Sim Free BlackBerry 8900 Curve

I've had my my 8900 for 18m now. It was after a few months I noticed that the silver trim was painted plastic that scratched easily. The phone looks like it has alopechia now. The rear silver blackberry logo has long since fallen off. One decal at a time. The case back was loose from the start and held in place with some foam rubber fillers. The phone will reboot randomly if the browser gets stuck and then either the wifi or bluetooth won't work unless you pull the battery and reboot again. The MP3 player has more background his than my old tape based sony walkman. The camera is pretty good for a mobile phone although this should be considered in the context that mobile phone cameras are no better than toys. The standard browser is rubbish but can be replaced with BOLT. Emailing, texting, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes are brilliant although the UI looks like something from the DOS era. Blackberry messed up Messenger with v5.x release which slows down the longer the thread gets until you have to quit and restart the thread. Battery life is only just better than average. Keyboard is excellent. I might get a Bold 9700 next but only if the construction quality is any better.

This curve is by far the best. It does everything you'd want it to. It is made from very cheap and thin plastic but it looks great!

I can only give a shallow review here, mine was returned faulty, it kept freezing – replaced it with a different make. The first thing I noticed on un-boxing was how flimsy the whole thing felt in my hands (Battery cover is a modern marvel on just how thin plastic can be manufactured!)– give the phone a slight twist and it creeks like an old barn door! RIM’s QC can’t be up to much, as there were dirty great finger prints under the screen glass (Nasty) I never got to the setting it up stage so I’ll leave that out. I read a lot of reviews on the net before ordering this, and can’t believe that no one mentioned the terrible build quality. Plastic, Plastic & the chrome bits? – Plastic. I couldn't see this lasting in a corporate environment for very long, or my pocket for that matter.