33
Nokia E90	2.36	8.47
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	2.78	7.19
HTC Mogul	6.16	3.25
T-Mobile Dash	6.20	3.23
Apple iPhone	3.96	5.05

Talk and End Buttons (3.0)
The send and end buttons on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 are placed at the extreme left and right of the control keys, just above the keyboard. This puts them within easy reach when using the device. The buttons provided a reasonable amount of travel and good tactile feedback when pressed. Our only issue is that when you are working on the keyboard and reach for the buttons they are a little difficult to find by feel, as they are not raised above the surrounding plastic.

Call Management (5.0)
You can access your call history easily from the home screen by hitting the send button. The history is a simple list of calls in chronological order. Each call shows the number or contact name, along with the time the call was placed or received and an icon that shows you whether it was an incoming, outgoing, or missed call. You can access additional details about each number, including a history for that specific number and the option to redial, send a message to or save each number from the history list. What you can't do, however, is see a filtered list of incoming, outgoing, and missed calls, a feature many phones offer.

During a call you can bring up a quick menu of options like mute and speakerphone by pressing on the trackball. Hitting the menu key brings up a more complete menu and allows you to access other phone functions like notes and contacts. As a smart phone, the BlackBerry Curve 8320 allows fairly advanced multi-tasking, so most phone functions are available while on a call. Unfortunately, you cannot record calls.

Startup to Call (14.04)
To see how quickly the BlackBerry Curve 8320 can start up and make a call when it's turned off we time how long this process takes for each of the five numbers we used for the dialing test above. The result was an average time of 7.12 seconds, which is comparable to the AT&T version of the Curve and significantly faster than most other handsets.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	7.12	14.04
Nokia E90	32.12	3.11
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	6.77	14.77
HTC Mogul	55.00	1.82
T-Mobile Dash	76.00	1.32
Apple iPhone	26.12	3.83

Ring Volume (8.56)
To see how loud ring volume can get we set the phone's volume to maximum and measure the volume of each ring tone on the phone using a sound pressure meter from a few inches away. We measured ring volume at 85.6 decibels. This is fairly standard; few phones fall outside of the 80 to 90-decibel range, and most of our comparison phones are within a decibel of the BlackBerry Curve 8320.

Cell Phone	Volume (decibels)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	85.6	8.56
Nokia E90	85.4	8.54
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	85.7	8.57
HTC Mogul	85.7	8.57
T-Mobile Dash	84.5	8.45
Apple iPhone	84.9	8.49

Ringtone Customizability (6.0)
We were pleased to see the BlackBerry Curve 8320 allows you to import and use your own ring tones, and supports MP3, AAC, and WMA files. You can also purchase ring tones from T-Mobile, but why buy them when you can use your own? You cannot edit or record your own ring tones, however.

Non-Audio Alerts (6.0)
We were not impressed by the Curve's non-audio alerts. Vibration is weak and easily missed, even when the phone is in your pocket. The screen lights up and shows you incoming call information, and if you miss a call the LED blinks red to let you know, which is good. But we wish vibration was better, especially on a business device where getting a call can be important.

[page title="Messaging"]

Supported E-mail Services (6.5)
As is standard with BlackBerries, the Curve allows you to access POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts. Unfortunately it's still missing an easy setup wizard for popular services like Gmail or Yahoo! e-mail, but you can set these up if you know the proper server settings.

Push Email (4.0)
As you would expect from any BlackBerry, the Curve supports push e-mail via BlackBerry servers. If you don't have access to a BlackBerry server via your company you can set up up an individual BlackBerry account with T-Mobile to have your e-mail pushed to you. The Curve does not support any other form of push e-mail like Microsoft's Exchange Server or Good.

Multiple E-mail Accounts (10.0)
The Curve is able to support up to 10 different e-mail accounts, which should be enough for just about anyone. We only give points for up to five e-mail accounts, meaning the Curve gets our highest score here.

HTML and Attachements (4.0)
BlackBerries still can't handle HTML-encoded e-mail, a shame given their focus on messaging. Support for attachments was a mixed bag. We sent an e-mail to our AOL account with five attachments, but none of them showed up in the e-mail we received on the Curve. We then sent each of the attachments in an e-mail by themselves. We were able to receive and view our Word, zip, Excel, and PDF documents, but our PowerPoint document didn't make it through. It seems attachment support on BlackBerry devices is different every time we test them, and we suspect server side issues have a lot to do with this.

E-mail Customizations (2.0)
The only e-mail customization available on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 is the ability to add signatures. There's no support for changing the number of lines each e-mail takes up, font size, or type.

Time to a New Message (11.76)
To see how easy it is to compose a new e-mail message on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we time how long it takes to go from the home screen until we have the screen for a new e-mail showing. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. It took us an average of 1.7 seconds to do this on the BlackBerry Curve 8320. This is slightly slower than the AT&T version of the Curve, for which we can thank the myFaves screen, which adds an additional key press to this process. It's still significantly faster than most of our comparison handsets, however; only the iPhone came anywhere near the Curve's score.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	1.70	11.76
Nokia E90	3.43	5.83
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	0.95	21.05
HTC Mogul	6.22	3.22
T-Mobile Dash	2.53	7.91
Apple iPhone	1.90	10.53

Email Usability (10.0)
The Curve is a typical BlackBerry, providing one of the easiest and most efficient e-mail environments you will see on any handset. Scrolling through e-mails is easy due to the trackball, while the space bar allows you to easily page up or down. You can view all messages in your main inbox or view account specific messages, each of which are located on your home screen. The menu button brings up a long menu of choices, but again the trackball saves you time by making moving up and down menu lists quick and easy. We recommend you play with the trackball sensitivity, though, so you can move through lists faster.

Supported IM Services (1.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 supports a good selection of instant messaging services, including AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ, MSN, Google Talk, and BlackBerry Messenger. Unfortunately, each of these except the BlackBerry messenger service charges you for an SMS message for each instant message sent or received. We feel this is unfair, as most BlackBerries come with an unlimited data plan — why should an instant message be any different than any other piece of data sent or received from the phone? As such we do not award points for IM services that charge IMs as SMS messages.

MMS Support (6.0)
MMS has not traditionally been a strong suit for BlackBerry devices due to their lack of multimedia features. With the advent of BlackBerry devices that have cameras, like the Curve, MMS support has become more important. Thankfully, support here is pretty solid. MMS messages are sent to the Curve's unified inbox, where all e-mail and text messages also end up. You cannot turn an SMS into an MMS, however you can easily send an MMS message from the camera or album software.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
Smiley faces probably aren't very important to the business users the Curve is targeted at, and the support is correspondingly poor. Smiley faces sent to the Curve are left in plain text rather than turned into graphical representations, and there are no shortcuts to easily insert smiley faces into a message.

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (7.0)
MMS and SMS messages on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 are included in the unified inbox that is also used by e-mail by default. You can change this in the settings or allow it to be set by the theme you are using. Creating a text or multimedia message simply requires you to choose the appropriate option from the menu while in your messaging program. Composing a message is as simple and straightforward as composing an e-mail. Our only real issue is that you have to decide whether you're going to send a text or multimedia message beforehand, so you can't turn a text message into a multimedia message, as you can on Palm Treo devices.

Time to a New SMS Message (2.37)
To see how easy it is to write a new SMS message we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have a new SMS message on the screen. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The BlackBerry Curve 8320 took an average of 4.22 seconds to open a new SMS dialogue. This is almost twice as long as on the AT&T version of the Curve, and once again we found the myFaves interface is probably the culprit. Tests done when myFaves was turned off were almost a full second faster. It's unfortunate the lag caused by this application makes what is normally one of the speediest messaging phones we've seen into a middling device.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	4.22	2.37
Nokia E90	1.99	5.03
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	1.97	5.08
HTC Mogul	5.46	1.83
T-Mobile Dash	2.12	4.72
Apple iPhone	2.62	3.82

[page title="Organizer"]

Synchronization (6.33)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 ships with the BlackBerry synchronization software that comes standard with all RIM devices. This software is easy to set up and use and does a good job synchronizing your data between your device and a PC. For those on the Mac you are also provided with desktop synchronization software in the form of PocketMac, a free download.

Support for synchronization is strong across the board, with the ability to sync your contacts, notes, tasks, and calendar appointments. You can synchronize via USB and Bluetooth.  The BlackBerry Curve 8320 can sync up with Outlook or BlackBerry's Stop Manager on a PC. If you're on a Mac you can use the aforementioned PocketMac to synchronize with the Mac's PIM programs.

Alerts (7.0)
The Curve provides a plethora of options for setting your alert, as is typical on BlackBerry devices. Unfortunately, as is also typical on BlackBerry devices, the quality of the actual alert leaves something to be desired. Alerts only sound for a short period of time, and we found they were easy to miss. Once you've missed an alert it doesn't sound again, so if the alarm for your important appointment goes off while you're away from your phone and you don't bother to check it, you won't get another alert at a later time. You do get the LED light blinking at you when you've missed the alert, however, and when you bring the phone out of standby you are greeted with a dialogue. There's a lot to like in the customizability, but when we have an important alert we would like our smart phone to be more dogged about reminding us.

Over the Air PIM Sync (4.0)
Like all BlackBerries, the Curve can synchronize your calendar appointments and contacts over the air with a BlackBerry server. There is no support for synchronization of other PIM data like tasks and notes, however.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (7.09)
To see how easy it is to add a contact to the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have added each of five contact names and phone numbers. We take the average of these five trials for our score. The Curve took an average of 14.1 seconds to add our test contacts. This is a little slower than the AT&T version, but is about average compared to other handsets, as you can see below.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	14.10	7.09
Nokia E90	17.48	5.72
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	12.54	7.97
HTC Mogul	14.70	6.80
T-Mobile Dash	13.44	7.44
Apple iPhone	20.86	4.79

Looking/Sorting/Search (6.5)


You can filter contacts on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 by group or search by name (first/last), title, or company. We found the sorting and searching options on the BlackBerry platform to be one of the strongest we've seen on any smart phone, and the Curve is no exception.

Fields (6.8)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 has 24 fields for new contacts that cover most of what you will need, including multiple phone numbers and e-mail addresses. If you find yourself limited by the available fields you will also find there are four fields you can rename so you can use them for whatever you want.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (3.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 has a couple of different speed dial options. First is the standard BlackBerry speed dial system that allows you to hold down just about any letter key on the home screen and assign a speed dial to it. The other option is part of T-Mobile's myFaves service. The home screen defaults to a rotating set of five contacts, each of which you can assign to a contact. Unfortunately the latter seems to cause some significant lag, so we recommend you disable it and just use the much more efficient BlackBerry system.

The BlackBerry Curve 8320 has a voice command system. Unfortunately, as we've seen with other voice command software, it did not work very well. We use five different test contacts with diverse names, and the Curve was only able to recognize two of them. Even these were only recognized intermittently. Given this disappointing performance we're sorry to see there's no support for voice tags.

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (16.56)
To see how easy it is to add an appointment to the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have added a lunch appointment for the following day with a reminder 15 minutes before. We found the Curve did well in this test, taking an average of 6.04 seconds to add an appointment. It should be noted, however, that this is again slower than the AT&T version of the Curve. Once again we found the lag is caused by T-Mobile's myFaves program. Still, despite being a little slower than the AT&T Curve, the Curve 8320 from T-Mobile was still faster than most of our comparison phones, as you can see below. We were helped by the fact you can just go to the time you want in the daily view of the calendar and start typing the appointment title, with the reminder added automatically. This obviates the need to open a new appointment dialogue, as you have to do on most other smart phones.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	6.04	16.56
Nokia E90	16.37	6.11
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	4.43	22.57
HTC Mogul	7.22	13.85
T-Mobile Dash	7.38	13.55
Apple iPhone	18.92	5.29

Calendar Views (4.67)


Like all BlackBerries, the Curve 8320 has four calendar views. The default view is the daily one, with a nine-to-five block of time shown with appointments listed next to the appropriate time. This period can be changed in the settings and is expanded automatically if you have appointments that fall outside it. The weekly view is a typical grid with days along the top, times at the left, and appointments blocked out. When you highlight a given appointment its details appear at the bottom of the screen, a function that certainly improves the usefulness of this view.


The monthly view shows the current month with a small mark on days that have appointments. Unlike the weekly view, however, there is no information about a day's appointments listed on the screen when you highlight that day, which really only makes this view useful for looking up a date. The agenda view is a list of all your upcoming appointments in chronological order. Although none of the BlackBerry Curve 8320's views are particularly pretty, they can all be useful except for the lackluster monthly view.

Fields (11.0)
As with all BlackBerry devices, the Curve has a good selection of available fields when you create a new appointment. These include location, notes, time zone, and a solid option for recurrence. We are missing functions like the ability to categorize our appointments, though.

To Do/Tasks

Adding To Do/Task (6.76)
To see how easy it is to add a task to the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we time how long it takes to go from the home screen until we have added a new task reminding us to get groceries. We repeat this test five times and take the average time for our score. The Curve took an average of 14.8 seconds to add a task. This is a decent, but not great time for a smart phone. You can see below that the Nokia E90 and AT&T version of the Curve did significantly better than T-Mobile's BlackBerry Curve 8320.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	14.80	6.76
Nokia E90	10.07	9.93
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	11.93	8.38
HTC Mogul	16.02	6.24
T-Mobile Dash	Unable to perform test	0.00
Apple iPhone	n/a - no tasks program	0.00

To Do/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 supports categories for tasks, which makes us wonder why it's not supported in calendar appointments. But we digress. You can filter your tasks by category and sort them by subject, priority, due date, or status. There's also a search function that allows you to easily find a task, which can be really helpful if you have a lot of them. We found the functionality here to be pretty solid.

Fields (10.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 provides a good selection of fields when you create a new task. The basics are there, of course, but you also get advanced options like categories, time zone, notes, and recurring tasks.

Notes

Adding Notes (4.1)
To see how quickly we can add a note to the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have added a new note. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The BlackBerry Curve 8320 took an average of 12.2 seconds to add our test note. Again, this is a solid, but not great time. The AT&T version of the Curve did better in this test, and once again we have to consider T-Mobile's myFaves software, as it requires an additional key press and adds some lag to the process of adding notes.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	12.2	4.10
Nokia E90	16.73	2.99
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	8.31	6.02
HTC Mogul	12.56	3.98
T-Mobile Dash	n/a - no notes	0.00
Apple iPhone	12.66	3.95

Note Interface (7.5)
The notes interface on the Curve is very simple. A title can be placed at the top, and below is space to enter your text. You can also search through your notes, but only by title. We've seen better search functionality, but most phones lack it entirely so we're happy to see it at all.

Note Formatting (0.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 provides no options for formatting text or adding media to notes.

Voice Memo (1.0)
As with other BlackBerry devices the Curve lacks a standard voice recorder. Instead, your only option is to record a voice note to send via MMS. We once again wonder why this basic functionality, which is of great utility to business users, has been left out.

[page title="Multimedia"]

Accessing Music Software (2.62)
To see how easy it is to get a song playing on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we launch the music player and have a song playing. We repeat this test five times and take the average time for our score. The Curve took an average of 7.62 seconds to do this. This is on the low end of the comparison phones, and once again is significantly slower than the Curve we tested on AT&T's network.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	7.62	2.62
Nokia E90	7.31	2.74
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	4.84	4.13
HTC Mogul	6.06	3.30
T-Mobile Dash	4.53	4.42
Apple iPhone	3.10	6.45

Dedicated Music Controls (1.0)
When music is playing in the background on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 the only dedicated buttons to control music playback are the volume keys. There's no way to control play/pause or skip tracks without going back to the music player. It should be noted, though, that RIM has thoughtfully made getting back to your playing music simple by adding a "now playing" option to the menus throughout the phone whenever music is playing. While helpful, this doesn't replace true music controls.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.8)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320's music player provides good but basic functionality. You can sort your music by title, artist, album, or genre. There's also search available, something you don't have on Windows Mobile devices. Moving through the interface is easy and straightforward, and the combination of search functionality with the trackball makes moving through long lists of music easy. We were also happy to see support for standard playlists, however you cannot edit or create playlists on the phone.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 does not support direct music downloads to your device.

Streaming (0.0)
The Curve doesn't support streaming MP3, AAC, or Real audio.

Podcast Support (0.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 doesn't have any software that organizes or downloads podcasts on your device.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The Curve synchronizes easily with your Windows PC by using USB mode and Windows Media Player. RIM also provides a Roxio program for synchronization, but we didn't find it to be very functional.

Music Formats and DRM (0.0)
The Curve supports AAC, MP3, Wav, and Windows Media Audio files. Unfortunately there is no support for DRM protected content, so you can't listen to your music from iTunes, Rhapsody, or Napster.

Music Interruption (10.0)
The Curve does an admirable job when a call comes in while music is playing. The music is immediately paused and audio switches to the phone call. When the call is completed music starts right back up again. The only thing we would have liked to see is a fade when the music stops and starts; it can be jarring if you go straight from a whispered conversation with a loved one back to the death metal song you were listening to.

Video

Video Software Access (2.48)
To see how easy it is to get a video playing on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 we timed how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have a video going. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The Curve took 8.08 seconds to get a video playing. This is on the slow end of our comparison phones.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
BlackBerry Curve 8320	8.08	2.48
Nokia E90	7.55	2.65
BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T)	6.17	3.24
HTC Mogul	7.64	2.62
T-Mobile Dash	4.83	4.14
Apple iPhone	3.20	6.25

Video Controls (5.0)
The video controls on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 are pretty solid. The volume keys do their thing while play, pause, and stop are available via the trackball. You can also use the trackball to move forward or back in a video by selecting the scrub bar and moving left or right on the trackball. You can also use the symbol key to toggle to a full screen view, although we found a lot of our videos had a large black border around them instead of true full screen.

Video Software & Organization (1.5)


There aren't many organization options in the BlackBerry Curve 8320's video software. You can only view your videos by title, however there is search functionality available. The menu is accessed via the menu key, as you would expect, but you don't see many additional options here. Background play isn't supported, either.

Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music, you can synchronize video between your PC and Curve using the phone as a mass storage device and Windows Media Player. Again, you can also used the included Roxio software, but this isn't very good.

Video Formats (3.5)
The Curve was able to handle all three of our 3GP-encoded files, with H263 and MP4 codecs. It doesn't support MP4 files encoded with H264, nor does it support QuickTime, Flash, or Windows Media Video files.

Video DRM (0.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 doesn't support any form of video DRM.

Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
We were pleased to see the Curve was able to play back all five of our test video files. These files are of varying bitrates and top out at 768 Kbps. This means the Curve can handle fairly high-quality video without a problem.

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
You can't download videos directly to the Curve.

Video Streaming unscored
We don't score this section because there are so many different and rapidly changing standards for video streaming. In regards to the BlackBerry Curve 8320 it doesn't really matter, since it wasn't able to handle any of the sites we try out for informational purposes, including YouTube Mobile.

[page title="Software"]

OS (8.0)
The BlackBerry Curve 8320 runs RIM's BlackBerry operating system. We've liked the BlackBerry OS in the past and nothing changes our mind here. The BlackBerry OS is simple and easy to use. Its biggest flaw is a menu system that can get imposing at times, but the trackball design allows for quick scrolling through such lists. We also like that it's extensible and stable.

Home Screen Score (5.0)
The default home screen on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 is a little different than the standard BlackBerry home screen due to the presence of T-Mobile's myFaves interface. This places a rotating carousel of five contacts on the home screen, to which you can make unlimited calls. The top five shortcuts to applications are available just below it. To access other applications from this home screen, hit the menu key to bring up the more familiar set of application icons. We found the default home screen had some issues with lag, and we didn't like having to use an extra key press to access our applications. Thankfully you can turn off the myFaves interface. As with other BlackBerry devices, you can rearrange the icons on the home screen and change the background, as well.

Extensibility (7.0)
As a smart phone operating system, BlackBerry OS provides a great deal of flexibility in extending the Curve's capabilities. Not only does it support standard Java applications like Opera Mini or Google Maps, but it also supports native third-party applications. Although the catalog of third-party applications available for BlackBerry is not as large as those available for Windows Mobile or Symbian Series 60, it still provides a good selection.

Customizability (6.0)
The Curve provides a decent selection of customization options. You can change font size and type globally on the device, rearrange the icons on the home screen, and change the background. You also have access to themes that change the look of the whole device.

OS Responsivness (7.0)
This is an area where the BlackBerry Curve 8320 disappointed us a bit. We have high expectations for BlackBerry devices, as we have found them to be some of the most responsive and stable smart phones out there. Unfortunately, we found the Curve on T-Mobile fell short of these expectations. The device was significantly slower than the older version of the Curve we tested on AT&T. You can see throughout this review that the Curve 8320 consistently performed worse on timed tests than its AT&T cousin.

We believe the principal culprit for this lag is the myFaves interface, installed by T-Mobile. When this  was turned off we got the speed  we would have expected. This isn't the first time myFaves has seriously impacted the responsiveness of a handset; we found the same effect on the T-Mobile Wing, a Windows Mobile device that had some of the worse lag we've ever seen. We understand T-Mobile's desire to provide easy access to one of its most important calling features, but it needs to do more to optimize the myFaves interface for its devices.

Browser Features (8.0)
The browser on the BlackBerry Curve 8320 is the same browser we've seen on other BlackBerry devices. It supports HTML and WAP pages, as well as frames, cookies, and images. You can also save images to the device, a feature missing from a lot of handsets, such as the iPhone. RSS feeds are also supported. Javascript was not supported, however, and advanced Web features like Java and Flash aren't on board, either.

Browsing Interface (7.0)