BlackBerry Curve 9380 review

A touchscreen BlackBerry Curve at last

BlackBerry Curve 9380
RIM's first touchscreen smartphone is reviewed

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BlackBerry curve 9380 review

RIM has been comfortable with its Contacts app for a while now, and that hasn't change in the BlackBerry Curve 9380. It's still the same simple list, although there's plenty of information you can add.

Email addresses, phone numbers, BBM information, custom ring tones and alerts, and all sorts of other information can be stored.

BlackBerry curve 9380 review

When you select a contact, you can see the stored information and tap on any of it. At the bottom are four shortcut keys: one to edit the contact, one to write an email, one to call and another to delete the entry. There's no shortcut to text - you have to dig the option out using the Menu key.

There's Facebook integration, but it's crushingly basic. Some information can be shared, but compared to the deep integration in Windows Phone 7 devices, such as the HTC Titan, it's barely worth bothering with. And there's none of the kind of interaction and activity panes that you get with HTC Sense phones, such as the HTC Sensation XL.

Though RIM has made huge strides in social network integration elsewhere in the operating systems, and in modernising BlackBerry devices for touch, the contacts list is well behind the competition.

Happily, though, RIM's usual excellent attention to signal quality is here. The Curve is excellent at picking up mobile networks, and getting good 3G connectivity.

BlackBerry curve 9380 review

Call quality is generally fine, and the earspeaker and loudspeaker are both loud and reasonably clear. It's not the highest quality by any means, but we found it easily good enough.

Matt Bolton
Managing Editor, Entertainment

Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Entertainment, meaning he's in charge of persuading our team of writers and reviewers to watch the latest TV shows and movies on gorgeous TVs and listen to fantastic speakers and headphones. It's a tough task, as you can imagine. Matt has over a decade of experience in tech publishing, and previously ran the TV & audio coverage for our colleagues at T3.com, and before that he edited T3 magazine. During his career, he's also contributed to places as varied as Creative Bloq, PC Gamer, PetsRadar, MacLife, and Edge. TV and movie nerdism is his speciality, and he goes to the cinema three times a week. He's always happy to explain the virtues of Dolby Vision over a drink, but he might need to use props, like he's explaining the offside rule.