Boost

Recently I have decided that I wanted to get a better phone and service than what I’ve been using for a long time, and after doing some research and trying to avoid high rates and expensive phones with contracts, I decided to take a stab at the new offering from Boost Mobile, the Blackberry Curve 8330. I was quite excited to get this phone, as I was a fan of my old CrackBerry, and wanted to have a legit BlackBerry on the service, particularly since Boost offers unlimited 3G data with a $60 per month plan. This is my review of the Blackberry Curve 8330 for Boost Mobile after trying the phone out.

The Good

The phone is stylish, and smaller than my old smart phone, the Samsung Code. I chose the BlackBerry for the plethora of apps available, at least for the things I needed. Purchasing the phone is painless, save for the price, you just pay for it and take it home, where you activate it yourself. After the phone was activated, several apps I thought I would have to hunt down on my own started getting pushed to my phone, or rather direct links to them. All the basics were there, such as AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, etc. This made it pretty simple getting setup.

I liked that messages from all my apps and services were pushed into a consolidated inbox, which did simplify things. Unfortunately, this is where the good stopped.

The Bad

After activating my phone, and paying my first month of service, the phone was still not working. No calls, no text, no internet. I had to call Boost Mobile customer support and wait for about 20 minutes, just for a rep to walk me through a process on the phone that was simple enough that it should have been included in the directions, but it wasn’t. The apps being pushed to the device was a handy feature, but it lagged the phone badly, and made it impossible to do anything else.

Reception Quality

I’ve owned a Boost Mobile phone before, and was extremely impressed at the signal quality, and the voice quality. This was not the case with the BlackBerry, as it runs on the old Sprint CDMA network. I was barely able to get a signal in my house at all, most often having 1 bar or less of reception. The ironic thing of this is that I live within a mile of the Daytona International Speedway, which is Sprint sponsored, and has Sprint towers at that location. I didn’t drop a call, but it was just a matter of time.

Internet Connection

I am probably the most irate about this feature. A main feature advertised on this phone is the ability to use Sprints 3G network for internet. Not once did this feature work. Even in major metropolitan areas, with full signal, it took several minutes to download a file that was less than half a megabyte in size. The kicker? Sprint has total 3G coverage of the entire area I live, so there is no excuse for this not working for me.

Battery Performance

The battery on this device performs extremely poorly, not even able to make it through a single day of idle use with email and AIM only running in the background. This is piss poor given that this is advertised as having over a week of stand by time. My Metro PCS Samsung Code has a constant email connection, AIM, and Facebook constantly running at all times, and after a full day of heavy use, it is rare to even see one bar drop off my battery. Impressive for a phone that costs the same and runs on a smaller network. Sadly my “3G” connection was no faster than the edge connection on my Metro PCS phone.

The Ugly

Thankfully, Best Buy lived up to their word, and they accepted a return of the phone with no restocking fee, as promised, so I can not fault them here for anything. The worst part though, is when I call Boost Mobile to cancel my account and demand a refund because I did not receive the service as I was promised, and they refused. No way, no how, even though the phone was activated less than 48 hours previous to the cancellation, would they give even a partial refund.

Bottom line? If you want to pay premium prices for a shitty phone with even shittier service, and the worst customer service experience on the planet, get this phone.

No, really, it’s horrible. Worst phone and service ever, with the exception of Sprint about 10 years ago, which is still technically the same thing, when text messages take up to a day to arrive. I can’t recommend this phone or Boost Mobile to anyone now, because I feel burned.

I’m hoping the new Sprint network is better. I have decided to wait another 10 days until Best Buy can get some more stock, and I am going to buy an HTC EVO 4G. I’ll have a contract, but it will be a working 4G phone that acts as a WiFi hotspot and runs Android.

Been burned by Boost Mobile? Want to know more? Leave a comment below.