Up until now, globe-trotting Verizon Wireless customers may have felt a bit stymied by the limited world-roaming capabilities of the CDMA network. Sure, you can use CDMA in other countries but if your itinerary includes Europe, you're out of luck. But with the new RIM BlackBerry 8830 all of that changes as the dual-mode CDMA/GSM smart phone gives you freedom to make calls and receive e-mail around of the world. In addition, it offers EV-DO support, multimedia capabilities, and solid performance.

The RIM BlackBerry 8830 shares the same body style as its GSM-only cousin, the BlackBerry 8800. The wider and taller body makes it a tad awkward to use the 8830 as a phone, but this is typical of full-QWERTY BlackBerrys as well as Pocket PC phones and Treos.

The BlackBerry 8830 features a 2.5-inch (diagonal), 65,000-color display with a 320x240 pixel resolution. Below the display you'll find the trackball navigator, the Talk and End keys, and the Menu and Escape buttons. The 8830 also includes a light-sensing technology that automatically adjusts the backlighting of the screen, the keyboard, and the trackball, depending on whether you're indoors or outdoors.

The big draw of the RIM BlackBerry 8830 is its dual-mode functionality. With this capability, the phone switches automatically between CDMA and GSM networks to offer seamless international roaming--all while keeping the same phone number. (Note that the phone does not support domestic GSM bands.) In all, you get voice coverage in 157 countries (22 of those on CDMA) and e-mail coverage in 62 countries.