Orange has confirmed it is to offer the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 on both pay as you go and pay monthly tariffs from August.
Talking up the social networking capabilities of the handset, manufacturers RIM say it will support mobile access to both Facebook and MySpace, as well as offering the usual email and messaging services.
The handset features a touch-sensitive optical trackpad and is the first BlackBerry smartphone to feature dedicated media keys, giving customers an easy, convenient way to control their music and videos.
“More and more cell phone users are choosing to upgrade to a smartphone and the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 will undoubtedly convince many more people in the UK to make the switch. It is a great new addition to the BlackBerry Curve series and delivers all the great messaging, social networking and multimedia features that customers have come to love about BlackBerry smartphones,” said Carlo Chiarello, vice president, product management, Research In Motion.
Key features include:
- Full-QWERTY keyboard and touch-sensitive optical trackpad for reliable, responsive typing and navigation
- 256MB Flash memory and a 512Mhz next generation processor for enhanced performance
- Premium phone features including voice activated dialing, and Bluetooth (2.0) support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals
- 2 MP digital camera with zoom and video recording
- Advanced media player for music, pictures and videos, with dedicated media keys and a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, plus BlackBerry® Media Sync, which makes it easy to quickly sync music from iTunes® or Windows Media® Player with the smartphone*
- Access to BlackBerry App World™, featuring a broad and growing catalog of third-party mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones. Categories include games, entertainment, social networking and sharing, news and weather, productivity and much more
- BlackBerry® Internet Service support for access to up to 10 supported email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts such as Yahoo!®, Windows Live™ Hotmail®, AOL® and Gmail™; and BlackBerry® Enterprise Server support, which provides advanced security and IT administration features for corporate deployments
- Expandable memory via hot swappable microSD/SDHC memory card slot, supporting cards of up to 16 GB today and expected to support next generation 32GB cards when available; a 2GB card is included
- Built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)
- Quad-band world phone: EGDE/GPRS/GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
