Sprint's BlackBerry 8830 sees our Editors' Choice BlackBerry for Verizon and raises Big Red two better, adding a range of useful apps and freeing the SIM card slot for lower phone rates overseas. This extremely capable smartphone is easy to use, stable, and a great choice for folks who want to get work done at large.

To recap from my earlier review, in case you missed it, I found the 8830 to be a wide, flat (4.5 by 2.6 by 0.6 inches, weighing 4.6 ounces) device, with sculpted keys that aren't quite as comfortable as the widely separated keys on older BlackBerrys, but still definitely good enough to use. The handheld has a beautiful, sharp 320- by 240-pixel screen that adapts admirably to ambient light, thanks to its built-in ambient light sensor.

Calls sound terrific on this phone. Volume from both the earpiece and the speakerphone is loud, and voices sound deep and clear, without distortion. I connected both the Plantronics Voyager 510 and the Pulsar 590 Bluetooth headsets to the phone, and you can use a wired headset through the standard 2.5mm headset jack. Voice dialing is easy with the built-in VoiceSignal suite, and talk time is excellent, at over five and a half hours.

The 8830 also features music and video players, comes with new desktop software to help you reformat music and video for the device, and works as a modem for your laptop. All of these options operate the same way on this Sprint model as they do on the Verizon handset. (Take a look at my review of the Verizon version for more details.)

So what's new? Well, two things—SIM and software. Like Verizon's version of the 8830, the phone works in more than 100 countries (including all of Europe) by combining CDMA and GSM calling capabilities. If you want, you can keep your phone number and pay the usual painful voice roaming rates of 59 cents per minute in Canada, $1.29 per minute in most European countries, or $2.49 per minute in many more exotic locales. I took my Sprint 8830 to rural eastern Nova Scotia, and it roamed without a problem.

Unlike with Verizon's phone, though, you can remove the 8830's SIM card and pop in a local, prepaid SIM card from a foreign provider or from a store such as Telestial to lower your calling rates dramatically when abroad. (This will not work in the U.S.—only overseas, where the 900-MHz and 1,800-MHz bands are used.) You'll lose your BlackBerry e-mail service, which is tied to your Sprint account. (The phone is unlocked for data usage, but configuring data on a foreign prepaid SIM card is a total nightmare.) But you'll get a local phone number in your destination country, free incoming calls, and per-minute rates as low as 5 cents per minute for calls.

The trade-off here is that with freedom comes a bit of responsibility. Sprint doesn't have the huge network of global free support phone numbers Verizon includes with its BlackBerrys. Instead, you get toll-free numbers in seven areas (China, France, Germany, Mexico, Italy, the UK, and the Caribbean); free global support calls from your Sprint phone if it works; and a 24x7, but non-free support number based in the US. That's a good set of options, just not quite as simple as Verizon's.

Even if you never plan on leaving North America, the Sprint 8830 has another critically important advantage. The phone has not one, but two available GPS programs for driving directions. BlackBerry Maps is a free but basic GPS program. Though it gets locations and gives directions on the screen, there's no traffic information or spoken prompts. But that's better than no GPS at all, which is what Verizon gives you. The system got me out of trouble twice during my trip to Nova Scotia, as it acquired satellites quickly and gave accurate directions. Sprint Navigation, powered by TeleNav, adds all the missing frills, including voice prompts, points of interest, and traffic data, but at a price: $2.99 per day or $9.99 per month. Both options cover the U.S. and Canada.

Also for free, you get Handmark's On Demand information app for quick access to weather, stock information, news and such, and a free AIM instant-message client. Verizon offers neither of these.

In Sprint's lineup, the BlackBerry 8830 aligns itself against the Windows Mobile-powered Sprint Mogul PPC-6800 and the Palm Treo 755p. If you're planning on traveling to Europe for business, of course, the 8830 stands alone, since it's the only decent option for Sprint. Within the U.S., the decision's a little tougher. I suggest you pick a device based on your primary applications. Purely for phone, e-mail, and Web browsing use, the BlackBerry reigns supreme. Its elegance, ease of use, stability, and speed are what earn it our Editors' Choice. If you need to edit Microsoft Office documents or want smooth integration with Windows Media Player for your music and videos, pick the Mogul instead. If you're in an office based on Good Mobile Messaging or are very comfortable with the Palm platform, I say try the Treo 755p.

Benchmark Test Results
Continuous talk time: 5 hours 38 minutes
Jbenchmark 1: 1737
Jbenchmark 2: 85

Compare the BlackBerry 8830 for Sprint with several other mobile phones side by side.