Hardware Review: BlackBerry 8830 World Edition

I decided to finally upgrade to my first BlackBerry a couple weeks ago and just with my little experience I’ve had with it so far, I can say that I’ll never go back to any other smartphone. What an amazing little device this is turning out to be.

I’m still continuing my seemingly lifelong commitment to Sprint, almost 5 years later and I’m still under some sort of contract with them. Just for the record, I joined Sprint when they were all the rage, perhaps when the whole AT&T craze blows over they will come back into style, although I somehow doubt it. Nonetheless, Sprint has lowered the cost of their BlackBerry data plans significantly since the last time I looked into getting one which just gave me one more reason to join the Blackberry crowd.

From a productivity standpoint the BlackBerry 8830 is unmatched. I’ve had a number of Smartphone’s in the past and all of them had their own killer apps, however the BlackBerry platform definitely earns its praise as the best all-around business & email OS. I’m almost kicking myself for not switching sooner, almost.

The BlackBerry is supposed to be all about email and the 8830 doesn’t disappoint. I guess this could be said with all BlackBerry phones but the email management on this thing is simply amazing. My work email is all IMAP which means complete synchronization between platforms, and the ability to easily add other popular email services such as Gmail and Yahoo is great. I’ve also had a chance to play with Google’s GTalk for BlackBerry along with their other applications but I’m saving all of that for another entry.

The only problem with the BlackBerry interface is certain parts look a little unfinished, I’ve noticed that some of the fonts used don’t flow well with the design on a couple screens and the menus for the various settings were initially a little difficult to navigate. Also, I’m not impressed with the contact manager and the way it lists the information, the entries are small and jumbled looking as if I’m using a 90’s era Nokia. At the same time the Address Book integrates with the Maps application which is really cool. Overall, in comparison to Windows Mobile BlackBerry has done an excellent job paying attention to features but Microsoft has a more polished look in some areas.

On top of the BlackBerry OS the 8830 sports a full QWERTY keyboard, high-resolution light sensing screen, speakerphone, GPS, Bluetooth, miniSD, and because it’s the World Edition it has Dual-band GSM/GPRS capabilities for traveling overseas, otherwise because I’m with Sprint it uses the CDMA/High-Speed Ev-DO network (look at that! I have a 3G phone and I didn’t have to wait in line for a week.) The phone also has voice activated dialing powered by VoiceSignal, a decent media player, GPS enabled BlackBerry Maps, and all of the standard organizer features you would expect. The phone does lack a camera and Wi-Fi but I still think it’s a solid deal for the price.

When it comes to the hardware the only real gripe I have is the location of the miniSD slot which is behind the battery cover. The casing of the phone isn’t necessarily cheap but it is thin plastic and I’m afraid that one of these times I’ll end up breaking the cover when I’m trying to get the miniSD card out. The device also has a trackball just below the screen which takes a little getting used to, especially for a person like myself that’s accustomed to the typical jog wheel on the side.

The Bottom Line – Research in Motion’s BlackBerry 8830 World Edition is a solid phone that without a doubt is going to remain popular with small business and corporate users. The selling point with this device is obliviously the international roaming capabilities but the 8830 also boasts solid performance, decent multimedia features, and a ton of great features that you won’t find with other Smartphone’s.