RIM have officially announced the BlackBerry Curve 8520, the handset formerly known as the BlackBerry Gemini. Set to land on both T-Mobile USA and Vodafone UK next month, the Curve 8520 is the company’s latest non-3G smartphone, complete with a full hardware QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad for navigation and a 2-megapixel camera.
There’s also a 320 x 240 display, Bluetooth and WiFi. A microSD card slot and 3.5mm headphone jack round out the specifications, while the battery is good for 4.5hrs of talktime or 17 days of standby. While many may scoff at the absence of high-speed cellular connectivity, the success of other 2.5G BlackBerry handsets such as the Curve 8900 shows there’s still a demand for straightforward, solid messaging-centric smartphones.
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