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RIM BlackBerry 8800

A little tweak here and there makes a world of difference

While it has more of business head, the 8800 is still capable of a little fun now and then. Although you won't find a camera there's a built in media player, which supports MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV tracks and on the video front it'll stretch to MPEG 4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.263 and WMV. The screen's not bad for viewing video on - though given its size you'll probably want to stick to short clips rather than full length movies.

RIM BlackBerry 8800

The built in speaker is relatively decent - although push it too loud and it starts to distort. Dare by the Gorillaz proved too much for it at full blast but was reasonable at lower volumes. For personal audio you have to use the included stereo hands free kit - the connector on the side is too small to take a standard headphone plug. The audio quality through the hands free is passable, but like the internal speaker will distort if you push it too loud.

The internal memory only stretches to 64MB, so you'll want to make use of the MicroSD slot for additional storage if you're planning on taking full advantage of the media playback facilities. To swap cards you need to remove the back of the unit and grapple with a cradle (similar to a hinged metal SIM card holder seen on some phones) that keeps it locked in place, which doesn't make for quick switching.

The 8800 is a quad-band handset, with support for the usual 850/900/1800/1900MHz frequencies and can handle GSM, GPRS and EDGE networks. You can hook it up to your PC via the mini USB port (which also usefully doubles as a charger) or if wireless is your thing there's support for Bluetooth 2.0.

Next page: Verdict

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