Our Blackberry Curve 9360 review

[howard]

2011 was a tough year for RIM. From missed deadlines, outages, angry shareholders, stampedes and drunken executives one thing’s for sure: Someone’s going to require a lot of therapy. Between all the negative stories, RIM managed to update their entire smartphone lineup with new devices and a new version of the Blackberry OS. First came the Bold 9900/9930, followed by the Torch 9810/9860. Here’s the updated Curve: the 9360.



The Curve 9360 is a very light phone. I wouldn’t say it’s feels cheap though because it doesn’t really creak or flex. The battery cover is very thin plastic - but it clips on and fits quite tightly so it feels fine once you attach it. While the cover doesn’t feel it, it certainly doesn’t feel expensive because it’s just hard shiny plastic

I like that the Curve is a pretty small phone. Phones these days have been getting bigger and bigger so it’s nice to use something that’s so easy to use with one hand.



The display measures 2.45” with a resolution of 480x360. After getting used to the 9900 and 9790, I can’t help but be a little disappointed and confused because the 9360 doesn’t have a touchscreen. If you’re used to not having a touchscreen then you’ll do fine with the Curve. I’m not, so I found myself constantly touching the screen and wondering why nothing was happening.



Besides the touchscreen, the big difference between a Bold and a Curve is its keyboard. Bold’s have a fretted keyboards whose keys are angled sideways. Curve keyboards keys are shaped slightly differently and are more separate. Really, both keyboards are fantastic. The 9360’s key have a very positive feel when you press them. I also like how they click, though this can be a problem if you use it in bed since it may wake your partner.

The menu keys are all connected to each other. While they look cool, I prefer the menu keys on the 9790 because they require less force to press.

There is built in NFC support. The NFC antenna is located on the battery cover.

Volume buttons, camera button



microUSB port



3.5mm headphone jack



The 9360 runs Blackberry OS 7.0. It’s actually very similar to OS 6.0 but the browser is a bit faster with more features, the OS itself looks more sleek and there is NFC support.

I’ve already tested a couple of Blackberry OS 7.0 devices so I won’t be covering it too much. I will say that the Blackberry OS is fantastic for messaging. The entire OS is designed around it. In my 9790 review, I complained that the screen felt cramped at times. While the 9360 has the same sized display and resolution, it doesn’t feel quite as cramped because it’s not a touch screen devices. The only time it feels me feel a little claustrophobic is when I’m using the browser.



The camera has a resolution of 5mp with a LED flash. There’s no autofocus so it doesn’t really work if you’re closer than around a 1 ft from your subject. While it does have very good shot-to-shot speeds it doesn’t take very good pictures. Pictures are noisy and they’re usually pretty soft looking unless you’re pretty far away. If a good camera is important to you take a look at the Bold 9790.

Video is capture at 640x480. It’s not very good either.

Inside the 9360 you’ll find a 800Mhz processor with 512MB of RAM.

I used SunSpider to test the Curve’s browser performance - lower numbers are better. At 6222.5 The 9360 scores low in SunSpider. When you browse over the network, browser data goes through RIM’s datacenters. The data is compressed and optimized (images are shrunk). This has 2 advantages; first you use less data and more importantly, the 9360 has to juggle less data which should help it feel faster. When you browse via WiFi, data from the website you’re looking at goes straight to the device. My seat-of-the-pants assessment is that the 9360 browser speed is acceptable when you browse via the network. Over WiFi it feels really slow.

What annoys me is that when you browse via WiFiI usually have to wait a while before I can zoom in and read. Then, the page goes blank if I scroll too quickly because the Curve’s processor can’t keep up.

If you spend a lot of time surfing the web over WiFi and want a Blackberry with a keyboard you should consider the Bold 9900.

SunSpider Scores

Blackberry Bold 9900 2681.6
Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray 3169.4
Apple iPhone 4 3549.9
Apple iPhone 3Gs 4618.9
Blackberry Bold 9790 5299.4
Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant 5792.8
Blackberry Curve 9360 6222.5
Blackberry Bold 9700 10557.9

One of the first things you have to do when you get a new Blackberry is update some other the built-in applications. Whether it’s BBM, Facebook, Google Talk or something else. If you’ve never used a Blackberry before updating these programs is excruciating because it takes forever. First off, the 9360 downloads programs very slowly. Blackberry programs tend to be very small. Generally, they’re only 1 or 2 MB in size but the 9360 downloads them in 40kb chunks, after each chunk it pauses for a few seconds.

After it’s done download it takes a while to install. When it’s done you have to reboot which also takes a long time.

Now imagine doing this for 4 or 5 apps. I looked around the Blackberry app world app but I can’t find an option to queue up multiple updates. You can try to run all the updates at once but the 9360 will become so slow you can’t use it for anything else. Doing this will drain a significant amount of battery life too so be careful if you’re not near a charger.

RF performance is very good. Incoming sound quality is excellent as is outgoing.

Battery Life



I tested the battery using a 7hr long 720x480 mp4 video file. The 9360 lasted 245 mins while the 9790 gets 303 and the 9900, 367 mins. Just to compare the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray (another single core phone with a bigger display, faster processor and bigger battery) lasted 349 mins. Traditionally, Blackberries have been known for their superior battery life. While the latest generation of Blackberries are still better than the competition the margin is much smaller now. The main culprit for the 9360’s lackluster battery life is it’s small 1000mAh battery.

Blackberry Bold 9900 367
Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray 349
Blackberry Bold 9790 303
Blackberry Curve 9360 245
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 222
LG Optimus LTE 242

The Curve 9360 feels like a lighter 9790 with a smaller battery, no touchscreen and a slower processor. While it’s true the Curve sits lower on the Blackberry food chain, competition is extremely fierce and RIM needs to stick beefier hardware in their devices.

In the end, while the 9360 ships with Blackberry’s newest Operating system it feels dated because there’s no touchscreen and because sometimes it feels really slow. It’s true that it’s way better than any previous Curve but the market is moving so quickly I was expecting more.

Pros:
great keyboard
NFC

Cons:
slow
short battery life

Interestingly:
The Curve 9360 has NFC while the more expensive Torch 9810 and 9860 don’t.

[DennyCrane]

Wirelessly posted (WhiteBerry Bold 9780: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.706 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

SunSpider Scores

Blackberry Bold 9900 2681.6
Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray3169.4
Apple iPhone 4 3549.9
Apple iPhone 3Gs 4618.9
Blackberry Bold 9790 5299.4
Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant5792.8
Blackberry Curve 9360 6222.5
Blackberry Bold 9700 10557.9

I'm surprised the 9900 beat out the iPhone 4. Well, that's the 4, not the 4S. The 4S scored a bit better at 2260.9. But I'm happy to see BlackBerry is in the game now.

[2c]

just to add one thing, i have shrunken my os and now my 9360 flys like a g6, booting time, battery life, signal locking and responsiveness of the device is very snappy, i dont see myself moving to any other device for another year if any really really mind blowing deal strikes.