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As promised earlier, I just received my brand new T-Mobile Blackberry 8900 Javelin aka Curve 2 and put it up against my Bold. I kinda played with them for a few hours and wrote a little comparo.
Well this is not a total and complete review, nor is it one that is too technical. Just my observations and opinions on things that matter to me.
Bold on .247 OS, Curve on .250 OS.
I must say that both phones run and operate almost identically, with the edge in quality, fit and finish going to the Bold. The Bold's buttons are more pleasing to press and touch.
Namely, the issues of concern with respect to quality on the Curve are the 1) keyboard and 2) battery door (cover) on the rear. The keyboard on the Curve is the clicky-type--it makes noise when typing. This is not an issue of quality because it is designed that way. The quality issue has to do with the keyboard moving around just a tiny bit--enough to annoy me whereas the keyboard on the Bold is rock-solid and does not move whatsoever. Typing on the Curve, in my opinion, is more accurate, however typing on the bold is more comfortable. Needless to say, the Bold can be a better choice for bigger hands. The battery door on the Curve is nowhere near as tight and/or solid as the Bold's faux-leather door which is rock solid and tight. The door on my Curve has very slight gap on the left and right sides. You have to push on them to make it flush with the phone. Nothing too big, just an observation.
My next comparison are the cameras. As you know, the Bold features a 2MP camera while the Curve features a 3.2MP camera. Megapixels do not matter. Period. So let's get over that megapixel-marketing crap. As you can see below, however, both phone's cameras were set to the exact same setting, flash off, quality medium 1024x768, other settings not touched. Photos then resized using Irfanview (for web display) at 800x600 then saved at 85% quality as .JPG. Then hosted to photobucket. As you can see, the Curve's picture is much better and sharper due to the autofocusing feature on the Curve.
Guess which one is which?
Yes I could take more pictures but it's pretty easy to see the difference right away.
Audio/Video
This is subjective, of course, but in my opinion both devices display video in the same exact manner. Absolutely no difference in smoothness, quality, color, etc. Even the hue was identical. I played Mariah Carey's "Through the Rain" in HD from youtube.com.
The sound is distinct from one another. The Bold's speakers produced a slightly muddy, but overall fuller and bassier sound compared to the Curve. The Curve on the other hand produced a significantly clearer and sharper sound, though with less range than the Bold. I paused one while I played the other and vise versa over and over and over, even with different identical songs. It's hard to say which is the winner but in the end I guess I would prefer the Bold's sound over the Curve's. Although not as clear and sharp, the Bold's sound was slightly more pleasing to the ears at moderate volumes. At loud volumes the Bold gets muddier and the Curve stays crisp and sharp though the Bold wasn't unlistenable by any means.
One thing I wanted to point out... there's a music video by Lil Wayne called "Prom Queen" which bogs my Bold AND my friend's Bold and eventually freezes and locks up after 10-15 seconds of play. The Curve played this same video with absolutely NO problem or slowing. Played perfectly!!! I was completely surprised.
Speed
Booting both devices at the same time, the Bold was fully booted and acquiring signal and delivering e-mails 10 seconds before the Curve was fully booted. Nod goes to the Bold on boot time. I did notice that the Curve was slightly more zippy (less laggy) then the Bold while multitasking, starting/closing apps and scrolling through media. Not enough though to say one obliterates the other but I did find using the Curve a little more pleasing. This may be due to the higher internal memory! The Bold shows 45mb free while the Curve shows 137mb free!!!
Reception:
This test is inconclusive as I have not tried it at work. At work in my office, the Bold goes into SOS mode the second my hand goes near it to pick it up, respond to an SMS, BBM, etc. Drops signal immediately and takes forever to regain it. I will test this at work tomorrow and provide the result!!
I briefly tried ALT+NMLL "trick" and tried picking up both devices to see if the signal changes. The Bold's signal weakens significantly as I put my hand or myself next to it while the Curve's remains pretty stable. Maybe this is a fluke so again I'll try tomorrow.
The kicker for me is the reception. If the Curve gets reception in my office and HOLDS it, I will most likely keep the Curve. If it's the same deal, I'm keeping the Bold.
Overall it seems the Bold is the phone to have. It's more solid, more ergonomic (in my opinion), and just an overall easier phone to use. The buttons on the Bold are easier to press such as the side convenience or camera keys or the talk/end/menu buttons. The Curve's buttons are smaller thereby making it slightly more difficult to press quickly without making mistakes or hitting a nearby-button. The trackball is also easier to use for some reason, perhaps because its further from the keyboard. Although typing on the Curve seems more accurate to me, I still prefer long-winded messages typed on the Bold. OK well I've talked too much. Those are my thoughts. yea!Last edited by bmwmpower; 06-23-09 at 01:36 AM.
06-23-09 01:30 AM - Actually... More people would find it since it would have bumped that thread to the top of the forum and to the top of everyone subscribed list that are subscribed to that thread.Right no one would find it that way though. Besides why do that when I could just post a thread?
Just an FYI
06-23-09 02:43 PM
