BlackBerry 8800

This is my third Blackberry, and of all of them, this is my favorite. It has:

1. The bright, big screen gives you a wonderful space for viewing all of the functions. It certainly makes it easier to view webpages if you have the Blackberry internet package. The screen is in bold, beautiful color with customizable themes that give you the option of icons or lists - whichever is more comfortable for your use.

2. This phone has a QWERTY keyboard, which makes texting a whole lot easier. Capitalizing a letter is easy too - just hold the key for a couple of seconds. I also love the space button.

3. Changes in the user buttons are easy to get used to. Instead of a trackwheel and "back" button on the side, the new trackball and "back" buttos are located on the front along with the answer, menu and end buttons. The only buttons on the side of the phone are the Push To Talk button on the left and the volume keys on the right. The Power and Mute buttons are still located on the top.

4. EDGE technology allows you to access the internet quickly. Pages pull up faster than ever. What it doesn't have - 3G, but in most places, that doesn't really matter because 3G speed is not available everywhere anyway.

5. The 8800 has a large selection of tunes, alarms, notifiers and other sounds to choose from. You also have the option of using music tones, voice tones and answer tones just like any other phone.

6. Customization for callers. You can customize rings and add pictures for different users. I like that because it allows me to identify who's calling without having to look at the phone.

7. Media player - Blackberry has added a media player to the 8800 series. It sounds great. Syncing it with your computer and adding music via the desktop manager is easy to do. I recommend that you have an SD media card. You can add music, videos, ringtones and pictures.

8. The Blackberry 8800 is a beautiful phone. Its beauty isn't just skin deep. It is a truly functional Blackberry, with the usual Blackberry functions. Syncing it with your computer to keep up with calendar notations, tasks and your address book is as easy as pie.

9. Great battery strength. I had it on all day and talked quite a bit, and the battery was still good to go for much longer.

10. It is bluetooth capable with the ability to be paired with more than one device at a time (pairing is easy as well).

11. The speakerphone is loud and very clear. The volume of the phone's ringing is also loud. With some other phones, I had to set it to high to hear them in certain situations. I have this one set to medium and am considering setting to low when I'm in the office.

12. GPS option - if you want to pay the additional price for this service, it is a great tool. I saw it in action at the store when I bought it, and it's cool.

What does it not have? It doesn't have a camera, or the ability to do videos, but if that is not an important consideration, this is the perfect Blackberry. It has the perfect combination of business and play.