Although it was released in 2009, Blackberry Curve 8520 In 2010, at the age of 18. I remember having a small budget but wanted to make a splash from Nokia and the bulky Symbian operating system that had been with me for a long time. The idea of ​​having a slightly more robust operating system, an app store, and BBM for chatting with friends was very interesting to me.

With its pros and cons, this BlackBerry Curve 8520 accompanied me for almost a year until I finally replaced it for my first Android phone. Afterwards, RIM’s phone hung around the house for several years and at one point ended up in a drawer. It’s 2022, that little man back in my hands and I wonder what you can offer me today.

BlackBerry 8520 in 2022

Now I realize it’s a pretty limited phone even when I bought it. Camera, storage, connection etc. outpaced by other offerings, but they were more expensive as I recall. However, one thing that surprised me about this equipment is its durability. It’s more than 12 years old and still works with limitations that we’ll explore in the following paragraphs.

In terms of hardware (mainly at the level of internal components), the phone has stood the test of time quite well. facade where Display and QWERTY keyboard are in very good condition., something I can’t say about the sides whose buttons literally disappear. It’s as if the rubber is “expired” until it comes out of the terminal.

On the back, the cover has suffered a little more over time, as has the rubber part that contains the word “Curve” and the camera hole. The top row buttons are also broken, but internally everything seems fine. Buttons, camera, speaker, screen, antennas. I concluded that if it were not for these worn parts, the unit would have been in near-new condition.

But what is a softphone? Today, more than ever, we live in a world where computers “get out of date” relatively easily. The hardware may survive, but software updates aggravate them or get stuck on older versions of the system and with that the latest apps no longer work. So what happens with a team of about 12 years old?

At some point in the last few years I made the mistake of factory resetting the phone and store the battery in a box with 50% charge. The battery selection wasn’t that bad in my opinion, but it was for erasing all its contents. I didn’t know at the time that RIM would destroy the Blackberry App World app store for BlackBerry OS 5 and stop making phones and suspend all its services in the mobile market.

In this way, in 2022, I found myself with a phone from yesterday, but completely empty. Maybe my hope was to connect it to a Wi-Fi network and try to run some apps I used to use. Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Nimbuzz (A client to connect to Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger). The idea was to test, but the companies behind them could also disconnect from their servers.

As I mentioned above, I also lacked the ability to use the app store. In a pointless attempt, I tried to download a version from the store to my computer, transfer it to the phone and install it manually, but my idea did not work. I knew it wouldn’t work, but as a curious person, I wanted to try and experience that feeling firsthand.

For an issue of old security certificates, integrated browser completely deprecated. I couldn’t connect to secure pages. And which pages are not safe today? My attempts to update mobile certificates were also unsuccessful. So, as time went on, I came to see this device as a nice paperweight or perhaps a new addition to my old phone collection, for example a Kyocera 2235.

At one point I remembered that Opera Mini was a browser I used on this computer early in the last decade. Curiously, I found a way to set it up, so it seems to be one of the only apps running on a BlackBerry 8520 these days. Seeing the browser start up motivated me, and verifying I could surf the web with the little 2.46-. inch screen stole a smile from me.

However, the moment of happiness was fleeting. Browse, Opera Mini was navigating, but half of the content of the pages I was trying to access did not load. I was able to read articles on Xataka and other text-driven pages., but most of the images were not displayed. Other elements such as videos or banners were completely out of the game.

I told my colleagues about this experience on the internal Xataka channel on Slack. Alberto de la Torre and Javier Pastor encouraged me to write about it with some interesting ideas. Javier Lacort suggested that I try the phone with some of the most popular services today. So I tried, although I ruled out the possibility of downloading and installing apps.

When WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter apps went off the radar, I entered Opera Mini, instagram.com. Conclusion? The page just uploaded the logo of the social network. I did the same with m.facebook.com and surprisingly it worked. The social network was loaded as it was back then in its simplest version. I felt in an experience nostalgic your social network, where everything seems simpler. was to question love, visit profiles and send one or more messages to my friends. Then I tried to repeat the experience twitter.combut I was not successful.

I also had good luck with Spotify, Netflix and TikTok pages. The first asked me to upgrade to a supported browser, the second allowed me to log in but failed to play any content, and the third loaded sporadically and therefore never allowed me to progress.

After discovering the limitations of an older version of Opera Mini, I started exploring other possibilities the phone offered me. BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app was still thereHe even called me with my name Javier and showed me my password. Unfortunately we know this service stopped working on all platforms in 2009 so it was just a nice decoration. I also found the email app, but it was impossible to use.

The BlackBerry 8520, far from being the last, had something to offer me. In “Notepad” I can send SMS and write notes. In the case of the latter, I considered squeezing for a few minutes. remember what it’s like to type on a physical keyboard (some want to see it again on existing phones). After several attempts, I came to the conclusion that it is impossible to go back personally in this section. I’m very used to on-screen keyboards.

The mobile phone can also make and receive calls, but this possibility will disappear as 2G networks shut down in different parts of the world. The rest of the apps available gave me a completely native experience. The camera was still working to capture the image, clock, calendar and multimedia player also performed their functions, the latter with files transferred to the memory card.

one last thought

Beyond this anecdotal experience, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if the email app, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, BBM and others of that time continued to work as they did in its heyday. I don’t mean current features, I mean features introduced more than a decade ago.

I know we’re in an ever-evolving world and we need to move forward, but sometimes I think that those who just need to send WhatsApp messages, read tweets or consult the basics on the web don’t need to do that. to have such a modern phone. But even if the equipment is in good condition, its software has a firm expiration date.

When we buy something, we do so indirectly by signing a term of use agreement. We know that this device will sooner or later become part of the old gadgets club.. And no matter whether the hardware you pay for still works perfectly or not, the operating system and its ecosystem, the heart, dries up over time, because time is unforgiving.

on Xataka | This was the HTC Dream, the first Android phone in history (and yes, it had a QWERTY keyboard)