I recently had occasion to switch phones and retire my Palm Treo 700wx. The phone of choice for the replacement is the BlackBerry 8330 “Curve”.
The Curve is a great light handset. I found the BlackBerry menus easy to navigate and simple to operate. The pre-loaded software worked correctly right out of the box without any unnecessary configuration.
Downloading applications for the phone was equally painless. Several different applications virtually installed themselves by way of Java .jad files, making the addition of new capabilities very straightforward.
Two other features that I found with the Curve which were completely foreign to me coming from the Treo. The first is the light sensor. It automatically adjusts the brightness based on the ambient lighting in the room. The second is the holster. The magnets that keep the holster closed are also picked up by a sensor on the BlackBerry. When it’s in the holster, it puts itself to sleep thereby foregoing that nasty situation of rolling on your phone and calling your friends at two in the morning.
I will say however that one of the usability issues I’ve had with the phone is that there are just too many options, and the settings menus (particularly for ringers) are not very intuitive, and lack good settings for defaults.
OK, for many of you out there, this is probably so basic you didn’t even need to search for it. That said, I figured I’d post it anyway (partly because I’ve been so lax about blogging recently).