RIM Introduces the BlackBerry Curve Smartphone

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RIM Introduces the BlackBerry Curve Smartphone
4th May 2007

Research In Motion (RIM) today introduced the BlackBerry® Curve™ smartphone - the smallest and lightest full QWERTY* BlackBerry smartphone. With its smooth and friendly design encompassing a large display, easy-to-use keyboard and intuitive trackball navigation system, this powerful new smartphone makes it easy to stay connected to the people and information that matter most.

"The BlackBerry Curve offers a unique blend of communications, multimedia and web features to provide people with an exceptional mobile companion for both work and leisure,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at RIM. “The BlackBerry Curve delivers RIM's industry leading email and messaging capabilities in a highly approachable smartphone design that is packed with consumer-friendly features including a 2 megapixel camera, enhanced media player and high-performance browser."

SMOOTH DESIGN & EASY TO USE
The BlackBerry Curve features a liquid silver finish, chrome highlights, smooth edges and soft curves. It is a full-featured smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard and large display and yet it boasts an impressively small and lightweight design at 4.2'' x 2.4'' x 0.6'' and approximately 3.9 oz. The ultra-bright 320x240 display brings images and video to life and includes RIM's light sensing technology that automatically adjusts backlighting levels for indoor, outdoor and dark environments. The handset also features RIM's innovative trackball navigation system that makes scrolling and selecting fast and easy.

MULTIMEDIA TO GO
The BlackBerry Curve comes with a 2 megapixel camera, complete with 5x digital zoom, built-in flash, self-portrait mirror and full screen viewfinder. The camera can capture images in up to three picture quality and size resolutions that can be shared instantly by email, MMS or BlackBerry® Messenger and transferred over Bluetooth® or USB cable. Photos can also be immediately set as a unique caller ID or Home Screen image.


The audio system is crisp and clear, playing music and videos through the handset's integrated speaker or through the 3.5 mm stereo jack. The Bluetooth stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) is supported, and dedicated volume controls are conveniently located on the side of the handset.

A powerful new desktop media manager is also included with the BlackBerry Curve. The Roxio® Media Manager for BlackBerry®, which was developed with Sonic® and based on the award-winning Roxio Easy Media Creator® 9, introduces a new level of simplicity, allowing users to easily search for media files on their computer, view and organize them, create MP3 music files from CDs, add audio tags, create playlists and automatically copy or convert pictures, music and videos for optimal playback on the BlackBerry Curve.

The media manager also includes Roxio Photosuite® 9 LE, a comprehensive tool that makes it easy to edit pictures and create photo albums. With PhotoSuite, pictures can be cropped, rotated and straightened, and flaws can be fixed by removing redeye or changing the brightness, contrast and saturation levels. Pictures can even be enhanced with color filters and special effects.

The media player on the BlackBerry Curve has been refined, allowing users to search for music by simply typing the title, genre, artist or album name. Videos can also be played in full screen mode.

MORE STORAGE FOR YOUR TUNES, FLICKS AND PICS
For added storage of music, videos and pictures, the BlackBerry Curve comes with a microSD expansion slot. It supports up to 2GB cards that are available today and will automatically support 4GB cards that are expected to become available later this year.

BRING THE WEB WITH YOU
The BlackBerry Curve features a high-performance browser that can download and display HTML web pages quickly and efficiently. Users can bookmark their favorite sites and set up RSS feeds to stay connected to the timely news and information that matters most during their day. The highly responsive browser, large and vivid screen and super-easy trackball navigation provides an exceptional mobile experience.

FULL FEATURED PHONE
The BlackBerry Curve offers many convenient phone features including Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), Bluetooth® 2.0 support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits and Bluetooth peripherals, quad-band operation for global roaming**, dedicated 'send', 'end', and 'mute' keys, smart dialing, speed dialing, conference calling, call forwarding, noise cancellation technology to offset background noise, a low-distortion speakerphone for hands-free conversations and support for polyphonic, mp3 and MIDI ring tones.

INDUSTRY LEADING EMAIL & MESSAGING
The BlackBerry Curve delivers all the renowned BlackBerry email and messaging capabilities and even features a new integrated spell checker with a user-customizable dictionary to help maintain spelling accuracy on the go. The BlackBerry Curve is supported on BlackBerry® Internet Service, giving users access to up to 10 work or personal email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts), as well as BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, enabling advanced security and IT administration within IBM® Lotus® Domino®, Microsoft® Exchange and Novell® GroupWise® environments.

ACCESSORIZE
The BlackBerry Curve also comes with a variety of accessories: a stereo headset, travel charger, carrying pouch and USB cable are all included in the box. Additional accessories for BlackBerry handsets, including premium leather holsters and totes, an automotive charger, and Bluetooth headsets are available through retail outlets or online at: www.shopblackberry.com.

AVAILABILITY
The BlackBerry Curve (model number: 8300) will be available through wireless carriers around the world, including AT&T in the U.S., beginning this spring.
For more information please visit: www.BlackBerryCurve.com.

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Is this a GSM phone with 3G capabilities?

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GSM Only

North America: 1900MHz GSM/GPRS networks
Europe/Asia Pacific: 900MHz GSM/GPRS networks
Europe/Asia Pacific: 1800MHz GSM/GPRS networks
North America: 850 MHz GSM/GPRS networks
EDGE networks

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New BlackBerry's got Curves
4th May 2007
The Age - News, Business News, Melbourne Australia News and Media

Research In Motion is rolling out the smallest and lightest full-keyboard BlackBerry smartphone yet, a new multimedia-laden device aimed at broadening the market that it seeks to conquer.

Aside from all of the standard calling and wireless e-mail functions RIM's devices are known for, the new BlackBerry Curve comes with a 2-megapixel camera with 5X zoom, built-in flash and a full-screen viewfinder.

It lets users watch videos and play music like other BlackBerries, but also comes with an advanced media manager program and a photo editor as well.

The Curve follows on the success of the BlackBerry Pearl, which debuted last year to rave reviews and has sold very well for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company.

The Pearl, however, did not feature a full, so-called QWERTY keyboard which some users prefer.

"For those that were eagerly awaiting for a Pearl-like design with a full QWERTY keyboard, this is it," RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said in an interview.

The Curve's bells and whistles are aimed at high-end customers who are willing to pay top dollar for stylish looking smartphones with multimedia capability.

While the Curve is still a device for professionals and so-called "prosumers," RIM hopes its heavy multimedia focus will broaden the market to high-end retail consumers.

Balsillie and RIM did not announce a price for the Curve, but the device is expected to be available for around $US200 through carriers around the globe.

A BlackBerry Australia spokeswoman said RIM was shopping for carriers to sell the Curve locally but a release date had not been set.

While the BlackBerry has become a staple among lawyers, politicians, business executives and other professionals, it has yet to penetrate the retail consumer market to the same extent.

One key hurdle for widening the audience for the BlackBerry has been its price, as a fully-loaded smartphone with wireless e-mail capability is much more expensive than most mobile phones available on the market today.

However, that is beginning to change, Balsillie said, with some plans for the BlackBerry now offering the device for free or for less than $US100.

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RIM Blackberry Curve 8300 review

Bringing Pearl style to RIM's QWERTY line. By Yardena Arar, PC World

List price:TBA
Pros: Good trackball, nice looks, good screen - and good email of course
Cons: No Wi-Fi or HSDPA
Buying advice: This could be the phone of the moment, combining the style of the Pearl with traditional Blackberry values. No details on pricing yet, though.

The BlackBerry Curve 8300 is the latest chic smart phone to sashay down the cell phone runway. Petite and gently rounded at the corners (as its name suggests), the Curve does for Research In Motion's line of QWERTY-keyboard-equipped handhelds what the Pearl did for RIM's standard keypad devices: Add a badly needed dose of style.

A more consumer-oriented cell phone/PDA hybrid than most of its siblings, the Curve packs such multimedia features as a 2-megapixel camera with built-in flash and 3x digital zoom, and new desktop media management software developed in co-operation with Roxio.

It's a world phone, with support for all four GSM frequencies (800, 850, 1800, and 1900 MHz). If only it supported broadband, too... But alas, the Curve's data transfer rates top out at 2.5G EDGE speeds. Lack of Wi-Fi or HSDPA support are among the device's few weaknesses.

Pricing information is not yet available: AT&T, the largest GSM carrier in the United States, says only that it will offer the Curve to customers there, later this spring.

I spent a few days with a production-level Curve equipped with late pre-production software and was generally impressed. The device certainly makes a terrific first impression: Small (4.2 by 2.4 by 0.6 inch) and lightweight (a tad under 4 ounces), it resembles a Treo that someone has flattened and widened out by applying a rolling pin.

It rested comfortably in my hand when I used it as a phone, and voice quality on calls was fine (though not as great as I might have hoped in view of RIM's touting of its noise-cancellation technology, intended to improve audio quality in noisy environments). We haven't yet lab-tested the Curve's talk-time battery life; check back later for a full assessment of this feature.

The Curve really shines as a mail and data device. Its 320-by-240-pixel screen is gorgeous - gone are the bad old days of muddy BlackBerry color displays. I also liked the small, marblelike trackball; its fluid movement substantially improves on the jog-wheel approach of yore. The trackball was particularly useful for skimming through Web pages on the embedded browser. But sometimes the trackball's fluidity moved the cursor more quickly than I anticipated it would - so I did a lot of backtracking through data entry fields.

I couldn't test the Curve's e-mail capabilities with a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, but the BlackBerry Internet Service did a first-class job with my Gmail account - not surprisingly, given RIM's expertise with e-mail. Setup took only a few seconds, and thereafter new mail appeared quickly in a neatly organised inbox list.

Though RIM's multimedia credentials are less well established, the Curve is poised to remedy that with its improved media player, which was intuitive and easy to use, and its new BlackBerry Desktop Media Manager software, which facilitates transferring and organising music, audio, and video files and which supports basic multimedia functions such as image editing and CD ripping. It's no substitute for dedicated music, video, and image-editing software, but for some users it will suffice.

The images I captured with the camera were adequate but (like most pictures taken with camera phones) a tad fuzzy. In my informal tests I could not assess the impact of the flash on image quality.

Unfortunately, such over-the-air activities as media downloads are relatively sluggish - I wish that RIM had included true 3G or Wi-Fi support. In addition, I miss the GPS chips and navigation software that come with the 8800, a more utilitarian, business-focused device.

Out of the box, the BlackBerry offers a rather thin array of productivity features in comparison to those you get in Windows Mobile PDA/phone hybrids. For serious word processing or spreadsheet support, you must turn to the growing number of third-party apps.

Overall, however, I found the Curve a seductive alternative to other candy-bar phones with wide-aspect-ratio screens, such as the Samsung Blackjack and the T-Mobile Dash. If operators get the price right, the Curve could well become the hot PDA/phone of the moment.