Blackberry Curve Review

Buying a new cell phone is more like a Vegas crap shoot with regard to loving it or hating it, but thank goodness for people like me who are good enough to share their knowledge of products with others. Doing so enables the buying public to hear what's good and bad before slapping down the cash to buy. Smart phones are awesome, but knowing which one to buy is tough. I would want to know how easy it is to Google on a smart phone before I buy, wouldn't you? Here is the list of the good, bad and ugly in the new Blackberry Curve Smart Phone.

The Curve is a good-looking piece of technology. I purchased the violet curve and have been using it for a few weeks now. For the most part, the phone is easy to use. It is not a touch screen, but does have a touch pad for getting from one app or icon to another. The touch pad not only navigates through the icons, but is also used to select the icon. You simply use the touch pad to find and push the touch pad to launch. It can be a little sensitive, but better that it's overly sensitive than the other way around.

The tools/apps/functions and browser are easy to find and use. What I like about the phone is that I don't have a hundred different buttons to push to get where I want. The browser or apps can be added to a "favorites" list, much like on our home computers so access is simple. The internet is not lightning fast, but its fast enough for what I use it for. I check email, Facebook and occasionally use the browser to get news. Downloading can take some time, but this is the problem of Verizon I think, not the phone.

The various apps or icons are practical and therefore great. You'll find a few pre-installed apps like Facebook, MySpace and Social Beat to name a few. I wish the maker had created an app for Twitter as well, but...you can't have everything right? That is unless you get the iPhone, which that's just too many apps for this simple minded girl to sift through.

I also like the camera on the Curve. It takes super clear pictures and the details are great. They aren't blurry and are extremely sharp. I've had cameras on other phones, such as the LG Chocolate and I didn't find the pictures to be very good quality.

The Blackberry Curve does have some negatives, but for me they would not stop me from buying it. Firstly, the key pad is super small, so for those of us whose eyes are aging as rapidly as our faces, the keys are tough to see. The bright side is that I have gotten used to the keypad and now know the keys by memory. No need to whip out the reading glasses. The same problem occurs with the numbers pad. I use the numbers pad to not only make calls, but also to do banking, or to use numbers in my texts. I find it extremely difficult to see the numbers because the color of the phone is light and the symbols are white, not a good combo, but again, the more I use it the easier it seems to get.

The battery length is also a slight problem. The phone will hold a charge for a full day, maybe a day and a half, provided that you aren't using all the apps, browser and doing a lot of texting. Since this phone was made to do all of those things it is a bummer that the battery doesn't last longer. The easy fix is to get the car charger so you can keep it charged up all the time.

The last negative to add to the list is the volume of the ear speaker. I find I have to move the phone around until I find the perfect spot for the speaker so I can hear the person on the other end. Most of the phones I have owned have had the same problem so this did not come as a surprise.

Overall, the Blackberry Curve is a nice, easy to use phone with simple self-explanatory directions. It's practical and convenient to have everything I need at the touch of a button. It fits comfortably in my hand and is equally easy to hold to my ear that is if I am not using Bluetooth. The curve has lots of great accessories, such as a privacy screen cover, so people cannot see your valuable information and soft plastic covers to protect it from the elements or the occasional drop on the ground. If I had to give it a rating between 1 and 5, I'll give it a 3.5.