Blackberry CURVE 8330 Expert Reviews

Customers of Verizon and other North American CDMA-based cellular providers can finally lay their hands on one of the hottest PDA phones, Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry Curve, the smallest, lightest cell phone with a full QWERTY keyboard.

By Gerry Blackwell August 18, 2008

Verizon sells the 8330 for $200 with a two-year contract, $300 with a one-year contract. Bell and Telus in Canada sell it with one-, two- or three-year contracts, or no contract, for $200, $400, $500 or $550 (Bell), $200, $450, $500 or $550 (Telus). Voice...

We tested the 8330 on the Telus network in Canada. Yes, it did sound a bit tinny and digital - hmmm, didn't we just say that about music playback? - but all the calls were perfectly clear and audible. The Curve, as noted in the original review, also has a...

An excellent smartphone with plenty of features for work and play.

Includes 3G support and GPS Excellent messaging features

Battery life could be better

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Alltel's version of our Editors' Choice smartphone, RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8330, doesn't mess with success.

RIM's smallest BlackBerry with a full QWERTY keyboard hooks up with Sprint's Music Store and TV, making this a great smart phone for work and play.

Speedy EV-DO connection, Sprint TV and Sprint Music Store support, GPS navigation capability, Instant messaging apps included, Good battery life

Sprint Music Store froze occasionally, Data marginally slower than Verizon Wireless BlackBerry 8330, MMS option is locked

While it lacks the Wi-Fi capability we loved on the 8320, the Curve 8330's EV-DO connection on Sprint really stood out while we surfed the Web. We loaded CNN.com in just 6 seconds and ESPN.com in a speedy 8 seconds. Laptopmag.com, which isn't formatted sp...

Like many BlackBerry smartphones, the BlackBerry Curve continues to make its rounds with US carriers after two GSM versions paved the way: the BlackBerry Curve 8300 came out last summer on AT&T and the Curve 8320 with Wi-Fi came out on T-Mobile later last...

Excellent push email support, easy to set up and use. Good corporate IT email and security support. The camera is good by 2 megapixel camera phone standards. Very good audio for voice calls and music playback. Video player is decent, music player outputs

Can't display HTML email out of the box. Battery isn't set adequate for heavy streaming multimedia use.

CDMA users who admired the BlackBerry Curve from a distance can now get their hands on this messaging smartphone sprinkled with a touch of multimedia. Despite the complicated backend server support for everything under the sun (Lotus Domino, MS Exchange,

Sprint's version of the new BlackBerry Curve 8330 takes Verizon's version and improves on it in several ways: by adding mobile TV, over-the-air music downloads, more robust instant-messaging options, and a powerful information aggregator. In fact, the Bla...

Near-perfect design, including an exceptional keyboard. Built-in GPS. Solid voice quality. Top-notch e-mail handling. Robust software bundle.

Still no document editing. No Wi-Fi. Poorly placed microSDHC card slot.

The Curve 8330 is Sprint's best new smartphone, offering an excellent balance of style, power, voice quality, and multimedia prowess.

Just as Sprint has been long overdue for the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330, so has Verizon Wireless. However, the time has come for the carrier, and we're happy to say it was worth the wait. With its full QWERTY keyboard and well-rounded feature set, the Blac...

The RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 for Verizon Wireless offers integrated Bluetooth and GPS. The smartphone also delivers good call quality and strong messaging capabilities with a full QWERTY keyboard.

Unlike Sprint, Verizon doesn't offer support for its 3G streaming media services on the BlackBerry Curve 8330.

Though we wish the smartphone supported Verizon's VCast multimedia services, the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 is still an excellent smartphone that delivers on call quality and of course, e-mail.