Click to View

As rumored, Cingular Wireless today introduced the BlackBerry 8700c, Research In Motion's (RIM) first handheld to support high-speed EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) wireless networking. Cingular owns the largest EDGE network in the United States—capable of exchanging data at average speeds of 135 kilobits per second (kbps), about three times as fast as conventional wired dial-up connections.

RIM says the BlackBerry 8700c is a completely re-engineered device. At 4.3 x 2.7 x 0.77 inches (110 x 69.5 x 19.5 millimeters) and 4.7 ounces (134 grams), it is slimmer, more compact and lighter than earlier BlackBerry models.

The handheld runs on 64 MB of flash memory, 16 MB of RAM and an a 312 MHz PXA9xx XScale processor, the result of a previously announced deal between RIM and Intel. (At the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) 2005 trade show in San Francisco last month, the companies said RIM would turn to Intel microprocessors for its next generation of BlackBerry handhelds. The 8700c is the first of these devices.)

Additional hardware includes RIM's signature 35-key QWERTY thumb-keyboard plus a QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) resolution display that supports over 65,000 colors. RIM says the BlackBerry 8700c incorporates intelligent light sensing technology that automatically adjusts both the LCD and keyboard lighting to provide an optimized view in outdoor, indoor and dark environments.

Call management features for the quad-band GSM/GPRS (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) handset include “send,” “end” and “mute” keys plus a speakerphone, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dialing and call forwarding. There's Bluetooth for connecting to wireless headsets.

Software
With the BlackBerry 8700c, Cingular customers get to choose from two browsers: the BlackBerry Browser for HTML Internet browsing and a browser optimized for Cingular's popular MEdia Net wireless Internet access service. As a RIM smartphone, you also get a standard array of organizer and messaging applications as well with the BlackBerry 8700c.

For corporate users - as with past RIM handhelds - there's BlackBerry Enterprise Server to integrate with Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise. It also works with existing enterprise systems to enable secure, push-based, wireless access to e-mail and other corporate data. Enterprise customers can also use BlackBerry MDS for secure, wireless access to other back-office applications.

For individuals and smaller businesses, BlackBerry Internet Service supports up to 10 corporate and personal e-mail accounts from a single device. These include Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and most popular ISP email accounts.

Users can read and edit attachments on the BlackBerry 8700c as well.

Cingular plans to ship the BlackBerry 8700c on November 21 for about $300 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate. BlackBerry monthly data plans - with a qualified voice plan - are $35 for 4 MB of data, $45 for unlimited domestic data service and $65 for unlimited domestic and international data usage.