First Look: Blackberry Curve 9220 Magnum

Article by sammy (23,372 pts ) , published Mar 22, 2009

The Blackberry Curve 9220 blends Blackberry Bold’s full QWERTY keyboard, a large touchscreen first witnessed on the tBlackberry Storm and many features found on the Blackberry Curve 8900. Other high-end features include a 3.2 mega-pixel camera, 3G network compatibility, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Main Specifications of Blackberry Curve 9220 Magnum

Screen: 2.4 inch TFT screen with 65k colors at a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels

GPS: Yes

Wi-Fi: Yes

Bluetooth: Yes

Camera: 3.2 mega-pixel camera with LED flash

Battery: Removable Lithium-Ion battery (capacity not known)

Dimensions: Not known

Weight: Not known

Price: Not Disclosed yet

A Preview of Main Features and Performance of Blackberry Curve 9220 Magnum

The most significant change in this new Blackberry model is its form factor, until now we have seen Blackberries with touchscreens or QWERTY keyboards, but none have offered a combination of both offerings. This Smartphone will be the first Blackberry to offer both a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard! It will feature a 2.4 inch TFT screen at a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels and an automatic back-lit full QWERTY keyboard with 39 keys. For those of you wondering, yes the presence of trackball as a positioning device will also still be available, I like to think of the device much like a Tablet PC that can use a mouse, keyboard and touchscreen all at the same time as needed. It will also feature the Blackberry 4.6 operating system and a fast processor operating at a frequency of 600 MHz or more. The Blackberry Magnum will also be 3G compatible and capable of global roaming with quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS support. The memory won't quite be up to par only featuring 128 MB of internal memory and 256 MB of flash memory, which is adequate for most processes but nothing to write home about.

The Blackberry Curve 9220 will also support data network that include GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA and will have a Blackberry browser with RSS reader that you have more than likely noticed via previous versions. It will also feature Bluetooth version 2.0 with EDR support and an 802.11b/g wireless LAN, boosting the phone’s connectivity to a broader range of options.

According to sources, it will have an in-built GPS receiver with features like geo-tagging and Assisted GPS and feature a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a microUSB port for connecting to other devices and computers. It will also hold a microSD/microSDHC card slot, but I am still uncertain about the capacity of the memory that will come with the device package. Most likely it will also have instant messaging clients like Yahoo messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, ICQ and Google talk while using the same old user-friendly interface to send SMS, MMS, e-mails and instant messages.

Like all other Blackberry devices it will be loaded with business applications such as the phone organizer which will have features like scheduler, calendar, clock, alarm, currency converter, voice note recorder and To-Do lists. Phone book capacity will also depend upon external memory installed on the device and it will have features like multiple phone numbers per person, ring ID and photo ID. It will furthermore be able to work in speakerphone mode and will have voice features including voice commands, voice recording and voice dialing along with phone profiles and vibration alerts. It will be interesting to see what new games are installed on the phone as they have been increasing in their "Coolness Factor" on devices of recent, while also featuring a new interface for the media player.

According to further sources it will also carry the same 3.2 mega-pixel camera with LED flash that we have seen on the Blackberry Curve 8900, with features that include auto-focus, digital zoom and image stabilization. Personally, I am not much thrilled by the quality of this camera, but it will be interesting to see if RIM works out something new in terms of quality.

The phone will also be installed with a standard removable Lithium-Ion battery that we have seen in some previous Blackberry models. Capacity of the battery is still unknown, but Blackberry phones usually come with a great battery back-up and I am sure this device won’t be an exception.

It is just a matter of time before the Blackberry Curve 9220 Magnum will be launched, industry reports put the date at sometime in September 2009. Whenever it's released one thing is for certain its a cool hybrid design with nice features that is sure to give Business and Personal Consumers another device to rave about, personally I can't wait!

Comment

Aug 18, 2009 8:12 AM
Frank Mueller
Curve 9220 Magnum
any new information available on the great new product? Is it still due to hit the (German) market in September?

Thanks

Frank
 
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