Sound
The Curve 8900’s speaker isn’t quite as tinny as the BlackBerry Storm, but isn’t as loud when placed flat on a table, thanks in part to the Storm’s extra muffle-preventing feet. Sure, it works for speakerphone calls just fine, but jamming all that sound through one speaker still makes for sub-par music. The Bold’s external speakers are great by comparison – I often use them when headphones don’t make sense, like while doing the dishes. Still, if comparing the Curve’s sound to other phones’ external speakers, they’re very crisp and rarely distort even at the highest volume with audio boost on.
Camera
BlackBerry Curve 8900 versus BlackBerry Bold versus BlackBerry Storm picture quality
BlackBerry Storm Video Recording compared to BlackBerry 8900 Curve
The BlackBerry 8900’s 3.2 megapixel camera leaves the Bold’s 2.0 in the dust, and the new autofocussing software introduced in the Storm gives it even more of an edge. One surprise was the poor video recording quality on the new BlackBery Curve compared to the 9530 Storm. Although it’s hard to tell from those two videos which are dummed down for the sharing services, this still shows pretty clearly that the 8900’s quality is rough. Maybe the change between the two was in an attempt to bring out more fine detail (notice the distinctly lumpier snow near the bottom), but I found the Storm’s camera recording smoother, despite the fuzziness.