New RIM CEO Thorsten Heins couldn’t just go and start mass-producing those BlackBerry 10 developer phones and expect them to instantly right the ship. No, it’s slow and steady that wins the race, and that means business as usual for RIM in the meantime — and incremental updates to their current line of BlackBerry 7 phones.
Up next is the Curve 9320, a slab of the same RIM QWERTY goodness you’ve been witnessing for years. The profile is slightly slimmer, the corners are softly-rounded, and the screen is a two-and-a-half inch, non-touch unit that operates at a resolution of 320×240 pixels. There’s 512MB of on-board storage for your apps and microSD expansion for your music, movies, photos, and documents, and a 1450mAh battery — larger than the one that ships in the BlackBerry Bold 9900. 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support are built-in, too, and the enterprise pedigree (including Cisco CCX and BlackBerry Enterprise support) remains.
The Curve 9220 is nearly identical, but it’s the camera sets the two phones apart. The Curve 9320 features a rather humble 3.2MP shooter with LED flash, while the 9220 sports a (gulp) fixed-focus 2MP unit and forgoes the flash. They’re both small and light, measuring just over four inches tall and half an inch thick, and both weigh just a hair over 100 grams.
Based on the ho-hum specs and the addition of a BBM button to the left of the optical trackpad, it’s fair to guess that RIM is aiming this phone at emerging markets or teenage phone buyers that want to network with their friends without breaking the bank. Too bad they won’t be able to upgrade to the new operating system once it arrives later this year.
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