Research in Motion has officially announced its long-awaited trackball-based BlackBerry 8300 "Curve" that includes a two megapixel camera, flash, self-portrait mirror and 5x digital zoom, but no video recording capabilities, WiFi or GPS (although it does have maps), according to the press release.
The BlackBerry 8100 "Pearl" has a 1.3 megapixel camera that is one of the better ones. In fact, I think it's as good as some of the two megapixel camera phone phones I've used. I've posted some Pearl photos.
If the two megapixel camera is correspondingly as good as the 1.3 megapixel, the photos should be very nice indeed. I'll be sure to post photos when I get a chance to test the 8300.
Memory card
The 3.9-ounce 8300 (see left) offers three photo resolutions and images may be transferred to the optional microSD card (2 GB maximum), via Bluetooth or cable. (I've got to get a 2 GB card! I've got 1 GB cards in three form factors: MicroSD, miniSD and SD.)
RIM says the phone will support 4 GB microSD cards when they become available later this year.
RIM's Web site for the 8300 notes, "And hey, you can even upload shots to your Flickr account with Yahoo! Go."
Photo editing, music software
The bundled BlackBerry Desktop Media Manager includes Roxio Photosuite® 9 LE with basic photo editing tools for rotating images, cropping, changing the contrast, color saturation and brightness, eliminating redeye and applying filters and special effects.
The handset has stereo speakers and is compatible with stereo Bluetooth headphones (A2DP/AVRCP)....if you have a pair. It also features a 3.5mm headset jack so your regular headphones (not the typical cellular headphone with a 2.5mm plug) will work.
The Media Manager software may be used for ripping CDs and transferring music to the phone.
WiFi? GPS? Video?
The quad-band 8300 will be commercially available this spring in the United States and abroad. RIM mentions AT&T (Cingular) but it doesn't mention T-Mobile. You can bet T-Mobile will get the 8300, but I don't know exactly when.
I suspect many people who have been longing for a BlackBerry with a full QWERTY keyboard that has a camera will be disappointed that the 8300 has neither WiFi nor internal GPS. The 8300 includes BlackBerry Maps, but a Bluetooth-capable GPS receiver is needed for location functionality.
Once you've been accustomed to a cellular phone with GPS and WiFi, it's hard to give them up.
Also, the 8300 doesn't include video recording capability. I know RIM is very concerned about battery life because its e-mail-centric users (of which I certainly am one) don't want their phone to die because they've used up the battery by shooting videos.
But until a BlackBerry can shoot videos in addition to just viewing videos that are transferred, the phone will fall short of being a true multimedia device.
Fussy, fussy
Don't get me wrong. The 8300 looks like a very nice phone (thank you RIM for a two megapixel camera!), and I always carry a BlackBerry because I'm can't do without the excellent keyboard and push e-mail.
But when it comes to wireless devices, I'm rather fussy -- especially since I have a 3.2 megapixel Nokia N93 and a five megapixel Nokia 95, courtesy of Nokia's Blogger Relations program.
Both handsets can shoot videos at 30 frames per second.
I usually leave the house with two phones, sometimes more, depending on which ones I'm testing.
We have been testing a pre-release version of the 8300 for a short while now. We hope everyone appreciates that due to NDA we have to sit back tight lipped while the speculation and grainy leaked photographs make their way around the internet, but we’re convinced that the new BlackBerry 8300 will have been worth the wait.
See full review:
http://www.airtimemanager.co.uk/BlackBerry/Enterprise/BlackBerry_8300.aspx
Posted by: AirTimeManager | Thursday, May 03, 2007 at 09:49 AM