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The BlackBerry Curve 9380 preview: Specs overview of Blackberry's first touch screen smartphone

So here is BlackBerry Curve or the Curve 9380, Research In Motion's (RIM) first ever touch screen smartphone to join the long list of the brand's illustrious handsets. I'm not really sure what to say concerning the Curve - 'Premium' specifications and features? Yes. Top-line? Yes. Sleek and stylish? Definitely. User-friendly? uh-um, I don't know yet! I'll update you after I use it.

BlackBerry Curve 9380
     

The Curve Touchscreen, an offspring of the BlackBerry Curve series - remember those QWERTY and buttons from the dinosaur age? - is what you get when you fuse the sensibilities of non nonsense corporate needs with the indulgent whims of the teenage computer geek. So what do you have? You have a smartphone that is reminiscent of the geeky-teenager with the talent of a corporate-hogging CEO. Same thing.

Blackberry Curve Touch screen: Specifications & features

Here, let us have a look at some of the chief specs and features of BlackBerry's first touchscreen model:

General stats, features and what you can have first-look
Network
  • Quad-Band: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz GSM/GPRS networks
  • Tri-Band UMTS networks: (800 / 850) / 1900 / 2100 MHz or 900 / 1700 / 2100 MHz UMTS
  • BlackBerry® 7 OS
  • All-touch screen
  • The new BBM™
  • Social feeds
  • Pre-installed Facebook® and Twitter® apps
  • VGA video recording (640x480)
  • 5 MP camera
  • Optical trackpad
  • GPS
  • Wi-Fi®
  • Near Field Communication (NFC)1
  • Email and text messaging
  • Bluetooth®
  • Height:
    109 mm (4.29 inches)
     
  • Width:
    60 mm (2.36 inches)
     
  • Depth:
    11.2 mm (0.44 inches)
     
  • Weight:
    98 grams (3.46 ounces) 
Usability:
  • All-touch screen
  • Optical trackpad located on front of device
  • Send and Menu keys to the left of the trackpad
  • ESC and End keys to the right of trackpad
  • On screen keyboard: portrait SureType®, QWERTY and multitap, landscape QWERTY
  • Dedicated Keys: Send, End (Power), Menu, Back, User Configurable (Camera default), Volume Up/Down/Mute (Fwd/Back/Pause for media), Lock 
3.2” all-touch screen: HD clear display: 
  • 480 × 360 pixel HVGA+ colour display
  • 3.2" (measured diagonally)
  • 188 PPI
  • 24 bit colour TFT LCD
Voice Input & Output
  • Bluetooth® headset capable
  • Integrated hands-free speakerphone
  • 3.5 mm stereo headset capable

Operating System: Why am I surprised the phone's OS is called "BlackBerry OS"?

Camera: 5 Megapixels. Yawn.

Maybe you would like to go fore Nokia Lumia 800 or even Dell's Pro Venue if you are a camera freak. Let's just get it frank here: 5MP cameras are starting to feel a bit obsolete for the sole reason that smartphones in the higher-segments (such as Nokia's or Sony Xperia series) are all equipped with a more geenrative camera display that comes with 5 or more MP. In the case of the Blackberry touchscreen, I'm thinking that the digital zoom feature, the image stabilization feature and VGA video recording format and the face-detection feature 'took away' at least a pixel or two. 
  • 5 MP camera
  • Flash
  • VGA video recording (640x480)
  • Face detection
  • Image Stabilisation
  • Scene modes
  • Geo-tagging
  • 4X Digital Zoom
 Memory

The memory is internal storage memory is big if you consider other BlackBerry models like the BlackBerry, 9300, 8520. But hey they aren't touchscreen and you can't force more juice out of it.  
  • 512 MB DDR SRAM / 512 MB eMMC
  • Expandable up to 32 GB with Hot Swappable MicroSD card
Data Input & Navigation
  • All-touch screen
  • Optical trackpad located on front of device
  • Send and menu keys to the left of trackpad
  • ESC and end keys to the right of trackpad
  • On-screen keyboard: portrait SureType®, QWERTY and multitap, and landscape QWERTY
  • Dedicated keys: Send, End (Power), Menu, Escape, User Configurable (Camera default), Volume Up/Down/Mute (Fwd/Back/Pause for media), Lock
Battery & Battery Life
  • JM-1 removable/rechargeable lithium-ion battery
  • Talk time: up to 5.5 hours (GSM®), up to 5.8 hours (UMTS®)
  • Standby time: up to 15 days
  • Music playback: up to 30 hours
  • Video playback: up to 5.5 hours
  • Battery: JM-1 Removable/rechargeable cryptographic Lithium
  • Talk time: up to 5.5 hours (GSM®), up to 5.8 hours (UMTS®)
  • Standby time: Up to 15 days (GSM), up to 15 days (UMTS)
  • Music playback: Up to 30 hours
  • Video playback: Up to 5.5 hours
Multimedia

The Blackberry Curve 9380 supports quite a huge range of audio formats: 3GP2, M4V, AVI, WMA, WMV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, AAC, AMR, WAV, MID, MP4
The video formats are: MP4, M4A, 3GP, AVI and ASF which offers a lot more choices than my Samsung Wave. The image/picture formats are bmp, jpg, gif, png, tif and wbmp.
 
 Wi-Fi
  • 802.11 b/g/n enabled
  • WPA/WPA2 Personal and Enterprise
  • Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server
  • Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry® Internet Bundle
  • Cisco CCX certification
  • Direct IP Web Browsing over Wi-Fi
  • Support for UMA (carrier-dependent)

Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR
  • Headset Profile (HSP)
  • Hands-Free Profile (HPF)
  • Serial Port Profile (SPP)
  • SIM Access Profile (SAP)
  • Dial-Up Networking (DUN)
  • Audio Source (A2DP)
  • A/V Remote Control Version 1.3
  • Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP)
  • Message Access Profile (MAP)
  • OPP
GPS & BlackBerry Maps
  • Integrated GPS with A-GPS
  • Includes BlackBerry® Maps
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