Best BlackBerry Reviews 2011

With the Curve 3G RIM has made a solid, attractive and keenly affordable entry tier BlackBerry smartphone that's OS 6-ready, but alas it doesn't yet ship with OS 6. So you open the box, and if you're a BlackBerry veteran, you see that same old OS that's tried and true but dull as used steel wool. We really wonder why RIM and the carriers didn't hold off until they were ready to ship the Curve 3G with OS 6.0, which would have generated a lot more excitement about this otherwise very decent base model BlackBerry. We can only assume that they wanted a new product on the shelves for the September back to work and back to school season, regardless of OS version. Fortunately, we got our hands on OS 6 for the Verizon version of the Curve 3G, so we can give you a taste of what's to come when RIM releases the official upgrade.

The Curve 3G is a traditional non-touchscreen BlackBerry smartphone that's packed with the usual push email goodness and social networking aplenty. It has an excellent hardware QWERTY keyboard that's a joy to type on, a compact design that fits easily in the pocket, a QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera, WiFi bluetooth.

and a GPS. To our tastes it looks less budget and plasticky than the outgoing Curve; in fact it looks like a quality 'Berry that matches the build quality and visual appeal of the higher end curve 8900