Verizon Blackberry 8830 CDMA/GSM world phone

Posted April 25, 2007 at 07:40 PM by Adam Berger

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Computers

Today, Verizon Wireless and Research In Motion officially announced the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, a dual-mode CDMA/GSM smartphone. Like the Samsung SCH-i830, the 8830 comes with a SIM card, and automatically switches between CDMA and GSM networks offering voice coverage in 157 countries (22 are CDMA) and e-mail coverage in 62 countries. And don’t worry, when on CDMA you will be running ad EVDO speeds.

The 8830 comes in silver, and includes a media player, speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, conference calling, 64MB internal memory, a microSD expansion slot, Bluetooth with tethered or wireless dial-up networking abilities (though Verizon will probably disable it) and BlackBerry push e-mail solution with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise. The battery life is rated at 3.6 hours talk time and up to 9 days of standby.

The BlackBerry 8830 will be available through Verizon starting May 14 through direct sales channels and in retail stores starting May 28. Pricing starts at $299.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate, and data plans start at $64.99 for unlimited global e-mail with a U.S. voice plan (beginning at $39.99) and $69.99 for unlimited global e-mail without a voice plan.

Update: Changed “i730” to “i830” as the model of Samsung’s CDMA/GSM phone.

Read [Crave]