The BlackBerry Curve 8520 represents a bridge in many ways. A bridge between businessmen and party boys. Between meetings and mixers. And between BlackBerry fanatics and new users. With a barrel of fun features while still maintaining its business chic, the Curve 8520 should delight people regardless of where they stand on the bridge. 

Trading a metal finish for a rubberlike edge, the Curve 8520 actually feels less serious in your hands than other BlackBerries. The other big physical difference is a trackpad on the control panel, replacing the traditional BlackBerry trackball. It is similar to a laptop mousepad and has superior responsiveness despite its small size. 

The distinctive BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard remains, and is excellent not only for important business stuff, but also messaging. The Curve 8520 has quality applications for social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook so you can update your status on the go with breathtaking ease. Dialing numbers is a little trickier as this is on a full keyboard, but that is just something extra to tweet about!

While the 8520 does not support 3G it does have Wi-Fi connectivity so you can connect and catch up with the online goss when a wireless network is nearby. The user interface and in-built browser is quality, although it does take a bit of getting used to if you are new to BlackBerry world. Some aspects of the interface are a bit boring-a hangover from business BlackBerry I think-but there are plenty of applications that you can easily download to spice up your handset. Although there is no GPS you can use Google Maps which will figure out your position using mobile phone towers.

Multimedia wise, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 is a box of treasures. The high resolution screen (320x240 pixels) makes videos easy to watch and photos crisp and clear. The in-built 2 megapixel camera isn’t going to get your picture on the cover of National Geographic but it does the job and it also takes video footage. There are three dedicated music controls at the top of the 8520 so you can rock out with ease. The handset also has a 3.5mm headphone jack-a gift to music lovers who want to use their own headphones. You can keep your tunes playing in the background while you do other things on the Curve 8520. There is a massive 256 megabytes of internal memory as well as a microSD card slot so you can store more of your favourite tracks, photos and videos. Party on ladies and gentlemen!