Geek With Laptop

The BlackBerry 8820 is RIM’s first foray into integrated Wi-Fi (802.11 a,b,g) and sometimes it even works.

The 8820 is nearly identical in every way to the well-received 8800: same form factor, same 4.8-ounce weight, same OS, same trackball navigation system.

The only real difference is the iPhone-like addition of a Wi-Fi radio, which offers a vast improvement in speed when browsing the web or checking e-mail over the EDGE alternative.

Alas, the Wi-Fi implementation here isn’t nearly as seamless as Apple’s.

The 8820 sometimes manages the handoff between the two networks fairly well, but in my tests it often had trouble dropping the 802.11 signal and reconnecting to the Wi-Fi network.

At the end of the day, the 8820 is no iPhone killer, but it doesn’t do a bad job giving Apple’s iPhone a pretty good shiner.