BlackBerry Curve 9300

"Pulling the plug on the BlackBerry could cost corporate America millions of dollars. The BlackBerry is more than e-mail but a handheld office, and if you shut down the BlackBerry, you shut off the data that powers American business". That’s how crucial is BlackBerry, not only for US but for the entire world. 

Gadget lover is here once again. This time it is BlackBerry Curve 3G/ Curve 9300. It seems that for all the gadgets I own have one thing in common, they lack a FLASH ;)

In my last review about the Sony Bloggie Touch which in fact is a decent enough buy, i picked out some Goods and Bads and i will do the same here for BB Curve 3G.

Lets start with the very best part about this edition of Curve, OS 6 support. I am using this phone for a little over 7 months now with absolutely NO glitches. I used BB OS 5 for about 20 days before I got it upgraded to OS 6 from BB Service Center, and that actually helped me in engaging more with my BB. I wonder why RIM pushed this phone in the market with OS6 support but loaded with OS5 instead, would have been great if it was pre-loaded with OS6 in first place.



"There are phones, and then there are BlackBerry phones". 

So, does BB 9300 justifies the above two famous quotes, lets see.

This is for sure that BB 9300 is not the best phone from RIM, neither is it the most good looking in the market(i believe otherwise) nor is it full of to die for features.  I was using Samsung Bar phone earlier, and was desperate to move on to QWERTYs. I had many options to chose from. Nokia E Series, now-a-days popular Micromaxs, and few others, but E Series seemed too much old and of course, the symbian factor, plus I never wanted to own Nokia E63 and E72 was too costly and micromax was never in my list of options. My friend had a BB Curve 8520 black color, to be very true, I never liked that BB. Few days later, I saw the same phone BB Curve 8520 in white color. It was amazing and it changed my whole perception about the BB curve series. So I googled around for the curve series and found one good looking curve, 9300 or BB curve 3G. It’s definitely far better looking than BLACK BB 8520 due to its metallic rim around the body and the back flap is also not as boring as in 8520.

So coming over to my BB 9300.
Why I bought it?

Though it was in range of 14.5 K which was too costly as compared to its twin brother 8520 which was priced at 9900 at that time. 3G was not the factor which forced me to buy it, as we are still to get out of 2G scam hearing :P, plus we don’t have 3G service on Airtel in Chandigarh[well that’s the real factor :)]. Other additions in this over 8520 were,

1.) The BB OS 6 Support,
2.) GPS support
And thats all. So spending 5000 bucks just for these 3 factors wasn’t a good idea.

Positives - First + for this is the support for OS 6, which I believe is the most crucial factor, I used it on OS 5 for some days and it was outdated, static, and not so appealing. Once I upgraded it to OS 6, it was amazing experience. The OS 6 looks way too appealing, dynamic, fast, and the whole makeover of the phone changed with just one OS upgrade. OS 6 is very easy to use and has lot more options than OS 5. (+)

Sound - Good (+)

Camera - Well, 14K with 2mp without flash, that’s a big negative. (-)

Browser - OS 6 browser is very fast.

Keypad - Smooth and very comfortable, though its not as good as BB Bold, but that’s class apart, so no comparisons with bold (+)

Track pad - Great, it freezed once and I had to restart the phone by pulling out the battery, but it was just once in a while, so a (+)

Battery - Awful when I used it first, it used to drain out in about 7-8 hours (normal usage including 20-30 texts, 5-10 mails and 2-4 calls), but I installed an app which claimed to boost up the battery life, and I have noticed a significant improvement in my phone’s battery life since then. It now last with my type of usage for about 12-15 hours. That’s a (+) for the app :)

Now the internet experience over BB. Well, this is my first Blackberry, and I have to say I really liked this, the mail setup is easy over Nokia, texting is easy and well managed, call quality is very good, never experienced and call drops which I had in some of my previous phones.

Would I recommend this? At 14.5K , Definitely not worth it.

The price factor is a big -ve factor in 9300.

Few suggestions for people who already own it, or planning to buy one,

1.) Upgrade to OS 6 from nearby service center, its free of cost if you have bill.
2.) Install the battery saver app, it changes the whole perception about its bad battery life. 

I don’t know if BB had made it OS6 compliant, why on earth did they sell it with OS 5, and only having 3G and GPS doesn’t justifies its 4-5 K price difference with 8520.

The missing factors which curve 9300 has are 

A minimum of 3.2 mp of camera with flash. 
At least 512 mb RAM, it has 256.(But it still runs the OS 6 smoothly and seldom gives you any hanging problems) 
Screen resolution of 480 x 360, it currently has 240 x 360, which is ok. 

+ There are many other mini factors could have been included but above three would have justified the price tag.

Its definitely not likeable at 14K  when Comparing to E72, not justified, but it has 256mb RAM to E72’s 128, the keypad on BB 9300 is way too good looking, smooth and easy to use plus less crammed than E72.

From above review, calculate the + and – and decide whether you want to buy it or not. You may even want to get 8520 but that’s awful looking phone in black color and of course, has OS 5.

Final verdict.

Looks – 3.5/5
Performance – 4/5 (on OS 6, i have not used OS 5, performance would be a huge factor with OS)
Hardware – 3/5
Overall – 3.5/5 

Would i recommend, well 50-50.