Building on the success of its BlackBerry Pearl 8100 handset, RIM is now selling a similarly styled full QWERTY device called the 8800. Like the Pearl before it, the 8800 has a consumer friendly look to it and features a trackball for navigation. The Pearl did much to move RIM into the realm of consumer devices, can the 8800 make even more headway for the company? Our review 8800 is decked out for T-Mobile USA and supports the company's My Faves calling plan features.

When it comes to physical design, you can think of the BlackBerry 8800 as being a Pearl (8100) that has been stretched wider, given a full QWERTY keyboard, and had its camera removed. The design elements used in the 8800 are borrowed directly from the Pearl: from the piano black cover material to the graphite metallic sides, the 8800 looks just like a wide Pearl. One difference that is worth mentioning is that I find the 8800 to be more solidly built than the Pearl. The 8800 feels like a device that will stand up to hard use

The 8800 measures 114mm x 66mm x 15mm (4.5" x 2.6" x .6") in size, which is 7mm longer and 16mm wider than the Pearl 8100. At 134g (4.7oz), though, it is 43g (1.5oz) heavier than the Pearl. The end result is a device that is a bit less pocketable, but one that can support a QWERTY keyboard and larger, higher resolution display. In fact, I was quite pleased with the display on the 8800. It offers QVGA (320x240) pixel resolution in a landscape orientation and has good color saturation and brightness, even outdoors. The automatic brightness adjustment mode keeps the display readable while conserving battery power. The display measures about 2.4" across the diagonal, which is reasonable for a device of this size.

With the exception of a somewhat stiff space bar, the 8800 has a pretty nice full QWERTY keyboard. Upon initially seeing that the period (full stop) key required an ALT shift to access, I was surprised. But RIM thought through this more than I had initially given it credit for: entering two spaces in a row will automatically covert the first space to a period, making the period key needed only for email addresses and the occasional number. That's a real time saver. Capital letters can be entered using the traditional shift keys, but are more conveniently entered by long pressing the key. Can't be bothered with apostrophes? The 8800's AutoText function can automatically change words like "dont" and "cant" to "don't" and "can't". Words like "I'll" and "ill" still confuse it, though, so the occasional manually entered apostrophe is still in order. RIM has obviously put a lot of thought into making the 8800 fast in the hands of an experienced user, and the results speak for themselves.

Navigation on the 8800 is handled by the trackball. The trackball makes navigating large menus or emails a snap, and also obviates the need for a separate scroll-wheel. Pressing the trackball will act the same way as the center button would on a typical d-pad. The trackball feels a bit stiff to me when pressing on it, more so than did the Pearl or the new Curve 8300. Regardless, it still works very well.

The rest of the controls and features are found on the sides and back of the 8800. The volume buttons are on the right edge, the headphone jack and mini-USB power port are on the left, as is the voice dial button (which can be reconfigured). A power button and a triple-function mute/music player/standby mode button are found on top. The microSD memory card slot is found under the rear cover, but unimpeded by the battery, so a restart is not necessary when swapping cards. Lastly, the 8800 ships with a leather case for your belt. A magnet in the case automatically puts the phone in standby mode when inserted, and wakes it when removed.

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