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BlackBerry Curve 9350 (Sprint) review: BlackBerry Curve 9350 (Sprint)

BlackBerry Curve 9350 (Sprint)

Nicole Lee Former Editor
Nicole Lee is a senior associate editor for CNET, covering cell phones, Bluetooth headsets, and all things mobile. She's also a fan of comic books, video games, and of course, shiny gadgets.
Nicole Lee
6 min read

Editors' note: Portions of this review were taken from our evaluation of the BlackBerry Curve 9360.

7.3

BlackBerry Curve 9350 (Sprint)

The Good

The <b>RIM BlackBerry Curve 9350</b> has a slim and sleek design with a great physical keyboard. It has NFC support and ships with BlackBerry 7 OS.

The Bad

The RIM BlackBerry Curve 9350's side buttons are a little too skinny, there's no HD video capture, and you won't get the latest 4G speeds.

The Bottom Line

For those who seek an affordable and entry-level BlackBerry, the BlackBerry Curve 9350 is the way to go.

RIM improves upon its entry-level offerings on Sprint with the BlackBerry Curve 9350. It's the first Curve to ship with BlackBerry 7 OS, and with that comes a number of improvements such as the introduction of NFC support. The overall look and feel should be familiar to BlackBerry fans, albeit with a more refined design. The BlackBerry Curve 9350 is essentially the CDMA version of the BlackBerry Curve 9360, which we first reviewed for T-Mobile. The Curve 9350 doesn't have the Wi-Fi calling that's available on the T-Mobile version, but it still has a decent number of features for BlackBerry fans. At only $49.99 after a new two-year service agreement, the Curve 9360 makes for a great beginner smartphone.

Design
The BlackBerry Curve 9360 doesn't look dramatically different from its predecessor, the Curve 3G 9330 with its curved corners and compact design. However, the Curve 9360 appears to be much sleeker and slimmer. At 4.3 inches long by 2.4 inches wide by 0.4 inch thick, the Curve 9360 has a glossy black front surface that flows from top to bottom. It does have a somewhat cheap feel due to its all-plastic build, though.

Luckily, the Curve 9350 has a much better display with its 2.5-inch 480x360-pixel-resolution display. BlackBerry 7 OS brings Liquid Graphics technology to the handset, which boosts the vibrancy of the display. Graphics and text look crisp and vibrant, though we did notice that the font on the home screen seems to be on the small side. This particular version of the Curve does not have a touch screen, but we're not too disappointed with that, especially since we can still use the intuitive and responsive optical touch pad for navigation.

The Curve 9360 has the same navigation array we saw on previous Curves. It has the Send, Menu, Back, and End/Power keys with the aforementioned optical touch pad in the middle. The array is quite flat, but the buttons themselves are not touch-sensitive (except for the touch pad, of course). They do require a bit of pressure to push. We found the touch pad to be responsive and precise.

Beneath the array is the famous Curve keyboard, but slightly tweaked. The keys are a hair bigger and rounder than on previous models, but the overall keyboard is still quite small compared with the one on the Bold. Yet, because the keys are separated and raised, we had no problem typing out messages.

On the left spine is the Micro-USB port, while the right spine is home to a very skinny volume rocker along with a similarly slim customizable shortcut key. In fact, we think the right spine buttons are a little too skinny. Gone are the media keys at the top--now there is a 3.5mm headset jack and a screen lock key, which is very similar to the Bold. The camera lens and LED flash are on the back.

Features
A lot of what sets the Curve 9350 apart from its predecessors is BlackBerry 7 OS. The user interface hasn't changed much from BlackBerry 6 OS, with its directory-based home screens and collapsible notification trays. What has really improved are the graphics processor, a full Web browser with a just-in-time JavaScript compiler and full HTML 5 support, augmented-reality application support, and voice-activated universal search.

Another nice feature addition courtesy of BlackBerry 7 OS is that NFC (near-field communication) is now supported on the Curve. Theoretically, NFC allows you to purchase goods or services by swiping your phone over a compatible payment system, or to transfer files by touching phones thanks to apps like BlackBerry Tag. We weren't able to fully test NFC with our Curve, but we're happy to see RIM embrace newer technology like this. For more about BlackBerry 7 OS, read our review of the BlackBerry Torch 9810. The Curve 9350 also supports GPS and Bluetooth.

BlackBerry continues to beat the corporate e-mail drum with support for all sorts of systems and services, including BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, and Novell GroupWise. You can also use a free but limited version of BES with which you can sync your Exchange calendar, contacts, and tasks. For consumers not tied to the corporate network, you can sync up to 10 different POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail accounts via BlackBerry Internet Service. Popular Web services like Gmail and Yahoo should already have those settings preloaded. However, the default setting for Gmail and Yahoo is not IMAP, so deleted e-mails are not synced, and you'll have to do it manually.

E-mail alone just doesn't cut it these days with smartphones, so we're happy to see the Curve is preloaded with social networking apps like Facebook, Twitter, and BlackBerry's own Social Feeds app that acts as a hub for RSS feeds, BBM, Facebook, Twitter, and a variety of other social media outlets. BBM itself has been upgraded to BBM 6, which features better integration with third-party apps.

The Curve 9350 is otherwise the same BlackBerry as before. It has the usual productivity features like a calendar, clock, memo pad, tasks list, calculator, voice notes recorder, and file manager. You do get a premium version of Documents To Go, BlackBerry Balance (which helps you balance your work and personal calendars), BlackBerry Protect, and a password keeper. Other apps include two games--Brick Breaker and Mole--and a few Sprint apps like TeleNav Navigator and Sprint Zone. There's a Vlingo app for voice recognition tasks as well. You can download more apps from BlackBerry App World.

The Curve 9360 supports a variety of media formats that include MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, FLAC, OGG, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, and WMV. Simply drag and drop them onto a USB mass storage device if the phone is plugged into a PC, or you can use BlackBerry's Desktop software. The Curve 9360 only has 512MB of internal storage, though, so you should make use of the fact that the phone supports up to 32GB microSD cards.

The 5-megapixel camera is definitely a major upgrade over the Curve 9300's 2-megapixel model, giving pretty good image quality. Photos were sharp and colorful on the whole. We did detect a bit of an orange hue in indoor shots, and low-light photos needed Night mode or flash more often than not. The Curve 9360 does not support 720p HD video.

Performance
We tested the tri-band (CDMA 800/850/1900MHz) RIM BlackBerry Curve 9350 in San Francisco using Sprint Nextel. Call quality on our end was decent. Callers sounded clear with plenty of volume, and we didn't encounter a lot of noise or distortion.

On their end, callers also reported good audio quality on the whole. However, they did detect a bit of distortion, and our voice sounded a lot deeper than usual. They didn't detect much static or background noise, however. Speakerphone calls went very well - callers hardly knew we were on speaker most of the time.

RIM BlackBerry Curve 9350 call quality sample Listen now:

As a relatively entry-level smartphone, we're not surprised that the Curve 9350 only has EV-DO Rev. A and not WiMax. That's not terrible, however, as we still experienced decent data speeds. We loaded the mobile CNET page in 10 seconds while the full CNET home page loaded in around 20 seconds.

The Curve 9350 has an 800MHz processor, which is an improvement over the Curve 9330's 600MHz processor. We experienced speedy and snappy navigation on the whole as we launched apps and multitasked between open windows.

The BlackBerry Curve 9350 has a rated talk time of 5.5 hours and up to 14.5 days of standby time. During our battery drain test, it lasted 7.28 hours. According to the FCC, the Curve 9350 has a digital SAR of 1.50 watts per kilogram.

Conclusion
The RIM BlackBerry Curve 9350 is a great entry-level option for BlackBerry enthusiasts. It ships with the latest BlackBerry 7 OS, it has a fantastic physical keyboard while still maintaining a slim and compact form factor, a faster processor over its predecessor, EV-DO Rev. A support, and it even has NFC support. It does lack the UMA-based Wi-Fi calling that the T-Mobile version has, but the Curve 9350 is also cheaper at $49.99 after a new two-year service agreement.

7.3

BlackBerry Curve 9350 (Sprint)

Score Breakdown

Design 8Features 7Performance 7