BlackBerry 8800 In Australia

Written by Adam Gosling

Wednesday, 28 March 2007

With good looks, built-in GPS, support for ACC, MP3, MPEG4 and H.263 multimedia files, svelte lines and piano black finish, you might find it hard to believe its a Blackberry. If it were not for the increasingly iconic Pearl Navigation Trackball front and center on the device and the full QWERTY keyboard making the look like a somewhat wide, stomped on Blackberry Pearl, you might forget the device is for email and think it was a cell phone. Although the RIM-made machine is still crippled by its less-than-3G quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE connectivity, the 8800 comes with all the "best-in-class performance with smoothly integrated support for voice and data applications, including phone, email, text messaging, web browser, organiser, multimedia and more" you have cometo expect from BlackBerry's. Sure, the 8800 still lacks a digital camera, but for a business-approved device a multimedia player and expandable memory card slot for extra storage, the handset offers a of fun and function. The built-in GPS (Global Positioning System), a first for BlackBerry handsets in Australia, provides "out-of-the-box" solution for location based applications and services. As a phone the 8800 features the same Speaker Independent Voice Recognition for Voice Activated Dialling (VAD) as the Pearl and has advanced noise cancellation technology. Intuitive call management functions include smart dialling, conference calling, speed dialling and call forwarding, as well as dedicated "send", "end" and "mute" keys. The BlackBerry 8800 can operate with BlackBerry Internet Service, giving users the ability to manage up to 10 supported personal and corporate email accounts, as well as BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which includes IT policy controls for managing the smartphone's features and usage. The BlackBerry 8800 is expected to be available in Australia from late April to early May. www.blackberry8800.com Related news items Palm Goes Consumer With Treo 500v -12/09/2007 Broadcom Enthusisam for 802.11n Wavers -06/09/2007 Sydney Airport Network Improved For APEC -03/09/2007 Mobile Speakerphone From Jabra -30/08/2007 Mobile Apps Worth Billions To Operators -01/08/2007 Newer news items Telstra's Pearl BlackBerry Pearl -06/05/2007 RIM Offers BlackBerry Curve -03/05/2007 SAGEM my401C Gets Pretty In Pink -10/04/2007 New Nokia's For GSM and CDMA -02/04/2007 RIM Boosting Ecosystem With BlackBerry APIs -29/03/2007 Older news items Palm To Update Treo 750 OS -27/03/2007 Palm Backs Hands Free -27/03/2007 SAGEM Offers Another Shell -26/03/2007 Google Phone Would Be Significant Departure -19/03/2007 Award Winning Low-Cost Motofone Debuts -14/03/2007 Tag This Now: