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Features

Obviously, the biggest news here is the integrated Wi-Fi, as the RIM BlackBerry 8820 is the first BlackBerry to offer this option. It supports 802.11a/b/g, whether you're using your home or corporate network or hopping onto a Wi-Fi hot spot. There are enterprise security features, including WEP, WPA, and VPN settings. Our review unit was able to detect our test access point immediately, and we had no problem connecting to it or the Web. Other wireless options include Bluetooth 2.0 with support for wireless headsets, hands-free kits, dial-up networking, and A2DP for stereo Bluetooth headsets. Disappointingly, the BlackBerry 8820 doesn't work on 3G network, so you'll have to settle for EDGE speeds. For easy access, there's a Manage Connections menu option where you can turn on and off all the various radios.

On a brighter note, we're happy to see that the smart phone continues to offer integrated GPS like the BlackBerry 8800 does. With the built-in radio, you can use a location-based service if your operator supports it.

As far as other voice features, the RIM BlackBerry 8820 offers a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dial, and world roaming. The phone book is limited only by the available, offering room in each entry for eight phone numbers, email addresses, work and home address, job title, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can assign a photo to a contact as well to a group category, business or personal.

Of course, we cannot forget what makes BlackBerrys famous in the first place: Email. The RIM BlackBerry 8820 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 email in real time. All in all, the device can support up to 10 accounts, including POP3 or IMAP4 email accounts, and there is an email 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. The BlackBerry 8820 includes a number of PIM tools for the business users, including a calendar, a tasks list, a memo pad, an alarm, and a calculator.

For fun, the BlackBerry 8820 has a media player that works with MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, and MIDI music files and MPEG-4, WMV, and H.263 video formats. 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. 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 8820 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 also an image viewer, so you can check out your favorite photos. Just remember there's no camera on the 8820, so you'll have so you'll have to get your images onto your device another way: Via USB, multimedia message, etc. There's about 64MB of flash memory available, but we suggest using a microSD card to store large media files.

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