With the 3G iPhone coming to Rogers on July 11th and the BlackBerry Bold hopefully launching sometime before or shortly after that date, the timing on this one seems a little bit strange. Rogers has their reasons though, and is launching (has launched?!) the BlackBerry 8820. We mentioned it's availability last week (on the 18th), but the 8820 still hasn't popped up on the Rogers website (the 18th was likely the day it became available for dealers to order), so when we received more details today we figured it was worth a post.
The BlackBerry 8820 will be the first BlackBerry in Canada to offer both GPS and WiFi. The best news here is that the Rogers BlackBerry 8820 WILL support the Rogers Home Calling Zone UMA service. Right now the Pearl 8120 is the only BlackBerry to support HCZ. Having a full qwerty BlackBerry option will fill the existing gap nicely as the the Bold won't support UMA (although I'd rather see Rogers launch the 8320 in that role!). The device is pricey. On a promo we're talking $349 on a 3 year contract. Makes me wonder what price pont the Bold will be introduced at.
We also received word today that the Rogers Blackberry Pearl 8100 will now be FREE assuming customers sign up with any 3 year Voice and Data plan totaling $45 or greater per month (excludes Rogers Vision, Mobile Internet Plans, and also excludes $15 Personal Unlimited email plan). More info after the jump!
Introducing the BlackBerry® 8820 – The First Black Berry in Canada with Wi-Fi And GPS
The BlackBerry 8820 has all the great features of the BlackBerry 8800 with the addition of Wi-Fi and Home Calling Zone capabilities
Top 10 BlackBerry 8820 features:
- Supports Rogers Home Calling Zone
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g
- Built-in GPS
- View and edit Microsoft Word and Powerpoint attachments
- Ultra high resolution screen and automatic backlight adjustment
- Enhanced background noise, wind and echo cancellation
- Full QWERTY keypad
- Multiple email account integration, calendar and contacts pushed to your device in real-time
- Media player with expandable memory (up to 8GB)
- Quad Band World Phone (850/900/1800/1900
Target Market:
- Primary
- Road warriors who use email/Internet at least 50% of the time on their BlackBerry
- Executives
- Customers who are looking for value and access to supplement their wireless connectivity needs
- Secondary
- Consumers who are heavy voice, text and IM users
- Early adopters
- Rogers Home Calling Zone customers who would like to have a data capable device
Excludes Rogers Vision, Mobile Internet Plans and the $15 Personal Unlimited email plan.
Remember, all WAP Browsing, SMS, and MMS is still chargeable to your data plan or pay-per-use charges may apply even when connected to a Wi-Fi network
- While connected over the WiFi network:
- You can make and receive phone calls (UMA)
- Your messages (WAP, SMS, MMS) are delivered automatically
- Your email account mailboxes are automatically updated whenever you send, delete, file or read messages
- You can browse the Internet
- The following items will be charged while using a WiFi connection:
- SMS
- MMS
- WAP Browsing (Note: Access to Do More and Roger Zone is zero-rated including application downloads - e.g., Rogers Music Store, Telenav, Yahoo Go!, Ask Me Now, Conference Anywhere, Nuance Voice Control, and Sales Now)
- Rogers Music Store data usage is Zero Rated
- Download content and applications while using the WAP Browser from Mobile WAP Sites
- The following items will not be charged while using a WiFi Connection and subscribing to a BlackBerry Data Plan:
- BIS - Email and Internet Browsing (HTML)
- BES - Email, Internet Browsing (HTML), calendar, contacts, GAL lookup)
- BlackBerry Messenger (download and usage)
- Yahoo Messenger (download and usage)
- Google Talk (download and usage)
- Facebook for BlackBerry (download and usage)
- Telenav (usage - note: this is a mobile app, so highly unlikely customers would be using over WiFi)
- Rogers Newsclip
- Yahoo Go!
- Ask Me Now
- Conference Anywhere
- Nuance Voice Control
- Sales Now
- PIN to PIN messaging
- Google Maps (usage)
- BlackBerry Maps
- BlackBerry Help
