First thing I tried: GPS

The included Maps application isn't very useful in Argentina as there are no maps available. It only shows a couple of landmarks. Enters Google Maps, just to confirm my data connection was in place I opened the Internet Browser and downloaded Google Maps OTA (Over The Air). It arrived quiet fast, installed and run flawlessly. It requested permission to use the GPS, that I granted and immediately showed the usual satellite images.
If you press 0 it triangulates your position using the information obtained from cell towers nearby and does a pretty fast and good job typically missing by about 3 blocks, but wait while it positioned and downloaded the maps for the area it also was trying to acquire any available GPS satellite signal and in a moment it will accurately pin point you with a precision of 3 meters.
The GPS itself doesn't seam to put a heavy strain on the battery but keep in mind that you will be typically receiving the GPS signal, downloading the corresponding map and keeping the screen on. All that together will impact how much your battery lasts. Anyway battery is not an issue for the Curves.
Update: I am away from Buenos Aires this weekend and I had the chance to try the GPS on the road and in a small beach village called Cariló. It looks like Google Maps is not able to triangulate your position based on the cellular antennas when you have only "edge" (lowercase) connectivity. Otherwise it was very accurate (within 3 meters) and helped us through and out of the wood's dirty roads. Also when you are not getting a GPS signal the precission of the cellular antenna's method varies in rural areas as there are less towers and they cover larger distances.

Great day, excitment, ... cell phone company

After asking in a couple of Claro offices downtown I had to call customer support to find out where I could get a hold of an 8310. It happened to be available in the office nearest home so I headed towards the store first time on Saturday morning. After making me wait for 30-40 minutes a sales clerk did her stuff (or so I thought at the moment) and off I went with my new phone. It took the network about 15 minutes to allow my new device to connect. At that point I started playing with my new toy. As a phone it is great, the best I ever had I would say. It is about 450 US dollars including a carrier discount. I also had to subscribe to the mandatory flat EDGE data service for 16 dollars per month. I have to mention the phone interface is great, the options are countless (speakerphone, smart dialing - i.e: really smart like searching everywhere in your addressbook for the few letters( or numbers) you are typing- , speaker is loud and clear, signal y typically stronger than in my previous Samsung D600, speaker independent voice dialing is awesome too, and many more).
So far so good. Then I tried the Maps application, which takes a significant amount of time to get a fix from the satellites. The funny thing was when It did it said "You are here" with a pin on a non-existent map ..., at that point I started to realize that the data network was unavailable. I checked the signal an I had 4 bars and a big EDGE sign on the top right corner of the screen ... How come ? (short answer: The company forgot to provision something on the network.)

Just got my first BlackBerry

Hello everyone, I am starting this blog because last Saturday, April 4th I finally bought a BlackBerry. It is my first so I will be learning a little bit while I tell you about my experiences with it. I live in Argentina and I had a previous mobile phone with one of the carriers here. I had to choose between getting an unlocked one in the US or getting it from my Carrier. Because of many reasons I went with the second option. My GSM company here is Claro Argentina (former CTI Movil) and if you are wondering about the service .. well we will get to that later.
I decided for a BlackBerry Curve 8310, I liked the 8320 but no carrier is offering it in Argentina and no carrier currently supports UMA downhere. Also you must subscribe to a mandatory flat data plan if you want to use your BB, and that made WiFi pointless. So I went for the GPS version.