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Sprint has just become the fourth North American mobile operator to offer Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry 8830 World Edition: The RIM handheld has been available from Verizon Wireless in the U.S. since April and in Canada through Bell Mobility and Telus.

This BlackBerry is special because it allows customers of the four CDMA carriers listed above to use their device outside of the U.S.—through the inclusion of a second cellular-wireless radio; this one based on the GSM technology used by the majority of mobile operators worldwide.

Other than a change in hue—from gray/silver for Verizon to all black—the Sprint version of the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition should be the exact same device.

At $199 (after a $100 rebate), Sprint is selling it for $100 less than Verizon originally did. Verizon has since lowered what it is asking for for the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition to stay in line with Sprint's asking price.

The BlackBerry 8830 is a QWERTY thumb-keyboard-based smartphone from Research In Motion that allows

BlackBerry 8830 World Edition features include:

A QWERTY thumb-keyboard

GPS for location-based applications and services

miroSD slot with support for up to 2GB expansion cards

EV-DO 3G on a CDMA Network, along with GSM/GPRS

Auto-selection of CDMA/GSM Mode

A BlackBerry Pearl-like Trackball navigation system

Media player for audio, videos and images

Speaker phone

Bluetooth

Voice activated dialing

Instant Messaging