News

On a recent road trip with friends, someone started calling it Miss BlackBerry. They were referring to the BlackBerry 8800 I had on review, a quad-band PDA phone from Research In Motion that comes with built-in GPS and talking turn-by-turn navigation software. Miss BlackBerry was a little bossy-boots, but rarely steered us wrong.

The 8800, available from Rogers for $500 to $650 (depending on contract), works worldwide on GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks. It's the latest in RIM's line of PDA-like mobile e-mail devices equipped with full (if tiny) QWERTY keyboards. The company's other line of more phone-like models recently culminated in the sleek BlackBerry Pearl. The 8800 is basically a Pearl in PDA's clothing, right down to the stylish piano-black and silver finish. It's similarly slenderized — 4.49 x 2.60 x 0.55 inches, 4.73 ounces — and adopts the Pearl's tiny but effective trackball.

Also like the Pearl, the 8800 plays MP3s (and other digital music), though not particularly well. It doesn't come with a stereo headset either. The 8800 performs better on videos and photos, thanks to a powerful-enough 312 MHz XScale processor, 64MB of flash memory and a great 2.5-inch TFT LCD (320 x 240 pixels, 65,000 colours). For about $60, you can add a 2GB microSD card to store media files. But maybe don't trade in your iPod.

My biggest complaint: the smaller keyboard makes keys harder to see and to punch with fat fingers. The user interface departs from BlackBerry tradition by replacing thumb wheel with trackball and moving the Back key from the edge of the chassis to the front face beside the trackball. It's not quite as comfortable to use as past BlackBerries, but works well enough. And slimmer and lighter always come with a cost.

The software suite, aside from noted exceptions, is typical BlackBerry. RIM still does push-mode mobile e-mail better than anyone, whether your firm has a BlackBerry server or you run a POP e-mail account. The personal information management (PIM) applets — calendar, contacts, tasks — synch with Microsoft Outlook and other corporate PIM software. The 8800 is also good for Web browsing. A separate WAP browser gives you access to Rogers' mobile Web portal.

The real pièce de résistance is the navigation software from TeleNav. Punch in an address anywhere in North America and Miss BlackBerry will guide you to it from wherever you are. It only went wrong once on my trip, and that was when it was trying to find the entrance to a large private resort in the country. It worked surprisingly well in a car, despite no mounting kit being included. The 3D maps were easy to see at a glance and the robotic voice was loud enough, even when travelling at speed. The 8800 also works nicely as a pedestrian navigator.

Bottom line: I want one.