BlackBerry 9300

I was pleasantly surprised. I have used Android smart phones of various kinds, but my husband and daughter needed two basic phones to fulfill a contract agreement. We chose the BB 9300, not expecting much given the 150.00 price tag. What a great purchase! These little phones do exactly what they need to and have many more 'bells n whistles' than any other phone in the price range.
Easy set up, responsive controls, hooked up to wifi and opened pages quite quickly. I am so glad we got these.

I purchased the BB 9300 CASH, and Prepaid with WIND, Unlimited EVERYTHING including BB, Data, and laptop Tethering, for $49. I missed the deal on the Unbreakable Plan - same for $39 (Canadian Dollars = US dollars ). Still. I am typing this REVIEW on the WIND / Tethered BB9300, so that "WHEN" it works, it is wonderful. The BB9300, as you can see in the Professional REVIEWS on this website, is a DOWNGRADED version of other Blackberries that already exist. This lowers the price, BUT, the OS (Operating System 6.) is BLOATED with garbage like two Full Screen Videos that play every time you turn it on, that cannot be deleted, and ridiculous multiple MENUS that you cannot delete, and FEATURES and ICONS and things like pages of WORDS the the OS automatically loads - ( these can be deleted ONE AT A TIME if you have 3/4 of an hour to go through each one...!) etc. The 9300 is a typically solid design with years of RESEARCH at RIM behind it, but the keyboard, while "usable" has a light touch, and often you can't FEEL the CLICK that used to be present on the other Blackberries ( I have quite a few ). The optical cursor pad is beneficial in that it cannot clog with dust like the trackball, but it is SLOPPY since the trackball was mechanically "exact", while this trackpad is "velocity driven" and can over shoot or undershoot, and the CLICK to Choose is too weak, so you may CLICK while only wanting to SCROLL... WIND Mobile in Canada is having typical Start Up problems, and technical problems, but, if you have been watching the Cell phone business for 50 years like I have, ROGERS, BELL and Telus had similar problems in their early days. The dysfunctional MANAGEMENT at WIND seems to be the biggest issue, since the Corporate stores, Franchised stores, the Head Office, and the SUPPORT service in Cairo, Egypt, simple do not talk to each other, at all, ever, and the resulting mix ups and confusion cause totally unnecessary frustration to CUSTOMERS ( that would be me ). This could be FIXED in a week, if anyone in WIND management bothered to look at the issue. The Blackberry 9300 Operating System could be changed in a week as well, so that USERS , CUSTOMERS, could CHOOSE to delete hundreds of useless features that USE UP the teeny, gutted memory on this model, and the result would be that instead of constantly popping up with ERROR MESSAGES that report "NO MEMORY", the 9300 would actually "work". If you are an experienced Cell Phone user, DO NOT GET THIS 9300- spend a few more dollars and get a REAL Blackberry with a faster Processor (Computer chip) and REAL memory, and better hardware ( camera, etc. ). If you have a wretched PQRS7 keyboard old cell phone and are a LIGHT user, and want a better keypad for occasional texting, then this would be perfectly OK - just DO NOT try any demanding function such as watching a full length, full screen YOUTUBE video- it will HANG with the error that there is not enough memory, or worse, deliver a gabled stop action sound and pixel pattern that is worse than nothing, and waste your time - very frustrating. I asked WIND what to do with this 9300 if I paid cash for a REAL Blackberry and they said "Throw it out" or "Give it to a kid", but any kid is 10 times more savvy and demanding than any adult, and would be totally disgusted in less than a day, since everything they tried to do would generate an ERROR MESSAGE !... Experts call this an "ENTRY LEVEL" Cell phone, something that I never thought I would hear referring to a BlackBerry ! RIM has always been leading edge, and the departure to a crippled, gutted, version is puzzling - what are they thinking! WIND got rid of the 9300, quickly replacing it with the 9360 with more features, a Processor that is twice as fast, etc. BUT, it still has the same tiny battery! I had to buy 2 spare batteries, and 2 battery chargers, since the battery only lasts 3 hours! With the 9360 the added power and features drain the battery MORE, and all the dealers I talk to here in Vancouver, report that ALL BB 9360 customers are angry at the short battery life... I put in a plastic tab that I can flip up over the battery contacts to Disconnect the battery - so that when I ( the CUSTOMER) want to use it, there is a full battery. Something is wrong in the State of Denmark, Petrucio, or Bassanio, or whomever... Much to my horror, I just saw on TV, heard on the radio, and saw in printed papers, NEW ADS for Rogers and other Cell Phone Carriers offering the Blackberry 9300! I thought it was dead ( and buried ). IFF RIM ( Blackberry) updates the OS 6 version I now use so that it is no longer BLOATED to DEATH, it likely would actually "WORK" properly, and that may be the end of the problem. I can only hope... A couple of people I know with the 9300 are throwing it away and searching for "OTHER" cell phone Brand names with "Other" carriers... I personally do not think that there was ANY GOOD Reason for the stupidity in releasing this 9300 with a bloated OS, nor in the Management run- around and confusion in the WIND Corporate structure. Time will tell. I may yet be a HAPPY user, or, I could have a BRICK to use as a paper weight....

The BlackBerry Curve 3G doesn’t offer anything we haven’t seen before, but given that it’s an entry-level model this is perhaps to be expected. It’s certainly a great phone for emailing and text messaging and with GPS and 3G onboard it offers a decent feature set. However, it’s very awkward to use for web browsing and with Android touchscreen handsets now appearing on the market for around £100 on PAYG, we’re not quite sure there’s enough here to attract those new to the BlackBerry platform.

Read original review at TrustedReviews.