My BBM contacts @ninanjira and @ahendaa always used to ask me how to get radio on their BlackBerry smartphones. I didn’t know how to answer these questions so I always avoided both their BBM until the realized I didn’t want to admit regular BBs didn’t have FM Radio. Well, ladies, you can now have a BB that comes with FM Radio pre-installed. This is the new Curve 9320.
This new BlackBerry® Curve™ 9320 smartphone features all the core BlackBerry Messaging and social-centric features and offers global 3G connectivity backed by long battery life to allow users to make the most of their day. The emphasis here is on long battery life; a first from BB that even I want to try out now.
“The new BlackBerry Curve 9320 is designed to make it incredibly easy for users to stay socially-connected,” said Carlo Chiarello, EVP, Smartphone Business at Research In Motion. “The new BlackBerry Curve 9320 will be especially popular with customers upgrading to a smart-phone for the first time and existing Curve customers looking for a step up in speed and functionality.”
The Curve 9320 has everything a customer would need to stay in touch with the people and things that matter most to them. It features the following new out-of-the-box features;
- Parental Controls – an exciting on-device feature that provides parents and guardians with simple options to help protect children by restricting access to specific functions, features and applications
- A dedicated BBM™ key, bringing the power of RIM’s popular mobile social network up in an instant
- An amazing keyboard which is considered the best in its class modeled for quick and easy typing
- An in-built FM radio that doesn’t require an active data
- An excellent 3G connectivity and long battery life simultaneously (always seemed as some sort of paradox as most manufacturers admit that 3Gconnectivity and long battery life do NOT go together).
- Up to 7 hours of talk time or up to 30 hours of FM radio listening or music playback with headphones.
- 3.2 MP camera with flash for both stills and video. Pictures can be tagged with their location thanks to a built-in GPS.
The rest is the usual:
- Preloaded apps for Social (Facebook and Twitter),
- The new Social Feeds 2.0 app that allows you to set your custom RSS feeds to any RSS enabled website is also preloaded,
- Social apps and IM (Instant Messaging) like BBM, Live Chat and Google Chat apps all in one consolidated view.
Another exciting feature that is bundled in this device in the BlackBerry Curve 9320 is the new 7.1 OS version, which is the only BB OS that allows one to use their BlackBerry as a Mobile Hotspot and Wi-Fi® calling where available. This however doesn’t use the data plan on the BlackBerry; it eats into airtime and may necessitate a separate data bundle plan on different service providers. This OS is available for download on other BBs that run BB OS 7 as an upgrade and it is worth noting that the Curve 9320 comes with this new OS as a standard.
I shall hopefully get a chance to play with this one soon; I hope Big Brother is listening :).
