Dedicated media controls

There are bright spots to the Curve 8530's design, including dedicated media controls on top of the device. You get track forward, back, and play/pause buttons so you can operate the media player without having to using the onscreen menu. In addition, the smartphone is equipped with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the left side so you don't have to use any cumbersome audio adapter to plug in your headphones.

The media player isn't particularly fancy, but you do get shuffle, repeat, playlist creation, and a built-in equalize. Audio quality was quite good and videos also played back smoothly.