BlackBerry 8800

Ok, but not great, average reception, email features work as expected, after using it for a while, I don't like its menu system.

I ' ve had the Blackberry 8800 handset for over a year now, as an upgrade to the Blackberry 7100. It took a friend who used one persistently to peak my interest in getting a new one and I am glad I got one!

When taking it out of the box the first thing I really noticed was how nice and shiny it was! A notion soon to be erased as soon as I touched it, it seems to attract fingerprints more than American airport security! But aside from that the box contents are pretty Spartan, it has a charger, which can be 2 pin or 3 (UK standard and US I presume) which can be handy, it has a pair of hands free stereo headphones included and a leather case. The leather case is nice, with a strong plastic clip to holster it to your belt and a magnetic clasp to stop the Blackberry from slipping out. It also included a software disc with Blackberry desktop manager and a 128mb MicroSD card.

The instant I first switched on the Blackberry I was pleasantly surprised with its initial boot up time, having used Blackberry ' s previous models the boot up used to be painfully slow with a waiting time of up to 15 minutes, this was up and roaring to go in under 3 minutes! After restoring all of my contents it was ready! It took a little while to get use to the keyboard but once that little bridge was crossed I was well on my way.

The screen is nice and bright; its 320 x 240 pixel screen can pretty much display anything and with 65k colour to work with the pictures look nice as well. The interface is fast, running with 16mb of Ram and 64MB of inbuilt memory it can move pretty quickly. On a note with the memory, not ALL of the 64MB is available; some is reserved for system files, OS, etc 'So if you want to use it as an MP3 player or as a storage medium for those big hefty spreadsheets, it couldn ' t hurt to use the supplied MicroSD card.

The file management in terms of audio and visual is very simple with a windows style folder system, and the contact book is simple also. A handy feature of this handset is you can type a letter on the home screen and it will bring up your contacts which begin with that letter. Also a nice little sight is the inclusion of your mobile number on the call management screen.

Now the lacking of a camera 'not really an issue for myself, I am old fashioned, I use my iPod for my music, my camera for photographs, and my phone for communication, one has to bare in mind that Blackberry for a long time have concentrated on making business handsets, many business ' s especially with data protection laws running wild, do not like handsets with camera ' s on, hence why Blackberry make handsets without it. But with this security in mind, the user will notice that the Bluetooth options are severely limited, largely due to the same reasons as the camera, sharing of information. But a really neat aspect of a Blackberry is the security, they are very tough to get into and if a person has locked it, you are not going to unlock it without the password. You can set the amounts of attempts it allows before it locks out completely. I ' ve never tried this because I ' ve been told it completely deletes everything and locks the handset!

It is also a very tough little handset! I wouldn ' t recommend dropping any handset but I have dropped this baby several times and it still keeps going!

I wont touch too much into the emailing side as Blackberry have built their name on emailing and we all know about that, but I will say emailing on a blackberry is a joy, its simple, fast and effective. If you need to keep in contact with the world at all times, a Blackberry is THE way to do it.

The 8xxx range made a daring move for Blackberry here, the moved into the multimedia market, they included a very basic audio/visual player, and it does what it says on the tin really. But I wouldn ' t swap your iPod for it.

One of my favourite things is surprisingly not on the handset, it ' s the Blackberry Desktop Manager, it has a Backup button, which quickly backs up your phones entire contents and restores them in minutes, VERY useful if you upgrade Blackberry ' s as you can restore all of your old info on your new model!

All in all, If you want a multimedia handset which you can live on, this is not the handset for you, I recommend this handset if you want a reliable, tough and fast phone. I like it, and I hope you will too!

I used an xda before this 8800 and there is no comparison for business use.... the blackberry is glitch free and simple

It will be wonderful to have biggest ( ~ 8 gb) memory that blackberry have now and WIFI is fantastic communication on hand set+++ long battery life

The Blackberry 8800 is a very good handset, easy to set up and use. The unit is heavy compared to other units but the build quality is superb. The one letter per key is perfect and although it looks crowded on the keys it actually isn't.

The Blackberry 8800 is brilliant. It does what it says on the can. Bluetooth connectivity and signal reception is brilliant. Email manipulation is easy and quick using the full qwerty keyboard and funky trackball which soon becomes second nature to use. I love this phone. The GPS is a gimmick but heck it works and I have resorted to it several times so maybe it is me that is out of sorts with the use! This feature worked in USA, France and UK but watch out for data usage as it seems to consume some data. The voice activation is neat and a good show off feature, but the best is the RIM Blackberry service where emails are "pushed" with entire confidence where ever you are. If you need a great corporate email phone look no further this is the one. PC sync is first rate and easy and it can with the optional SD micro card be used as a mass storage object. Neat! This is what the Pearl should have been but isn't. If you want a phone type Blackberry then this is the one to go for.

Pretty good equipment, making the Blackberry 8800 worth the extra money, full qwerty board .. reasonably good I would say. Better than handsets with inbuilt qwerty boards like P910i from SE.