New BlackBerry Has Wi-Fi

Written by Adam Gosling

Thursday, 19 July 2007

You will soon be able to a whole lot more with your Blackberry handeset following the news tat the next device to come from Research In Motion will featureWiFi conectivity oipening the way for faster, downloads in the offive and potentially VoIP calls over wireless LANs. The BlackBerry 8820 is also said to be Research In Motion's (RIM)s thinnest smartphone design. Although we haven't confirmed the dimensions yet, other phones in the 8800 series are 14mm thick, weigh 134 grams and are 114 long by 66 mm wide. Like the other 8800's the 8820 features 'neato' features like GPS and VAD (RIMs speaker-independent Voice Activated Dialing). In addition to being able to tell yoiu where it is straight out of the box, the handset has the latest media player enhancements, and a microSDHC (microSD High Capacity) expandable memory slot that can support current and future generations of microSD memory cards up to stomping great 32GB. It also supports your old microSD cards for backwards compatibility. The bad news is that this still isn't 3G capable and the Quad-band 8820 might be the first dual-mode BlackBerry, but it is still crippled by the 2.5 EDGE/GPRS/GSM connectivity rather than supporting the wireless broadband standard HSDPA which many of its competitors now support. The 8820 does support UMA (unlicensed mobile access) for fixed-mobile convergence (FMC). This basically means the phone will pass your call between your mobile phone service and your wireless network as you move in and out of range - so long as your carrier supports this service. Don't expect it to work just yet. The 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking standard support opens up the possiblity of other VOIP services though and should speed up your data transfer and web surving nicely if you are within range of your home/office WLAN or hooked up to a public hotspot. The smartphone works in conjunction with both BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Internet Service and can seamlessly switch between cellular networks and a Wi-Fi network to allow users to access email, Instant Messaging, organizer, web browsing and other mobile data applications. WLAN security systems offer a choice of WEP, WPA and WPA2, as well as Cisco Compatible Extensions for simple, secure connectivity with Cisco wireless solutions. For enterprises that require Wi-Fi users to access the corporate network through a VPN (Virtual Private Network), the BlackBerry 8820 includes IPSec-based software that supports the most commonly deployed VPN gateways from vendors including Cisco, Check Point and others. www.blackberry8820.com Related news items Broadcom Enthusisam for 802.11n Wavers -06/09/2007 Sydney Airport Network Improved For APEC -03/09/2007 Mobile Apps Worth Billions To Operators -01/08/2007 D-Link Boosts Draft N Range -30/07/2007 GPS Satellite Cooperation -30/07/2007 Newer news items First Windows 6 Palm In Australia -12/09/2007 HP Goes iPaq Mad -06/09/2007 Optus, Vodafone Adopt A New Windows Smartphone -08/08/2007 NASA Says No iPhones, But BlackBerry Okay -31/07/2007 iPhone Proving Tough Nut To Crack -18/07/2007 Older news items MOTO Q 9h In Australia On Vodafone -16/07/2007 MOTOROKR E6 Debuts In Aus -02/07/2007 iPhone Gets Grown Up Email -28/06/2007 Apple Adds YouTube To iPhone Menu -25/06/2007 Voda Phone For Fleet Buyers -29/05/2007 Tag This Now: