Software
Media
While the Curve 8520 has all the ringtones, music support, video viewing, and picture-snapping you’ve come to expect in the BlackBerry family, there are some setbacks, and it’s plainly clear that media is where the device suffered most for its reduced pricetag. The QVGA 320 x 240 display is probably the best place to start. If you’re used to a higher-end smartphone with lush, crisp screens, the pixellation around curves on the 8520 will drive you nuts. Technical snobbery aside, lots of people live with QVGA on old-school Curves and other handsets daily, and it will certainly do the job, especially if you’re not picky.
The camera is a distinct step backwards, and really just thrown in for a token presence. The Bold is my mainstay handset, and its one gaping weakness is the 2.0 megapixel camera; the Curve 8520 manages to even undercut the Bold by nixing the flash. After using the Nokia N86 8MP, a respectable camera has become a must-have, but while the pictures the 8520 takes in ideal situations are fine, real-life scenarios that have a lot of movement and questionable lighting create some seriously mediocre pictures.
Other BlackBerry models have upgraded to 3.2 megapixel cameras since the Bold, and it strikes me as a tragedy of Shakespearan proportions to turn back now. I can in theory appreciate how much money RIM must have saved on manufacturing thanks to the downgrade, but it’s certainly not worth the price of embarassment when folks upload ho-hum pictures from their shiny new 8520 to Facebook, only to find they’ve been further garbled by compression. Better pictures can handle the quality hit in transit that a 2-megapixel camera simply can’t. Here are some samples comparing the latest BlackBerrys with comparable cameras, and one from the Curve 8900’s 3.2 megapixel camera to provide a point of reference.
To be honest, I don’t usually find the 8520 pics tint as red as it did in this sample picture.