The Blackberry Curve 8520, is the personification of the phrase “What you pay is what you get.” The budget phone of the Blackberry series has the rudimentary capabilities of a smart phone, minus a few features we’ve come to expect in other brands like HTC and Apple. UrbanWire looks at the good, the bad and the ugly of the budget phone from Research In Motion (RIM).

The Good

“Low end” smartphone – Simplifying and reducing the number of flashy components that exponentially increase the cost of a typical phone, Blackberry has dramatically reduced the price to just $410*. Compared to the Curve’s big brothers, the Blackberry Bold 9700 ($725) and the Blackberry Storm 9250 ($780), this low price keeps it within the range of most, if not all phone users.

Email Attachments – As a device built primarily for keeping connected through email on the go, it comes as no surprise that there is an inbuilt attachment viewer for PDF and Microsoft Office documents, as well as image formats such as JPEG and GIF.

Optical Trackpad – The first phone from RIM to feature a touchpad instead of the iconic trackball of the Blackberry Pearl, it has since been featured in subsequent models such as the 9100 and Bold 9650 and 9700. Navigating through the phone was an extremely pleasant experience with its sensitive response, akin to a trackpad on a laptop.

The Bad

No 3G – Honestly, the inability to use 3G services is the biggest gripe I have with the 8520. It’s understandable since you don’t require much to push emails, but basic web surfing is problematic without 3G capabilites. It isn’t much of an issue when you rely on Wi-Fi, speeds using EDGE GPRS were dismally slow. Thank god for the abundance of Wi-Fi hotspots around the country.

No GPS – This is the first in a list of features, commonplace in almost all phones now, conspicuously absent in the 8520. While you can use Google Maps to triangulate your position instead, leaving out an inbuilt GPS is obviously something left to be desired.

Lame Camera – At only 2 megapixels and with no flash, this isn’t a phone built for taking half-decent photos.

The Ugly

QVGA screen – With a screen resolution of 320×240, text and images appear slightly pixellated; coupled with the dull colours, using the phone becomes a tad dreary.

The Verdict

The Blackberry Curve 8520 doesn’t have much to boast about, at least when compared to the competition. However, without the unnecessary bling to needlessly add to cost, this minimalist phone does its job decently and with a respectable price tag to boot.

*Prices from whymobile.com