The BlackBerry® Curve 8330™ Smartphone packs a punch in the tech world. For those looking for a smartphone that does more than just email, this is a great choice. As many have learned, texting frequently or using a phone’s camera often eats battery power instantly. Luckily, not with this Blackberry®! The battery is powerful and allows you to take calls, pictures, listen to music, test out apps, and much more without having to recharge constantly.

The Curve is 4.2” tall, 2.4” wide, and weighs only 4 ounces. It fits perfectly in the palm of your hand. It has a sleek design and is well built. It features a full QWERTY keypad, complete with a spacebar and delete key. It has a Trackball in the center of the unit making navigating between applications easy and much faster than having to hit a key to move throughout the phone. .

The enhanced MP3 music player allows you to take your music with you wherever you go. You can listen to MP3s by headphone-great for the beach-or through the integrated speakers with your personal music files stored directly on your phone’s memory card. The phone includes a 1GB microSD™ card. .

For those in business, this phone is for you. You can add up to 10 additional email addresses from all the giants such as Yahoo®, Google®, Windows Live™, Hotmail®, AOL®, Microsoft®, Outlook Web Access, IMAP & POP Email Accounts. You can view your files and attach them to emails as needed. .

It has an enhanced Web Browser with access to IM portals (Blackberry® Messenger, Google Talk™, AIM®, Yahoo®, Messenger) & Social networks and Internet access (Facebook® & MySpace®). When downloading a website into the browser for reading, it took on average about 10 seconds to be able to view the page...not bad at all. .

Blackberry has their own apps site with an icon preloaded on the phone to help users get the applications they may need, but I found it just as useful to go online and search out everyone’s favorites. TMZ has a great newsfeed to keep up with the latest celebrity gossip. Google has a fantastic newsfeed, as does Fox News. .

Some wonder why this smartphone is referred to often as a “crackberry”, but within hours of downloading the applications that are of interest to you, the answer is clear. With this smart phone, you can stay up to date on all the news, as you go about your day. It’s a great way to multitask throughout your day while you have a minute or two of downtime. Waiting in the doctor’s office, for the train, or to be seated in a restaurant, is all the time you will need to get completely up to date on life. It becomes very addicting as news is always happening, 24 hours a day. .

The phone has a 2MP digital camera with flash, 5x zoom and video. The pictures that I took with this phone were much crisper than the 1.3 megapixel in my former phone. The flash is fantastic for taking photos in darker areas. It also takes decent video footage and the media playback was generally smooth. .

For Facebook and MySpace users, the camera is fantastic for uploading photos along your route. More serious issues, such as a car accident and needing to take pictures as proof, make this camera priceless. Unlike other cell phones, the pictures this Smart Phone takes can actually be printed on 4” x 6” cardstock. .

This Blackberry® Curve Smartphone makes my must-have list for anyone conducting business. The only down side to this phone is the intial price tag of $249.99-but hear me out on this one. It is worth the investment. The monthly fee on this phone is where you will see the worth in the intial investment. It costs only $60 a month and is under Boost Mobile which means no monthly contracts, credit checks, or reporting to credit agencies if you decide to take a month off from service. You will not find a Blackberry® with this low monthly fee anywhere. You can use the phone, camera, video camera, surf the web, read your news, send an email with files attached, and surf the web all for only $60 a month. The phone is being sold exclusively through Boost Mobile at their stores. Although the website says it offers free shipping, this phone cannot be ordered online. To see the phone online, check out www.boostmobile.com. .

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