BlackBerry Curve 8520

Research in Motion apparently has decided the best way to conquer the smartphone market is to put their well-known OS into a dizzying array of different bodies. That's fine with me, because many of them turn out excellent—Flip and Storm aside. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 is the company's latest smartphone for T-Mobile, and the first BlackBerry to sport a trackpad. My guess: the trackpad will succeed the trackball on all future designs, because it's great. The rest of the Curve 8520 turned out pretty well, too. That's not bad for a smartphone that rings in at just $48.88 (with a two-year contract) from Walmart—although puzzlingly, it's $129 at T-Mobile's own stores.

Design
The Curve 8520 is almost exactly the same size as the aging Curve 8320, but slightly thinner and lighter at 4.3 by 2.4 by 0.5 (HWD) inches and 3.8 ounces. It comes in white and black, and it's made of glossy plastic with a rubber accent around the sides. A new set of media keys runs along the top edge. The integrated rubberized buttons on the sides were comfortable to press. I'd prefer a textured back panel of some kind, since the smooth plastic one picks up tons of scratches over time. For accessories, T-Mobile throws in a pair of wired earbuds, a 1GB microSD card, and a USB sync cable along with the power supply.

The 2.5-inch QVGA (320-by-240) LCD is lower-resolution than the Curve 8900's and isn't as bright, but it sports the same refreshed UI graphics and color scheme. As I mentioned earlier, the new trackpad is a hit. It's accurate and easy to use, and less tedious to use than scrolling a trackball. The QWERTY keys are ever-so-slightly larger and are raised higher than on the 8320. Typing was just about perfect given the form factor. If you have large hands, you may still prefer the Bold 9000 over on AT&T.

Calling and Internet
The quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) Curve 8520 has Wi-Fi but still lacks 3G data support. That feels archaic in mid-2009. Voice quality was OK overall, if slightly dull and computery. But wind rejection was marginal, and reception was downright weak. I'm in a tough rural area for T-Mobile to begin with, but I've never seen a T-Mobile phone roll back to emergency SOS mode in spots. Several test calls failed as well; nearby T-Mobile G1 and Samsung Comeback handsets with the same SIM didn't have these problems. Like the Curve 8900, the Curve 8520 can switch between cellular and Wi-Fi calls in UMA mode with an appropriate T-Mobile Hotspot @Home plan. My Curve 8520 hopped between cellular and Wi-Fi during calls with a touch of distortion for a few seconds but no other ill effects. Calls sounded fine through a Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset, and the speakerphone was gloriously loud and clear. Battery life was average for EDGE at 8 hours and 20 minutes of talk time.

RIM's standard Web browser is slow, but the trackpad makes it simple to scroll through Web pages and click on links. There are IM clients for AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live, Yahoo, and ICQ. Like all recent BlackBerrys, the Curve 8520 is an excellent mobile office. The Curve 8520's stellar push e-mail and Microsoft Exchange support is as good as any other BlackBerry. The phone also views and edits Microsoft Word and Excel documents, and the Wi-Fi radio easily hooked into a WPA2-encrypted test network. There's no GPS on board here.

Multimedia and Conclusions
The 8520 is a decent media device. MP4 and AVI videos—including a 2-hour movie—played back perfectly smoothly. That's a benefit of the fast 528 MHz CPU. Music tracks sounded chalky and midrangey over a normally good-sounding pair of Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth headphones. The Curve 8520's microSD card slot is underneath the battery cover, but you no longer need to pull the battery; my 16GB SanDisk card worked fine. The Curve 8520 claims to come with BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac, which replaces the free-but-buggy PocketMac app. Unfortunately, the CD installer turned out to be a glorified shortcut to RIM's Web site, which confirmed the software wouldn't be available until September.

The 2-megapixel camera lacks a flash or auto-focus. Outdoor photos had vibrant color but showed muddled, jaggy detail work on tree leaves and brick inlay. Indoor photos looked mottled and noisy, even when there was plenty of light. Shutter delay was negligible, though. (Note that it's easy to bump the digital zoom because of the sensitive new trackpad; don't do that, because it made test photos look terrible.) The Curve 8520 also recorded smooth 320-by-240-pixel videos at 15 frames per second, with good color but too much contrast: dimly lit corners and walls around sunlit windows disappeared entirely.

T-Mobile has pricing issues; witness the entry-level Samsung Highlight, which hit the market at a higher price than the superior Samsung Behold. At $129, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 is priced just $20 below the Curve 8900, which features a higher-resolution screen and better camera, and is our Editors' Choice for T-Mobile smartphones. At Amazon, both phones cost $0.01, so it's a no-brainer to get the 8900. But if you're near a Walmart (where the 8520 costs $48.88) and Amazon's 8900 special goes away, then the 8520 looks more appealing. Either way, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 is a solid smartphone and a shrewd update to the ever-popular 8300 series—even if it's no longer at the top of the class.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
Continuous Talk Time: 8 hours 20 minutes

Compare the BlackBerry Curve 8520 with several other mobile phones side by side.

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