Blackberry 8800 Released on Cingular and Rogers Networks Exclusively
Posted on 25 February 2007 by admin
Cingular Wireless is now offering a model that Research in Motion announced only last week, the BlackBerry 8800.
This has a full QWERTY keyboard and is large enough to qualify as a cellular-wireless handheld, but it will include many of the new multimedia features that debuted on RIM’s latest smartphone, the BlackBerry Pearl.
To add extra storage for music and video files, the 8800 will include a miniSD card slot.
Other cutting-edge features in this model include an integrated GPS receiver, a trackball, and Bluetooth 2.0. It is a quad-band GSM phone with support for GPRS and EDGE. However, it does not support Cingular’s HSDPA (3G) service. Business users should be happy to learn that this device does not have a built-in camera.
Pricing and Availability
The base price for the BlackBerry 8800 is $500, but that drops down to $350 with a two-year contract, and Cingular is offering a $50 mail-in rebate. To order this device now, visit the Cingular Wireless web site.
Rogers has plans to release the 8800 in March 2007 and will retail for $449.00 with the purchase of a 3-year contract.
The new BlackBerry 8800 from Rogers Wireless will offer:
- An incredibly intuitive user interface with an easy-to-use trackball, dedicated ‘menu’ and ‘escape’ keys, and context-sensitive menus that make navigation feel instinctive and fast
– Fast performance, operating on Rogers Wireless’ GSM/GPRS/EDGE network, allowing customers to use the quad-band BlackBerry 8800 while traveling overseas in over 180 countries(i)
– Intuitive call management features such as smart dialing, conference calling, speed dialing, and call forwarding
– Premium phone features with noise cancellation for enhanced audio performance, Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), dedicated ’send’, ‘end’, and ‘mute’ keys, low-distortion speakerphone, and Bluetooth® support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits and Bluetooth peripherals
– Rogers Wireless dedicated BlackBerry technical support in French and English at no additional charge
– Support for popular Instant Messaging (IM) applications such as Yahoo!® Messenger and Google Talk
– Support for polyphonic, MP3 and MIDI ring tunes
– An ultra-bright, high resolution (320 x 240) landscape colour display – images appear vivid and crisp
– An innovative light-sensing technology that automatically optimizes the screen, trackball and keyboard lighting for indoor, outdoor and dark environments
– High performance HTML browser for visiting favourite web sites while on the go
– Multimedia player with stereo headset jack for MP3 and AAC music files, as well as MPEG4 and H.263 video formats
– 64MB built-in flash memory, expandable through microSD expansion slot
– An ultra-thin high-capacity battery
– BlackBerry® Internet Service support – allows access to up to 10 supported personal and corporate email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts
– BlackBerry® Enterprise Server support – integrates with Microsoft® Exchange, IBM Lotus® Domino® and Novell GroupWise® environments and features a new set of IT policy controls for managing the BlackBerry 8800’s features and usage.
