Since its release in September, the RIM BlackBerry Pearl has received much praise from users, earning an average 8.2 user rating. The sleek new design and added multimedia capabilities were a hit, and they made the Pearl a more attractive and viable option for consumers. Yet, there were segments of the market--power business users and SureType keyboard haters--who shunned the Pearl in favor of the full QWERTY keyboards on their traditional BlackBerrys. Not so anymore.
Making its debut at the 3GSM World Congress, the RIM BlackBerry 8800 brings the sexier look and versatility of the Pearl to a full QWERTY device. Not only do you get multimedia functionality and expandable memory, but the 8800 also offers integrated GPS and push-to-talk capabilities. Mobile professionals will be served well by this device. Of course, it's not perfect. We're disappointed by the lack of 3G support and integrated Wi-Fi, and call quality wasn't as good as we had hoped. Also, the device is quite wide, making it a tad awkward to hold as a phone. All that said, messaging is still king on this device, and it performs those duties well. The RIM BlackBerry 8800 is available now for $299.99 with a two-year contract and after mail-in rebates.
Design
Taking its style points from the BlackBerry Pearl, the RIM BlackBerry 8800 is a far cry from the days of the blocky and drab BlackBerry 6280 or even the most recent BlackBerry 8700c, which was fine but still a little lackluster in the design department. That's all changed now with the BlackBerry 8800; it's sleek and sexy with its smoothed edges and a deep midnight blue casing and chrome accents. At 4.4x2.6x0.5 inches and 4.7 ounces, it's slightly taller than the 8700c (4.3x2.7x0.7 inches; 4.7 ounces), but it's definitely thinner and thus, easier to slip into a pants pocket or purse. That said, the phone's pretty wide, so clutching it in your hand and holding it up to your ear is a bit awkward and cumbersome. To be fair, this is typical of the full QWERTY BlackBerrys as well as Pocket PC phones and Treos but even still, the Samsung BlackJack is probably the slimmest of such devices out there.
The BlackBerry 8800 features a beautiful 2.5-inch (diagonal), 65,000-color display with a 320x240 resolution. Text and images are clear and vibrant, and the screen also features light-sensing technology that automatically adjusts the backlighting of the screen, as well as the keyboard and trackball, depending on whether you're indoors or outdoors. We found that this function works well, and we had no problems reading the display under harsh lighting. However, the screen, as well as the casing, tends to hold a lot of smudges and fingerprints.
Also, carried over from the Pearl to the BlackBerry 8800 is the trackball. It's great because you can scroll four ways and also select items by pressing down, but we wish it were larger and raised more above the phone's surface. Also, it's easy to get carried away with the rolling of the trackball and go right past your selection, though you can adjust the trackball's sensitivity under the Options, Screen/keyboard menu. For that reason, we missed the jog dial and Escape key that have been mainstays of BlackBerrys' past, but as with anything new, these changes just take some acclimation.
Surrounding the trackball are the Talk and End keys and the Menu and Escape buttons. Below that navigation array is the 35-button QWERTY keyboard. Though there isn't much space between the keys as with the BlackBerry 8700c or the BlackBerry 8700g, the buttons are pretty large so you should be fine. Each key also has a raised ridge to make them more tactile, but even so, we found the lacquered finish made the buttons slippery. The number keys are highlighted in white, and there's also a shortcut on the keyboard to activate the speakerphone.
On the right spine, there are volume up and down keys, while on the left side, you will find a 2.5mm headset jack, a mini USB port, and a convenience key which, for the Cingular version, has been programmed to launch the push-to-talk (PTT) services. There is a microSD expansion slot behind the battery, but good luck getting to it since it took some superhuman strength to take off the battery cover. We hope RIM reconsiders the placement of the expansion slot on future devices. Finally, the power and mute buttons are on the top of the unit.
Cingular packages the BlackBerry 8800 with a travel charger, a USB cable, a wired headset, a belt holster, a CD-ROM with BlackBerry Desktop software, and reference material.
Features
The RIM BlackBerry 8800 keeps a lot of the same features that made it such a staple among the business set, but it also adds some to make it more than a messaging device. We'll start with those highlights first. To start, the BlackBerry 8800 now has multimedia capabilities. More specifically, you can use the built-in media player to listen to music (MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, and MIDI formats) and watch video (MPEG4, WMV, and H.263 files). We should note that there's about 64MB of flash memory available, but we suggest using a microSD card to store such larger media files.
The music player is pretty basic. Aside from standard stop and play functions, you can create playlists as "folders" and shuffle and repeat songs within a certain folder. It also displays some track information, such as title, artist, and album art if available. As we noted in our BlackBerry Pearl review, external player controls would have been nice, rather than having to press the Menu key first and then choose to skip a track or go back to the previous song. There's also an option to set a song as your ringtone. You can continue to play music as you use the device's other programs, and if you happen to get an incoming call, the BlackBerry 8800 will pause the music and pick up where you left off after you hang up.
For videos, the player has play and stop buttons, and you can fast-forward and rewind clips by clicking the trackball and scrolling right or left. There's still no full-screen mode, but since player controls only take up minimal space of the bottom of the 8800's spacious display, we're less forgiving of this fact than we were with the Pearl.
In addition to moving pictures, the BlackBerry 8800 has an image viewer that lets you peruse your favorite photos. However, there is no camera on the 8800, so you'll have to get your images onto your device another way, whether it's via USB, multimedia message, and so on. As of this writing, RIM has no plans to offer a camera-equipped version of the 8800, in an attempt to appease customers who don't want or can't have camera phones. While we certainly appreciate this precaution and understand it's a growing trend among businesses (for security reasons), we still would have liked the option of having a model with a camera.
Road warriors will certainly appreciate the integrated GPS feature. There aren't a whole lot of smart phones out there that have this feature, so the BlackBerry 8800 certainly holds the advantage there against the likes of other popular smart phones, like the T-Mobile Dash, the Motorola Q, and the Samsung BlackJack. There's no need for a Bluetooth GPS receiver or the hassle of an extra gadget. All you need is the help of a location-based service, such as TeleNav GPS Navigator, and you can get color maps and text- and voice-guided driving directions right on the BlackBerry 8800, as well as points of interest and other navigation tools. We had TeleNav installed on our review unit, and it worked like a charm (see Performance for more), but be aware that if you choose TeleNav GPS Navigator, this is an add-on service from Cingular that will cost $9.99 per month for unlimited trips or $5.99 for up to 10 trips; check out our full review of TeleNav for more information.
Another Cingular-specific offering is push-to-talk capabilities. Plans start at $9.99 per month, and with it, you can instantly see the availability of your contacts before calling them and make individual or group PTT calls. As far as other voice features, the RIM BlackBerry 8800 offers a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dial, and world roaming. The phone book is only limited by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts) with room in each entry eight phone numbers, e-mail addresses, work and home address, job title, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can assign a photo to a contact as well a group category, business or personal.
Wireless options are pretty much limited to Bluetooth 2.0, which you can use for headsets or hands-free kits. There is no A2DP support for Bluetooth stereo headphones, but the 8800 can be used as a wireless modem for your laptop. Though RIM has hinted at adding Wi-Fi to future devices, it doesn't start with the BlackBerry 8800. Even more bad news, the device doesn't work on Cingular's 3G network so you'll have to settle for EDGE speeds when surfing the Net. While we're on the subject, the BlackBerry's browser supports full HTML Web browsing.
Of course, we cannot forget what makes BlackBerrys famous in the first place: e-mail. The RIM BlackBerry 8800 offers the famed push technology and can sync with your company's BlackBerry Enterprise server with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise to deliver corporate e-mail in real time. All in all, the device can support up to 10 accounts, including POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail accounts, and there is an e-mail wizard on the device to guide you through the setup process. An attachment viewer is also onboard to open popular file formats, such as those from Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Corel WordPerfect, as well as PDFs, JPEGs, GIFs, and more. Other messaging options include text, multimedia, and instant messaging, although the IMs are once again limited to the proprietary BlackBerry Messenger client.
Finally, the BlackBerry 8800 includes a number of PIM tools for the business users, including a calendar, a tasks list, a memo pad, an alarm, and a calculator.
Performance
We tested the quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) RIM BlackBerry 8800 world phone in San Francisco using Cingular Wireless service, and call quality was decent. Voices sounded a bit muffled on our end, and our friends reported the same results. It's nothing that prevented us from carrying on a conversation, but things certainly could have been better. Surprisingly, sound quality greatly improved when we activated the speakerphone. Everything was clear, and volume was more than adequate. We also had no problem pairing the 8800 with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset.
As far as the GPS functionality, the 8800 was adequate, and we were certainly impressed by the strength of the GPS receiver. From a cold start, it took the unit about two minutes to lock onto a satellite fix and held steady as we drove around the city. It accurately tracked our location on a free drive. On a planned trip, TeleNav provided us with accurate but sometimes convoluted driving directions. On a couple of occasions, we knew there was a more direct route than the one that was presented to us. Still, for a mobile professional heading to a client meeting in a new place, this could be a huge timesaver.
Music playback sounded OK through the phone's speakers, though there was tinny tone to some songs. Video performance was quite good with clear image quality, although there was some pixilation during action sequences as to be expected. The BlackBerry 8800 did falter a bit in the arena of Web browsing. After spending time with a number of 3G-enabled smart phones, the EDGE speeds of the BlackBerry 8800 seemed pokey, and we began to lose our patience waiting for pages to load--call us spoiled if you will.
Overall, the BlackBerry 8800 delivered responsive and solid performance. The BlackBerry 8800's battery is rated for 5 hours of talk time and up to 22 days of standby time. In our tests, we were able to get 7.5 hours of talk time on a single charge.
Smartphones Basic Specs:
Dimensions (W x D x H):
2.6 in x 0.6 in x 4.5 in
Weight:
0.3 lbs
Style:
PDA
Messaging / Data Features:
Text messages
,
Multimedia messages (MMS)
Product Basic Spec:
Cellular technology:
GSM
Band / mode:
GSM 850/1900
Talk time:
Up to 300 min
Internet Browser:
Yes
Short Messaging Service (SMS):
Yes
Width:
2.6 in
Depth:
0.6 in
Height:
4.5 in
