We have to admit we’re mightily surprised at what we’ve seen today from RIM – the BlackBerry Curve 9360 is arguably the most stylish and sleek yet from the Canadians.
We’ve been clamouring for a more stylised model from RIM since the Torch 9810 and 9860 didn’t really set our world alight, and while the Bold 9900 is certainly clean and crisp in design, it’s not in the same league as other market leading smartphones.
Which is why it’s all the more impressive that a phone which will be available on pay as you go should be the most striking – but that’s what we’re presented with.
The phone is an impressive 11mm thick and comes with the same keyboard as others in the Curve range, meaning more lozenge keys that sit separate from one another and will be an easy evolution for those that have owned the Curve 9300 or 8520.
The phone still has the same optical trackpad as all the others in the range, which is necessary as unlike the Bold 9900 there’s no touchscreen here to prod.
The rear of the phone shoves a 5MP snapper next to a single LED flash, and while it can only record in VGA should be enough to nab decent enough footage for YouTube.
We gave both a good testing, and found the pictures to be in keeping with the BlackBerry quality we’ve come to expect – a little washed out and lacking in sharpness, but adequate for quick snaps when you’re out and about with your mates.
The side of the phone has a helpful little camera button, which we’re always pleased to see – it might not be much used as the trackpad is best for landscape shots, but it’s an easy way to fire up the camera.
Between the volume keys is also a customisable button that can be set to start up the media player or other functions – we think many will be keeping it as the music key, although we’re sad to see the dedicated music controls have been sacrificed to preserve depth.
However, the screen is certainly a step up from others in the Curve range, with an HVGA resolution on the 2.4-inch display good enough for 246dpi – not the sharpest on the market, but certainly among the best for a phone in this price bracket.
BB OS 7 is in effect here, utterly destroying the word of RIM that said only high-power CPUs could run the new platform. The 800MHz offering is slick enough, and although we’ve yet to learn the amount of RAM packed in, is unlikely to be more than the Bold 9780 – owners of that model should feel hard done by in not getting access to the new OS.
Anyway, BB OS 7 means the same swipable home screens for looking at rows of your application icons, grouped together in various arrangements to help you find those you’re looking for. You can only seem to set the app drawer to show three rows or none – nothing in between, which may irritate some.
When we picked up the Curve 9360 the first thing we wanted to do was try out the Webkit browser that’s meant to be so much improved, as it was dire on the older Curves.
Well, it’s both good and bad news: the browser is a lot better, but it can be really slow indeed. Loading up the likes of TechRadar and BBC sites (the full version) saw the on-screen pointer freeze, pictures take a while to display and general sluggishness, even over Wi-Fi.
However, this isn’t the finished sample, so don’t drop your head into your hands just yet – it could be a lot better in a month or two.
And to bring things back to a more positive level – the messaging capabilities of the device are still as sparking as ever. We love the integration throughout BB OS 7, allowing you to easily flick between BBM, email and SMS at will, along with decent Facebook and Twitter integration.
The keyboard is high quality, if a little compact compared to the Bold range – but that’s nothing new. We were up to speed quickly, although one handed operation isn’t the easiest thing to achieve in the world.
BB OS 7 contacts are still here, and offer clever integration with FourSquare and BBM – although we’re still annoyed we’re not seeing the same levels of social networking matching as on Android phones, this is still a step in the right direction.
Here’s some more good news – the media section of the phone seems pretty impressive, even with the slightly lower-resolution screen.
Flicking through music tracks was easy (although navigating with the optical trackpad was a bit hit and miss at times) and we could find our favourite track swiftly (if you’re only into Moby, Black Eyed Peas or Sarah Mclachlan, apparently).
Video looks good and loads quickly – we’re sure you’ll work out that this isn’t a phone for the movie marathon-loving clientele, but it’s more than acceptable for YouTube and some TV shows if you’ve got the eyesight to stand up to the squinting.
The Social Feed is an impressive widget – it’s certainly not new, but it’s been tarted up for BB OS 7 and will be winning feature on the Curve 9360 in our opinion, as you can check out Twitter, Facebook, RSS and podcasts in one long list, or separate them out to view individually.
More importantly, you can select only your favourites, which we haven’t seen used since Samsung’s ‘Buddies Now’ on the Galaxy S (although we’re sure it’s hidden somewhere on another phone – feel free to admonish us in the comments) – having a personalised stream is a really useful feature.
And universal search is still a quality offering, and is now bolstered by voice recognition too – which is a bit of an ‘And Me’ feature in our book. It can hear things like ‘text’ and ‘SMS’ but ask it to navigate to TechRadar and it all goes a bit squiffy.
Early Verdict
Of course this the price is going to be the crucial thing here; if it’s a tasty PAYG offering and £20 a month on contract, RIM is about to have a real big seller on its hands.
Packing NFC under the hood means it’s going to be more future proof than before, and the design is so sumptuous that we can guarantee that more than a few people thinking of leaving the BlackBerry platform will be convinced to stick with a Curve.
The processor speed is a little bit of a worry in our eyes – how will the Curve 9360 keep up over time as it becomes more laden with apps? Will users find the internet too slow?
We’ll keep an eye out for all this and more in our full BlackBerry Curve 9360 review, so stay tuned to see what we think in the next month.
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