RIM announces the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 for SA

September 10, 2009 • Gadgets and Gaming, Mobile and Telecoms

Research In Motion announced the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone for customers in South Africa at a glittering event in Johannesburg yesterday. The new handset was presented to the media and local celebrities by RIM Regional Director, Deon Liebenberg .

The handset, a new addition to the BlackBerry Curve series of smartphones, is now available from MTN and Vodacom countrywide.

The slim new BlackBerry Curve 8520 is an incredibly approachable smartphone for people who like to be connected. It provides easy mobile access to email, messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and popular social networking sites (including Facebook® and MySpace) and features a highly tactile full-QWERTY keyboard for comfortable, accurate typing. It also features rich multimedia capabilities and access to music, games and other mobile apps for entertainment on the go.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is a quad band phone, and is also Wi-Fi®-enabled to arm customers with fast Web browsing and extended data coverage.

In addition to providing customers with the industry’s leading mobile email and messaging solution, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is designed to be efficient and convenient. It introduces an innovative touch-sensitive optical trackpad, which makes scrolling and selection smooth and easy for a great navigation experience. It is also the first BlackBerry smartphone to feature dedicated media keys, smoothly integrated along the top of the handset, giving customers an easy, convenient way to control their music and videos.

“The new BlackBerry Curve 8520 is the latest addition to the BlackBerry Curve family of smartphones. It is both affordable and easy to use, making it the ideal first smartphone for the millions of South Africans who have yet to make the switch from cellphone to smartphone,” says Deon Liebenberg, regional director for Sub-Sahara Africa, Research In Motion. “It delivers all the great messaging, social networking and multimedia features that customers have come to expect from BlackBerry smartphones.”

Key features of the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone include:

• Full-QWERTY keyboard and touch-sensitive optical trackpad for reliable, responsive typing and navigation

• 256MB Flash memory and a 512Mhz next generation processor for enhanced performance

• Premium phone features including voice activated dialing, and Bluetooth (2.0) support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals

• 2 MP digital camera with zoom and video recording

• Advanced media player for music, pictures and videos, with dedicated media keys and a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, plus BlackBerry ® Media Sync, which makes it easy to quickly sync music from iTunes® or Windows Media® Player with the smartphone*

• BlackBerry® Internet Service support for access to up to 10 supported email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts such as MWEB, Yahoo! ® , Windows Live ™ Hotmail ® and Gmail ™ ; and BlackBerry® Enterprise Server support, which provides advanced security and IT administration features for corporate deployments

• Expandable memory via hot swappable microSD/SDHC memory card slot, supporting cards of up to 16 GB today and expected to support next generation 32GB cards when available; a 2GB card is included

• Built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)

• Quad-band world phone: EGDE/GPRS/GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

ITNewsAfrica

8520BlackBerry CurveDeon LiebenbergRIM

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