The New Blackberry Curve 9360 Complete With High Quality Video Capture

Blackberry mobile phones are renowned for their excellence at messaging and connectivity but how do they perform when it comes to multi media activities such as photography and video capture? We look at these features on the exciting new Blackberry Curve 9360, the newest device released by manufacturer RIM.

The camera feature on the Curve 9360 is capable of capturing photographic images at a resolution of 5 million pixels. This quality is the highest available on any Blackberry device and it is pleasing to see it featured on a model such as the 9360 which is one of the lower priced handsets in the range. When taking a photograph you are presented with a simple interface that comprises of a bar that occupies a section at the bottom of the screen. In the centre of this bar is the shutter key and it is flanked by buttons that enable you to activate the flash facility, switch on the geotagging services and an option for choosing from a number of different preset scene modes. The camera is quite basic compared to many top end smartphones but you do have the option to manually change the resolution of the picture you are taking. Many people will automatically leave the setting on its maximum possible resolution however if you are taking snaps that you intend to upload then reducing the quality to 3 million pixels is advisable as it will speed up the whole upload process. In terms of the final results the photographic quality of the Curve 9360 is fairly impressive. Picture noise is minimal in the images that we captured and a good level of contrast and sharpness was achieved in most shots.

For video capture the interface on the Blackberry Curve 9360is fairly similar to the one used for still photography. The options bar is once again restricted to a small section at the bottom of the screen which leaves the rest of the display available for you to view what you are recording. In terms of quality the video capture is not the highest resolution that you will be able to find. The model can record footage at VGA quality which is considerably lower than the HD standard offered on rival handsets such as the HTC Desire S. Despite the lower resolution the phone manages to capture a great frame rate of 30 per second which does help the final results look surprisingly clear. The video recordings impress more than they should, just like the still photography we looked at earlier. A great level of detail is maintained and colours are accurately captured. The facility is never likely to win any awards but conversely there are many worse examples of video capture currently available.

The Blackberry Curve 9360 is not marketed as a multi media device and therefore we did not expect much from the camera and video features. We were pleasantly surprised with the results however which were of a high quality and certainly rivalled many other phones available at the same price point.

The Blackberry Curve 9360 and the HTC Desire S are available now.