Blackberry 8820 goes seamlessly from Wi-Fi to EDGE

The Blackberry 8820 is the first mobile and Wi-Fi Blackberry phone and was announced today by RIM and AT&T and slated for a September 20th reelase date. The combination of connections means that Blackberry users can use their Blackberry via Wi-Fi at work to increase coverage and at home. For an additional charge any of AT&T’s 10,000 US hotspots can be used for cheaper calls on the move. All of this happening seamlessly and without the user having to select the appropriate connection method.

Unfortunately the 8820 is an EDGE device not 3G and HSDPA is not included so expect poor data speeds. In compensation it does have GPS radio with TeleNav, AT&T’s Push-to-talk service, Bluetooth 2.0 and , of course the usual plethora of media software and a microSD memory slot for audio, photo and video storage. In addition it boasts AT&T’s Mobile Music service which delivers music downloads from eMusic and XM Satellite Radio service.

The following features which Blackberry users take for granted have thankfully been retained:

• Full QWERTY keypad
• Trackball navigation
• 320 by 240 display
• The standard suite of Blackberry messaging and browser applications.

The Blackberry 8820 will be available for $300 with a two-year contract.

Tags: AT&T, blackberry, blackberry-8820, mobile_music_service, mobile_phone_technology, mobile_web, RIM, smart_phone,