The not to be forgotten BlackBerry Curve line
While not announced alongside the top tier devices such as the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, or the new BlackBerry Torch 9 line (Torch 9860/9850, Torch 9810) — the BlackBerry Curve series is still going strong and some might say better then ever. Personally, I’d agree with that statement. The Curve series has a long standing history of being a tough and cost effective line and while its seen some changes over time — now proves that to be the case more so then ever.
BlackBerry Curve 9360 Hardware Impressions
The BlackBerry Curve 9360 keeps all the styling we know, while packing a lot into a small package
Having been using the BlackBerry Bold 9900 since its release, with a short venture on the new BlackBerry Torch 9810, I’ll admit picking up the new BlackBerry Curve 9360 felt like a little step back in time. Like I had just been downgraded to the previous BlackBerry experience. Those thoughts were of course generated without having given the device much time — after a few minutes use, downloading apps and firing off some emails I realized rather quickly the BlackBerry Curve 9360 wasn’t so much of a downgrade at all. It was actually quite a nice experience.
From top: Looking down from the top, you notice how thing the BlackBerry Curve 9360 is.
The new BlackBerry Curve 9360 keeps all the styling of the Curve line people know, while making stripping the device of some of that “cheap” feeling previous versions such as the 85xx, 93xx series had. The best BlackBerry Curve experience in my opinion was found on the BlackBerry Curve 8900, that device combined a luxury and ruggedness feel that has since been absent from the Curve line. The BlackBerry Curve 9360 is a triumphant return to that.
Appearance, Form Factor, Build Quality
Thin, stylish, rugged with a touch of class.
While RIM may have kept this device under wraps and separate from their high end line of devices such as the BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Torch, considering it never got the same spec upgrades as those devices — the BlackBerry Curve 9360 is quite a looker. No it doesn’t have a big touchscreen display, or a battery door made of composite glass but it’s thin and has a certain charm to it that I’m sure quite a lot of folks will love.
When it comes to the form factor of the device, you know what you are getting here. It’s a Curve, no doubt about it. You get the Curve keyboard — and while it may not be my favorite keyboard of all time, it works and does so quite well. When you first take the Curve 9360 out of the box, I’m almost certain everybody’s first thoughts are going to be “Wow, that’s thin!” and that would be totally accurate. The Curve 9360 feels great in the hands, due in part to its thinness and the keyboard is nicely laid out. You really can’t ask for much more then that.
Thickness compared to the BlackBerry Curve 8520
As I noted previously, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 was my favorite in the Curve series, and after having used the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and BlackBerry Curve 3G, I can’t help but think RIM heard others out there when they were asking for a return to the BlackBerry Curve 8900 quality. The BlackBerry Curve 9360 feels solid and like it could withstand quite a bit of abuse where previous Curves felt like they could break in your hands if handled too rough.
The battery door is my least favorite part of the device
I’ll kick this portion off around the backside of the device, and get my biggest issue out of the way. The battery door — I hate it. It’s the one component of the BlackBerry Curve 9360 that I wish RIM would have improved upon. It’s plastic, it feels cheap, it scratches easily and is darn near impossible to get off unless you have longer fingernails. There, I said it — the battery door sucks. I feel better now. If you’re looking to get a Curve 9360 — get a case if nothing else, it’ll keep the battery door safe. After the battery door you have all the usual suspects, mircoSD slot and SIM card slot — the microSD card slot is hot swappable so no issues there at all. It can easily be inserted and removed, all without even taking the battery out.
Above the keyboard is of course, a row of BlackBerry controls. Those of you who make use of one-handed navigation will have no issues here and much like other BlackBerry 7 devices, instead of individual buttons, the Send, Menu, Back and End keys are all part of the same piece, with the trackpad centered in the middle.
Again keeping with the BlackBerry 7 line, you’ll find the trackpad and display light up and power down in sequence. First the display, then the buttons and finally the trackpad. Nice touch added by the RIM engineers and glad it made it’s way to the BlackBerry Curve 9360. Final notes on the trackpad, it’s kind of raised up. I noticed previous Curve designs had it rather sunk in but RIM has raised them up once again, making finding the trackpad when not looking fairly easy.
Clean lines, silver band around the device — all signs to me RIM wanted the 8900 styling again
Typical buttons and ports can be found around the BlackBerry Curve 9360. The right side of the phone has the standard volume up and down keys, with the mute key relocated from the top of the phone to be in between the volume keys. They serve double duty as media keys when playing music as well, for skipping tracks and play/pause. At the bottom right is the programmable convenience key. One thing you’ll not find however, is the dedicated media keys at the top — guess RIM is done with those. And really, I’m glad — they wouldn’t fit in here at all.
The left side of the Bold 9360 is kept clean, with just the microUSB port present.
The left side of the Curve 9360 is pretty bare. The microUSB port for syncing and/or charging is all you’ll see. But given the port is built right into the housing, there should be no long term issues with loose USB ports and such as seen in previous models.
At the top of the phone is your button for locking/unlocking the screen and a 3.5mm headphone jack
At the top of the phone is your button for locking/unlocking the screen and a 3.5mm headphone jack. In my opinion, not the best spot for the headphone jack, as it creates some awkwardness when in use but for the most part I use Bluetooth headphones anyway, so not that big of a deal. The bottom of the device is, well — nothing. Not even charging contacts for a charging pod. Just one little hole for what is presumably a microphone or speaker port.
Nothing here, not even spots for a
BlackBerry Charging PodProcessor / Chipset / Performance
This portion is where most people looking to pick up a BlackBerry Curve 9360 will draw concern. Unlike other devices in BlackBerry 7 line, the BlackBerry Curve 9360 doesn’t get bumped up to the new 1.2GHz Qualcomm processors. Is that a bad thing? Could be, depending on what your expectations of the device are. In my opinion, it’s not an issue as long as you go into the device purchase knowing that.
Realistically, the enhancements made within BlackBerry 7 go beyond RIM having just tossed more horsepower at it and the BlackBerry Curve 9360 proves that. BlackBerry 7 on the Curve 9360 runs quite nicely, and while I was able to reach the devices limits faster on it, then say my BlackBerry Bold 9900 ultimately — it’s still an improvement that is far and above the experience felt of previous generation Curves.
For Example: On my BlackBerry Bold 9900, I can download multiple apps at the same time all while doing other things. This is still possible on the BlackBerry Curve 9360 but not in the same capacity as my Bold 9900. Downloading four apps on the Bold 9900 at the same time, would only equate to being able to download 2-3 apps on the Curve 9360. But the fact it can still do it, while making making use of the Tavor MG-1 800MHz processor shows it’s not just the processor working here — it’s the BlackBerry 7 optimization as well.
The processor area however, is where we had some questions. The Tavor MG-1 800MHz processor is noted to of have hav been used in the BlackBerry Torch. Now technically, that line from Marvell is capable of going up to 1GHz since it falls under the PXA9XX platform, or in this case — PXA940 problem is, very little is known about that processor beyond that. So the real question here became does the Curve 9360 support liquid graphics? And does it support OpenGL? We reached out to RIM and asked a few questions about the processor and OpenGL support:
The BlackBerry Curve 9350/9360/9370 all support Liquid Graphics. They each have a GPU and the re-architected graphics pipeline works wonders, so you should notice the fast, responsive UI, which is made possible by Liquid Graphics. And yes, the BlackBerry Curve 9350/9360/9370 models all support OpenGL
Interesting, we know of course “Liquid Graphics” is just a combination of hardware and code optimization but it seems when RIM said they went deep into the code and cleaned it up, they redesigned it all to a certain point.
Keyboard / Typing
Traditional Curve keyboard here
Going as far back as the BlackBerry Curve 8300 when it launched, I always felt the Curve keyboard had a certain “clickiness” to it. And while I loved it on my 8300, the experience of using what, at the time was a BlackBerry Bold 9000 spoiled me. That’s not to say I can’t use the Curve keyboard — I can. I just find that you either love it or hate it. The Curve 9360 did nothing to change my mind in that respect, it’s a traditional Curve keyboard and if you’re a fan of it — then you’ll feel right at home here. It’s not mushy. it’s not overly clicky or loud but you know, when typing on it that it’s a Curve keyboard through and through.
Display
No touchscreen here but the Curve is now on par with the Bold 9780′s 480×360 screen
Now, the display. I’m sure a few people out there will leave some comments about how RIM should have upped the display resolution for the Curve series but fact is — they did. Previous Curve generations made use of a 320×240 display that we can only assume was left over stock from when RIM was producing BlackBerry Curve 8300′s but that, is no longer the case. The BlackBerry Curve 9360 is now on par with the likes of the BlackBerry Bold 9780 and comes loaded with a 480×360 display which produces 246ppi and measures 2.44″ (measured diagonally). For comparison, the BlackBerry Bold 9900′s 2.8-inch (diagonal) 24-bit display runs VGA at 640 x 480 pixels, for 287ppi.
The display is bright and vibrant but does of course lack any touchscreen capability and realistically — it doesn’t need it. For what RIM will be marketing this device as, and for the price it costs; the Touchscreen capability is better left out here. Although, I did often find myself reaching to touch it on many occasion but that was simply born of my Bold 9900 and Torch 9810 usage. For the curious, the screen is made of plastic — it’s actually one big piece that combines the buttons and top portion of the device.
Memory
Application Memory after five days of use and a handful of apps installed.
The BlackBerry Curve 9360 ships with 512MB of RAM and has an additional 512MB of on-board memory for media storage. Additionally, there is an expansion slot that supports up to 32GB microSD cards (whether or not a microSD card comes in the box will be carrier dependent – the TELUS unit reviewed here did ship with a 2GB microSD card).
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