New features

An old joke illustrates the approach RIM and AT&T/Cingular took with some of the features on the BlackBerry 8800. A man sitting at a bar was gorging himself with free popcorn. He turns to the bartender and says, "It's a good thing you sell beer. This popcorn is making me thirsty."

Similarly, like RIM's 8700-series devices, the 8800 includes built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities, but the only way you can use them is to pay AT&T Inc. extra. The carrier charges US$5.99 per month for a GPS-based navigation service that provides routing for as many as 10 trips and $9.99 for an unlimited number of trips. Push to talk? Same deal. That capability is built into the BlackBerry 8800, but it will cost you between $10 and $20 a month, depending on the service plan.

It's nice that RIM built GPS and push-to-talk capabilities into the phone, but it's also irritating that users must pay for them when buying the phone even if they don't want to use them. Cingular/AT&T is charging $299 (after a rebate) for the BlackBerry 8800 with a two-year contract, while it is offering the Windows Mobile Samsung BlackJack and RIM's BlackBerry Pearl for $100 less with a two-year contract. Neither of those other phones supports push to talk or GPS.

While this is a business-focused device and RIM's e-mail capabilities remain at its heart, RIM made a passing nod at keeping mobile business users entertained. To that end, it includes a video and audio player. You copy music (MP3, AAC and WMA are supported) and videos (MP4 and WMV) to the device using Windows Explorer or RIM's Media Manager, which is part of its included desktop software.