Mobile phones are getting cheaper and cheaper, and nowhere is this more obvious than with RIMs latest BlackBerry pricing strategy. RIM got in the game with a new line of affordable BlackBerry prices in April 2012. Nowadays, the best BlackBerry price will hardly cut into the average budget at all and free apps abound, making buying a BlackBerry smartphone feel even more of steal. Here’s our list of golden downloads to get the most from your BlackBerry mobile phone.
Opera Mini
This BlackBerry Internet browser takes advantage of Opera’s hallmark compression algorithms to speed up your navigation online. It compresses pages down to 10 percent of their original size, which means surfing is faster and will cost you much less in mobile data. It truly is a must.
Evernote
The ubiquitous king of online idea saving, Evernote allows you to organize snapshots, audio notes, files and text, using the free app’s excellent tagging and sorting features. If you’re still toting round a crumpled Moleskine notebook, consider checking Evernote out: it will even be able to make your handwritten notes searchable. How cool is that?!
amAze
Getting places shouldn’t be difficult or expensive. That’s the philosophy behind amAze, the free go-to satellite navigation app for BlackBerry devices. Don’t let the non-existent price tag of amAze fool you: even local weather notifications are conveniently built right in.
Drive Safely
Siri and Google Voice aren’t the only ones having vocal fun. Drive Safely will read your text messages aloud, and can reply with set texts. Since operating a mobile phone whilst driving has crept up the ladder of more serious and potentially fatal crimes, it pays to take a bit of caution on the road. But downloading Drive Safely is a good way to be safe on the road, and is another great essential free app.
Facebook seems to believe that it is leading a global revolution in everything, right now. Sit and bask in their innovative glory while receiving communiqués from friends, family and another five hundred people you don’t actually really remember. Facebook’s BlackBerry app integrates straight into Contacts and Calendar, meaning you’ll technically never have an excuse to miss an event – or forget a name or birthday– ever again.
UberTwitter
How much Twitter do you want? Loads? More? Much more? Here’s an app for you, then. Offering geo-tagging, photo uploads, Google Talk integration, nearby-user-finding and a small button that claims to destabilize the Australian dollar (!), this free BlackBerry application offers quite a bit of social power to its users.
Shazam
Unfortunately, India has been left out in the cold by free music streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora and Slacker. So, you’ll need another way of building and maintaining an online music collection. Enter Shazam – an incredibly advanced music recognition service designed especially for you. Download it to your smartphone for free.
Blocked Traffic
Addictive and now a BlackBerry classic, Blocked Traffic proves that the very best puzzle games are really the simplest. Offering all the fun of another well-known rearrange-the-blocks game, here’s an example of casual gaming at its minimal and no-cost finest.
Ka-Glom (free for a limited time only!)
Tetris meets Bomberman in this retro-inspired puzzle-‘em-up. Squillions of modes and generated levels make for infinitely addictive gaming fun. You’ll wonder how you lived without it.