Trends: BlackBerry for youth

2009/10/30

CHANDRA DEVI RENGANAYAR

THE BlackBerry Curve 8520, one specially made for youth, is now available from Celcom Bhd.

The telco is expecting to lure youngsters with the slim smartphone via its prepaid service, Xpax.

The smartphone, which is one of the more affordable BlackBerry phones on the market, offers easy access to email, social networking and instant messaging services. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 comes with readily available popular instant messaging applications such as Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, and ICQ which can provide instant connectivity and chatting on-the-go. The device supports up to 10 email accounts including Yahoo!, Windows Live Hotmail, AOL and Gmail. Users can also deploy corporate email with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server support which provides advanced security and IT administration features.

Setting up a personal email account such as Gmail or Hotmail is simple with this device. You can add and create an email address directly from this smartphone. Users can also create a BlackBerry email address.

To synchronise the smartphone with your corporate email like Lotus Notes or Outlook, you will need to get an enterprise activation password from the system administrator.

Another attraction is the dedicated media keys for easy access to music, pictures and videos. The smartphone has the BlackBerry Media Sync which makes it easy to quickly sync music from iTunes or Windows Media Player.

The Wi-Fi enabled device has a QWERTY keyboard and sensitive trackpad for easy navigation. The quad-band world phone supports EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks.

Under the Xpax prepaid service the BlackBerry Curve 8520 is offered at RM998 with reload of RM50 until Nov 15. The phone is available at 44 selected Blue Cube outlets nationwide. Currently the company is offering two Blackberry prepaid service plans — the Blackberry Social Plan and the Blackberry Advance (2.5G) Plan.

The Blackberry Social Plan provides unlimited access to social media applications like Facebook and instant messaging such as Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger from as low as RM1 a day. The Blackberry Advance (2.5G) Plan offers unlimited access to email, Net surfing as well as social media and instant messaging applications from as low as RM2.50 a day.

Another offering that will be made available soon is the Blackberry Unlimited (3G) Plan at RM3.50 a day.

Celcom has also rolled out Blackberry postpaid packages for Edge/GPRS services. The unlimited access starts from as low as RM68 per month. The phone is available at RM788 with a monthly commitment of RM118 or at RM588 with a RM250 commitment per month for 12 months.