In the old days, it used to be that BlackBerry devices were bulky and not so good looking, and known to be for the "techies" (when they were mostly like pagers or large devices that took real technical expertise to setup). Then they became the smartphone of choice for the busy executives, and then with the introduction of the 7100 series, and the fact that they started to look more like phones rather than a piece of machinery, they appealed to broader audiences who are more "design" conscious. Finally with the Pearl, they really won the hearts of new market segments. Finally the 8800 recently, brought to the business world some of the cool enhancements that the Pearl introduced. And now with the 8300, the multi-media capabilities are taken a step further, and combined with a QWERTY keyboard that makes this small and light smartphone a serious contender to the business/social smartphone category I defined earlier (see the BlackBerry 8800 day #9 summary for more information about the categories), which was previously occupied by the Windows Mobile lineup, ranging from the Motorola Q, to the T-Mobile Dash, and recently the Samsung BlackJack.
And now, there is a BLackBerry for everyone
For the socially-active minimalist: The BLackBerry Pearl
For the strictly-business user: The BlackBerry 8800
For the business-minded socially-active multi-media-addict: The BlackBerry 8300
For more details, visit the BlackBerry 8300 press release.