RIM's Sweet New BlackBerry

The latest device works quickly and easily, has excellent display, and is loaded with useful apps. All in all, it's the best yet from this outfit

by Arik Hesseldahl

Editor's Rating:

The Good: Bright screen, fast e-mail, much-improved Web browsing experience

The Bad: Keyboard takes some time and patience to adapt to

The Bottom Line: Thumbs up. The best BlackBerry yet

Reader Reviews

My BlackBerry is very often the first thing I read in the morning before the newspapers. I check it before I go to bed each night. I check it on the subway on my way to work. I carry it with me to lunch in case I get an important message while I'm standing in line waiting for a sandwich.

It carries my daily schedule, plus a list of everyone I know and correspond with on a regular basis and their addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.

I receive news headlines included with my e-mail. I often correspond with editors and make changes to stories on my BlackBerry. From remote locations, I've even been known to tap out entire stories using the BlackBerry's tiny keyboard.

FORGET THE OLD.

My personal BlackBerry is a relatively dated 7230, which first hit the U.S. market during the summer of 2003. It's great for e-mail and for the standard PDA-like applications. I've even installed an instant-messenger client on it, so I can chat in more or less real time with friends from wherever I happen to be. But using the Web in any meaningful way is so unruly as to be a nonstarter.

But so much has transpired in the BlackBerry universe in the years since the launch of the 7230. Wireless networks handle the data more speedily, and the capabilities of the devices themselves have improved substantially. As a result, your average BlackBerry user can get a great deal more done while sitting at the breakfast table or from the back of a taxicab than ever before.

The latest BlackBerry from Research In Motion (RIMM) is the 8700, and I've been testing it now for the better part of two months. It's the subject of the first in a series of BusinessWeek Online reviews of high-end handheld-communications devices -- and I have to say it made my older model look downright antique in comparison.

KEYBOARD CHANGES.

This was clear to me upon my first glance at its display screen, which in the back of a darkened taxi automatically lit up brightly. I didn't have to touch a button, thanks to a sensor that detects ambient light and adjusts screen brightness accordingly. Icons, text, and pictures look great on the screen, which boasts a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels, and a display supporting 65,000 colors.

The 8700c is the model available from Cingular Wireless for $300 with a wireless-service plan. Deutsche Telekom's (DK) T-Mobile unit in Britain just launched its own version, the 8700g. Rogers Wireless in Canada carries the 8700r, and France's Orange has the 8700f.

Unlike another popular BlackBerry variant, the 7100 series, which combines two characters on a single key to make the device narrower across, the 8700 sticks with the traditional Qwerty keyboard, with 10 keys across. However, even at 2.6 inches wide, it's narrower than my 7230 by about a third of an inch. That may sound like a minor difference, but if your hands have become accustomed to the feel of the older device like mine, you're in for a bit of an adjustment.

THUMB FATIGUE.

The main difference has to do with the shape of and space between the keys. The 8700's keys are flatter, and shaped like a parallelogram, vs. the more oval-shaped and less-crowded keys on the 7230. The end result in my case: My thumbs wore out more easily. Hitting each key accurately required typing at a sharper, more awkward angle than with the 7230. Ultimately, I typed more accurately, but since I needed to exert more effort, I ended up composing shorter messages.

Enough on the physical attributes. This puppy is fast. The Cingular Wireless EDGE network -- EDGE stands for enhanced data rates for GSM Evolution -- has made the BlackBerry a speed demon when downloading e-mail messages, and even doing simple Google (GOOG) searches from its HTML-based Web browser.

I especially loved the ability to open e-mail attachments, including Microsoft Office (MSFT) documents, right on the screen.