Goodbye to the Blackberry 8520
We’ve had this Blackberry for a while now and both Vikki and I have tested it. It’s been a bit of a love/hate experience for me though.
It’s certainly a good device, but only for a very specific user. Here’s a quick re-cap of the good and the bad…
The good:
- Form Factor: It has a pleasant slim form factor matched with a pocket-friendly weight of 106 grams. It charges from micro-USB (on the side) and also has 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s pocket-friendly and nice to hold.
- The Price: It’s around £200 SIM-free and free with many low-cost tariffs.
- Clever Layout: It has 3 media playback keys along the top which are laid-out well enough and are large enough to allow in-pocket operation.
- The Screen: It’s excellent and clear. It’s particularly impressive on the colourful home-screen and menu screens.
- The Battery: It goes on forever (well, days). An (apparently) 17 day standby time (I didn’t test it that long, but it did last well) means you can just leave it running. It also starts-up and shuts-down much quicker than anything I’ve tested recently, which makes you more inclined to turn it off in meetings (rather than setting it to silent) which further improves battery.
- The touch-pad, mouse, trackball-replacement thingumy: It works well, it’s reliable, sensitive and – I expect – will extend the life of the device.
- Flexibility: The huge range of configuration options, including 2 specific consumer (BIS) and enterprise (BES) modes of operation.
- Maturity: The 8520 has lots of nice refinements in a mature platform – I particularly appreciated the ‘bedside mode’ which was enabled when charging with different clock, alarm and illumination settings… not crucial features, but useful in daily use and doubly so when travelling.
The bad:
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