RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360
Performance:
Crazy to say, but all is not well in the calling quality department as our ears are subjected to some flat sounding voices through the earpiece. Meanwhile, our callers mention hearing choppy voices on their end of the line. Hoping for something better, things don’t improve when switching to the speakerphone since voices are muffled in tone.
Whether it’s indoors or outdoors, the BlackBerry Curve 9360 is able to retain a solid connection to the network during our testing in the greater Philadelphia region.
Above all things, we’re astounded by the Curve 9360’s excellent battery life, as we’re able to get 2 days of heavy usage on a single charge. Taking into account that it’s packing only a 1,000 mAh battery, it’s impressive to find it lasting for so very long.
Not all of us can afford to experience RIM’s latest and greatest offering, but for those looking for something reasonable without sacrificing too much of the experience, the BlackBerry Curve 9360 proves its worth – especially in its pricing. At $79.99 with a 2-year contract, it’s easy enough to afford on almost any budget, but more importantly, it’s able to provide us with that rock solid BlackBerry experience that it’s high-end siblings offer as well. Also, there are enough incremental improvements to make it one of the more memorable Curve handsets in recent memory, and in fact, it’s able to supplant the Curve 8900 as being the best looking Curve to date.
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Whether it’s indoors or outdoors, the BlackBerry Curve 9360 is able to retain a solid connection to the network during our testing in the greater Philadelphia region.
Above all things, we’re astounded by the Curve 9360’s excellent battery life, as we’re able to get 2 days of heavy usage on a single charge. Taking into account that it’s packing only a 1,000 mAh battery, it’s impressive to find it lasting for so very long.
Not all of us can afford to experience RIM’s latest and greatest offering, but for those looking for something reasonable without sacrificing too much of the experience, the BlackBerry Curve 9360 proves its worth – especially in its pricing. At $79.99 with a 2-year contract, it’s easy enough to afford on almost any budget, but more importantly, it’s able to provide us with that rock solid BlackBerry experience that it’s high-end siblings offer as well. Also, there are enough incremental improvements to make it one of the more memorable Curve handsets in recent memory, and in fact, it’s able to supplant the Curve 8900 as being the best looking Curve to date.
- Slimmer design
- Responsive platform performance
- Long lasting battery life
- Affordable cost
CONS
- Stiff feeling keyboard
- Outdated platform experience
- No auto-focus camera
- Poor calling quality
Interface and Functionality:
It might not be a 1GHz processor under the hood, but for an entry level handset, we’re accepting of its single-core 800MHz processor with 512MB of RAM. Even with that, the Curve 9360 is able to emulate the tight responsiveness of other recent BlackBerry smartphones. Specifically, it’s adequate enough to handle tasks such as opening ups, navigating across the homescreen, and even web browsing very smoothly. Seriously, it just goes to show that you don’t need a high-end processor to produce some admirable results.
Running BlackBerry OS 7, there’s not a whole lot of learning required for those who are well versed in the operation of OS 6. Granted that it’s functional and organized, the entire experience is beginning to feel a bit antiquated versus the competition. Even more, the experience tends to feel more tedious than its touchscreen enabled siblings since we’re spending a great deal of time just trying to navigate. Certainly, we’re left with a lot to desire with the OS 7 experience, such as having a deeper level of personalization, but we’re grateful to see it running smoothly with its performance.
Much like all the other BlackBerries before it, the email experience never ceases to amaze us since it’s always giving us push support. Not only does it save battery, but it’s just nice to receive messages the moment they’re sent. However, we’re still waiting to see it upgraded to offer features like threaded conversation for easier organization. Nevertheless, the setup process is absolutely painless since it requires only our email addresses and passwords to correctly set up.
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Email
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Productivity users will enjoy that the handset is preloaded with Documents To Go, which quickly allows us to create and edit Microsoft Office files. Besides the usual BlackBerry apps that are commonly preloaded, the only other third party ones that we find include Slacker Radio, Amazon MP3 Store, Facebook, and Twitter.
Camera:
As much as we like finding an upgraded 5-megapixel camera with flash in the rear, we’re bummed by the fact that it doesn’t offer auto-focus – meaning, it’s nearly impossible to have clear looking close ups. Despite that, we’re still not impressed by the faint details and ethereal appearance of its results. Moreover, indoor shots are filled with an abundance of graininess and digital noise, which masks any fine details. On the other hand, its LED flash is potent enough to light up the shot – but at times, it can over-expose the image.
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Camera interface
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Gallery
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Camera samples taken with the RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360
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Strong
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Medium
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Low light
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3ft
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5ft
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7ft
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Darkness with flash
Indoor samples | ||
RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360 Sample Video:
Multimedia:
Straightforward with its layout, there’s nothing overly captivating with its music player interface – albeit, we do like the cover-flow like interaction when browsing through songs. On the audio front, its tones are crisp and robust in quality without a hint of crackling evident at the loudest volume setting.
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The music player
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Much to our surprise, the handset is actually capable of playing our test video that’s encoded in MPEG-4 1280 x 720 resolution. Even though its tiny display isn’t the most optimal thing to watch videos on, we adore its smooth playback, rich details, and in-sync audio.
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The handset is actually capable of playing our test video in 1280 x 720 resolution
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Not surprisingly, the handset is preloaded with a 2GB microSD card, which is a nice inclusion considering its price. However, if it’s simply not enough, it can always be swapped out for others up to 32GB in capacity.
Internet and Connectivity:
Packing 3G support, which was introduced by its predecessor, we find a better improvement in the overall web browsing experience on the Curve 9360. Specifically, it’s able to load up complex web site like ours in under a minute, plus, its navigational controls are remarkably more responsive. However, there’s only a slight pause when zooming in because it simply has to render the page before proceeding. But it’s not that bad at all!
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The RIM BlackBerry Curve 9360 is able to load up complex web site like ours in under a minute
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Naturally, this GSM smartphone will be able to place phone calls in almost any part of the world, but it’s only able to gain 3G speeds via T-Mobile’s specific AWS band. Standard amongst smartphones nowadays, the Curve 9360 packs connectivity features like 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, and aGPS. Unfortunately, it’s still lacking things like mobile hotspot and Wi-Fi calling functionality.
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