After its successful foray into the consumer market with the , Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) set out to give the 8800 a bit more swagger than previous business-oriented BlackBerries. As is typically the case with RIM, everything it did on the 8800, it did very well. But many users will miss some of the features that RIM chose not to support, most notably 3G and Wi-Fi.

Bottom line: We liked the a lot. Depending on your needs, however, you may not be as enthusiastic.

New look and feel

The first thing you're likely to notice about the BlackBerry 8800 is that it looks and feels less like older BlackBerry models and more like the current crop of best-selling smart phones, such as the Motorola Q and . It's still a hair bigger than those competitors (although smaller than Palm Treos), but gone are the rounded edges, larger size and thickness of the older BlackBerries.

Longtime BlackBerry users will also immediately notice the omission of the thumbwheel on the right side of the device, a feature that has long been used and was much beloved by somel. Instead of the thumbwheel, there is now a tiny trackball-like navigation device on the front, just below the display.