I ducked into a Telus store late last week to play around with the recently-launched BlackBerry Curve 9360, and was pleasantly surprised by how slim and tiny the thing was. In the press shots, it looked a little blocky, and vaguely reminiscent of the old 8800 in its proportions, but holding one in person is a very different experience. It was easy to imagine it slipping into a pocket and being virtually unnoticed.
The keyboard hasn’t changed much from previous Curve models; each key is individually separated, rather than only having a fret between each row as on the Bold. The software seemed to run relatively smoothly, but I didn’t have time to dive deep since the device was fresh out of the box and bound for some lucky customer. I worry a bit about the battery life, since it’s been shaved down to 1000 mAh for the sake of size, but hopefully the 800 MHz processor and lower-resolution display will have things burn cooler and last longer than the other OS 7 devices. Although the 480 x 360 display resolution doesn’t look great on paper compared to some of the sharper displays available in the wide world of smartphones, it’s perfectly fine for entry-level, especially considering RIM’s old top-of-the-line devices like the Bold 9780 were in the same ballpark.
I’ll be posting my review of the BlackBerry Torch 9810 this week, and with any luck, I should have a Curve 9360 to take a look at next week. Be sure to take a look at the width comparison shots between the two to see just how slim the thing is.