Summary
The BlackBerry Curve 9380 is THE touchscreen only Blackberry to buy, even more so because it isn't very expensive.
Quite clearly, RIM is focusing on the touchscreen phone market this year. Phones with touchscreens and QWERTY keypads as well as touchscreen only devices are now available in the Curve range as well. And we think it is a good value for money device. Read on to know why.
Look & Feel
Having used the Torch 9860 quite extensively, the form factor of the Curve 9380 didn’t take getting much used to. The form factor is essentially the same, only slightly smaller. It is built very well too. The four keys below the touchscreen - call connect and disconnect, menu and return have a better feel to them, in fact. The integrated design means you don’t feel as though you are pressing actual buttons!
Having used the Torch 9860 quite extensively, the form factor of the Curve 9380 didn’t take getting much used to. The form factor is essentially the same, only slightly smaller. It is built very well too. The four keys below the touchscreen - call connect and disconnect, menu and return have a better feel to them, in fact. The integrated design means you don’t feel as though you are pressing actual buttons!
There is the traditional chrome border running around the sides of the phone. Flip it over, and you have a shiny black battery cover. Absolutely hate the side opening mechanism of the cover, which is a pain in the nails!
Overall, the phone feels slightly classier and expensive than the actual price tag. Even though Curve phones have traditionally been far behind the Bold series in terms of build quality and looks, this one seems to blur those lines.
Features & Performance
RIM toned down the processor power on this phone, from the usual 1GHz or so processors to an 806MHz one. It is paired with 512MB RAM though, meaning that the OS 7 performance doesn’t really feel the pinch despite less than 1GHz of processing power. We had Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and a couple of other apps running in the background, and yet, OS 7 didn’t really slow down. The only real difference we saw was that the inbox became a bit sluggish to open messages, or to return to the inbox.
RIM toned down the processor power on this phone, from the usual 1GHz or so processors to an 806MHz one. It is paired with 512MB RAM though, meaning that the OS 7 performance doesn’t really feel the pinch despite less than 1GHz of processing power. We had Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and a couple of other apps running in the background, and yet, OS 7 didn’t really slow down. The only real difference we saw was that the inbox became a bit sluggish to open messages, or to return to the inbox.
