Think BlackBerry and you probably think 'mobile e-mail'. And rightly so. After all, BlackBerry has claimed mobile e-mail as its own territory, even though other devices, including Symbian phones and Windows Mobile Smartphones, can do mobile e-mail too.

The other thing BlackBerry claims as its own is the side-mounted scroll wheel, but in fact the last couple of devices have abandoned that in favour of a round ball that sits below the screen. You roll this under the thumb and press it to make selections. Its location means it is good for both left- and right-handed users, and its pearly whiteness gave the first device to incorporate it, the phone-like BlackBerry Pearl, its name.

So what gives the Curve its name? We can't say. It isn't obvious to us. The silver colouring, mini keyboard beneath the screen and general size and shape of this BlackBerry aren't particularly curvy. But what we can say is that this device is one small step for a BlackBerry, one giant leap for BlackBerry-kind (Sorry, Neil).

The small step relates to the desktop software. Now, if you are a single user and have POP3 e-mail, you can use the Blackberry Internet Service to get mails sent to the Curve over the air - which is what gives you mobile e-mail. Chances are that if you are using this you will be a consumer rather than in a business, where your network would whiz e-mail out to the device.

Your network could also take care of diary and contacts updating on the BlackBerry, whereas consumers need to use the provided desktop software for synchronisation of diary and contacts. That's all quite standard.

But this time around the desktop software includes an element for copying multimedia to the BlackBerry Curve. Music and video. And the Curve will obligingly play these things for you. The software hails from Roxio and also includes CD ripping and media library management among its capabilities. The small step, then, is the inclusion of this software, but it heralds what the BlackBerry maker RIM must hope will be a giant leap into the world of the consumer.

We shouldn't omit, in all this flurry of excitement about multimedia, that the Curve also includes a spellchecker in its e-mail software for the first time. To us that seems like a step that should have been taken a long while ago, and we're glad to see it has finally been achieved.

Add in a camera that shoots stills at up to 2.0 megapixels and a microSD card slot for expanding the built-in memory and the Curve is a more consumer-focussed device than ever before. With all the other stuff on board, from Web browsing to instant messaging and the aforementioned contact and calendar management, it is something of an all-rounder.

Verdict
It's a shame there is no Wi-Fi and that the quad-band Curve is not 3G, but these things aside the BlackBerry Curve is a well featured and versatile device.

Company: RIM

Tags: blackberry research in motion blackberry internet service roxio blackberry playbook rim windows phone 7 ios (apple)