Me: A normal guy, no issues, really into BlackBerry Curves. You: A BlackBerry Curve with a similar build quality as the 8900 with a lot of class and great UI. Let’s meet for drinks, dinner, movie? Be prepared to spend time in my pocket.

When I ran that personals ad on Craigslist I didn’t quite expect the 8520 to answer. This inexpensive phone will cost $48 at Wal-Mart (!!) and about $130 on T-Mobile proper and comes in black and light blue. I’m going to put it through its paces for a few days and report back but from what I can tell they worked pretty darn hard to get this phone under $50. First, they took off the scroll ball and replaced it with a touch sensitive pad – sort of like a track pad – and definitely took some liberties with the backlighting and fit and finish.

The hot-swappable mini-SD card – a 1GB unit is included – is nice but I’m really worried about the lasting value of a phone that will retail for a recession-friendly $50 at a big box store. Let me take a closer look and get back to you.

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