The ever-evolving Canadian smartphones market got a shot in the arm this week as Rogers Wireless and Research In Motion (RIM) introduced the new BlackBerry (News - Alert) 8800—a rich-in-features, powerful smartphone that attracts even the casual onlookers with its slim and stylish design.

 

Rogers Wireless has been dealing in advanced BlackBerry handsets for a while now and BlackBerry 8800 is the latest addition to its product range.

 

The quad-band BlackBerry 8800 operates on Rogers’ high-speed EDGE network and it is the thinnest BlackBerry handset in the world. It has advanced features like a full QWERTY keyboard, built-in GPS (Global Positioning System), a media player, and a microSD expandable memory slot to store music and videos.

 

The smartphone also features RIM’s new trackball navigation system for quick and easy navigation. Not to miss out on other popular blackberry features, BlackBerry 8800 has support for email, phone, text and instant messaging, multimedia, web browser, organizer and corporate data applications.

 

John Boynton, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer of Rogers Wireless feels that the new BlackBerry 8800, customers can get ahead of the competition and save time by having access to the latest in mobile innovation and email connectivity.

 

The phone features an advanced GPS system which supports location-based services applications. Among these, BlackBerry Maps provides the on-screen driving directions to track the route via the GPS. To allow users to generate a map from an address in their BlackBerry Address Book and let them send the same via email, the GPS in BlackBerry 8800 integrates the device with other BlackBerry applications. This way, users can create a map from the address in their BlackBerry Address and they will also be able to send maps via email.

 

Rogers user a TeleNav GPS Navigator using which customers can receive turn-by-turn voice and on-screen driving directions on the BlackBerry from their device. The turn-by-turn voice and onscreen driving directions in the TeleNav GPS Navigator are displayed with 3D full-color moving maps.

 

The Bizfinder feature in the BlackBerry 8800 provides useful information so that users can look up, for example, gas stations with the cheapest prices. Other features include context-sensitive menu, quad-band BlackBerry, intuitive call management features, noise cancellation, speaker independent voice recognition, dedicated 'send', 'end', and 'mute' keys, low-distortion speakerphone, and Bluetooth support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits and Bluetooth peripherals. All of these features make BlackBerry 8800 a truly unique product.

 

In addition to this, users get Rogers Wireless dedicated BlackBerry technical support in French and English at no additional charge.

 

Other usual features to note are support for popular instant messaging (IM) applications, support for polyphonic, MP3 and MIDI ring tunes, high resolution (320 x 240) landscape color display, high performance HTML browser, innovative light-sensing technology, trackball and keyboard lighting for indoor, outdoor and dark environments, multimedia player with stereo headset jack for MP3 and AAC music files, BlackBerry Internet Service support and BlackBerry Enterprise Server support.

 

Rogers Wireless will market the BlackBerry 8800 exclusively in Canada and the device will be available in retail and business channels in March.