Identification & History

The BlackBerry Curve 8350i Is a legacy keyboard phone by RIM that was offered by a small handful of service providers. In the US, it was available through Sprint, as well as their subsidiary, Nextel, which this phone was the very last to be released under that name that came with significant upgrades to it's Wi-Fi and keyboard, making it very sought after by collectors. It was also available in Canada through Telus.

The 8350i Looks very much like some of the other BlackBerry Curves that came before it, with a QWERTY keyboard fit to take up most of the bottom half of the front, and the service provider name printed below that. Resting above the keyboard are the menu buttons, with a small recessed trackball in the middle, and above those is the screen, which is inside the phone shell behind transparent plastic, alongside the notification light right above it. All the functional parts at the front, apart from the speaker above the screen, are backlit for ease-of-use.

The sides and top consist of buttons for other features, such as a mute button, volume control, and the highly regarded Push-to-Talk feature, through Nextel's Direct Connect. the back holds the rear camera alongside its flash and a small reflective square to use as a selfie mirror. These are under a cover that can be removed to access the battery, which can also be removed to access the SIM card and MicroSD storage slots.

Specifications

Inner Hardware Specs

SIM Card slot: standard-sized SIM Card

  • Backwards-compatible with 128k SIM w/ Curve 7100i SIM

Expandable storage: Up to 16GB

Mediums: MicroSD/SDHC, TransFlash

Battery: single-cell Removeable 1,400mAh Li-Ion

Lifetime: 4-hours rated talk time

  • Maximum 8.25 hours of continuous talk time on 1 charge
  • Up to 168 hours on standby

Digital-SAR Rating: 0.88 watt per kilogram (according to FCC radiation test)

Processor: Intel XScale PXA270

Clock Rate: 312 MHz

Operative memory: RAM

Type: SDRAM

Capacity: 64 MiB RAM

Sound:

Digital/Analog:

  • Converter Nominal Resolution: 16 bit quantization
  • Holding Frequency: 44100 Hz

Audio Channels: Stereo output

Microphones: Mono input

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Outer Hardware Specs

General:

Weight: 4.76 ounces, 135 grams

Bounding Volume: 123.9 cm

Size: (H*W*D) 4.4" x 2.4" x 0.7", 111mm x 62mm x 18mm

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FRONT

Display:

Type: TN-TFT LCD

Size: 2.4" diagonal(62mm), (WxH) 1.95"x1.46"(49.6mm x 37.2mm)

full Horizontal bezel width: 12.4mm

Color Depth: QVGA w/ 16-bit color output

  • No. of display scales: 65536

Resolution: 240x320 pixels (76800 pixels)

Display Area & Area Utilization: 26.8% of 1845.1 square mm is used

Brightness: Automatic via light sensors, manual

  • Light Reflection Mode: Transmissive

Pixel Density: approximately 164-167 PPI

Pixel Size: 0.155 mm/pixel

Subpixel Scheme: RGB matrix (3 subpixels)

Controls:

Navigation: Center trackball, 4-way silver menu keys

  • (from left to right) Call, Menu Shortcut, Back, End

Typing: 35-key QWERTY keyboard

  • Predictive Text: integrated SureType
  • backlight: turns on by pressing a key

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SIDES

Left:

  • 2.5mm headphone jack
  • Mini-USB 2.0 port (hi-speed up to 480 Mbps)
  • Nextel Direct Connect button

Right:

  • Volume control rocker
  • Programmable shortcut key (set to camera by default)

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TOP

Mute button

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BACK

Camera: Single multimedia camera w/ 5x digital zoom

  • Paired with a single-LED flash & a small self-portrait mirror

Photo Matrix: 2-megapixels

Resolution: 1600x1200px

Image settings: stored as JPG's

  • Sensor: CMOS
  • Qualities:
  • Sizes:
  • White Balance:
  • Color Effects:
    • Images can be geotagged through the built-in GPS (Refer to GPS section in Software Specs)

Video Settings:

  • Formats: Normal(240x180 MPEG4) & MMS mode (176x144 3GP)
  • Color effects: same as images
  • Speed: 15 fps

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Software Specs

OS: BlackBerry OS 4.6.x (up to 4.6.1)

Communication: Push-To-Talk via Direct Connect's iDEN

Text: Group Connect, 20-contact PTT group chat

  • Comes with speakerphone

countries w/ PTT support: Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru

Email: syncs with Blackberry Enterprise server to undergo POP3 and IMAP4 protocols

  • Microsoft Exchange
  • Lotus Domino
  • Novell GroupWise

Instant Messaging: dedicated clients

  • Yahoo Messenger
  • AIM
  • Google Talk
  • BlackBerry Messenger
  • Windows Live
  • ICQ

Telephony Standard: GSM 900, 1800

Location Tracking: Built-in Assisted GPS (NMEA 0183)

  • Works through BlackBerry Maps and Telenav service

Positioning Systems:

  • Autonomous satellites
  • Cellular triangulation

On-Board Memory: non-volatile 128MB flash EEPROM

Applications: Purchased & downloaded through an online software store

Shipped PIM apps:

  • Calendar
  • Task list
  • Memo pad
  • Voice recorder
  • Calculator
  • Password keeper

Web Browser: Dedicated HTML browser

Connectivity:

  • Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP, AVRCP, DUN, HFP, HSP, OPP, SPP)
  • IEEE 802.11b/g WLAN, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi (54Mbit/s)
  • iDEN 800/900 cell data bands, 2G

Supported Media:

Audio: MP3 (32 chord for ringtones), WAV, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, MIDI music

Video: MP4, WMV, H.263

Misc: J2ME, MIDP 2.0 (for games)

Sources and extras

CNET sources

crackberry sources

PhoneArena Sources

Miscellaneous Sources