Message in Your Pocket

Pocket Wonder

The RIM 850 Wireless Handheld is a black plastic device that's just a tad bigger than a typical pager. Occupying practically the entire upper half of the unit is a six-line LCD screen, below which is one of the neatest and most usable keyboards designed for a handheld device--despite its compact size.

The device's design is particularly conducive to one-handed navigation, thanks to the knurled trackwheel located conveniently to the right of the display. The trackwheel makes simple work of maneuvering through the RIM's text and menu options. With one hand, you can easily check, search, or read messages; compose new messages from the address book or an address you enter; consult your calendar or to-do list; or set an alarm.

You can easily read incoming messages on the RIM's black-on-green monochrome screen. However, when you're using the navigation cursor block, determining which of the menu icons you've highlighted and chosen can take some effort.

Writing a message on the RIM 850 is straightforward, but you'd best type carefully, since no spell checker is available. The RIM 850 does have an autotext feature, though, which allows the device to consult a customizable list of common typing errors and automatically correct them. That feature can also be programmed to help speed up your typing by automatically inserting text in place of your personal shorthand. Hit the "Send Message" option, and your message is shipped off to your Internet service provider, where the message is sent as though you'd written it at your desk.

When you receive mail, the RIM 850 alerts you with a silent vibration, a tone of your choice, or the two in combination. Thanks to the unit's continual polling for new e-mail, messages under 2KB are delivered in full to the device as soon as they're received; a copy of each message is also left on the e-mail server, so you can download them later to your desktop, if you choose. The unit has 2MB of flash memory in which to store messages.

If an incoming message is longer than 2KB, though, then only the first 2KB is delivered to your RIM 850. The remainder of the message is stored on the ELink server, and is accessible on demand (you can view a message only in blocks of 2KB apiece, however). You can receive attachments, which you can then forward to someone else; however, you can't view attachments on the RIM 850.

The RIM 850 comes with a serial port cradle that supports standard or rechargeable AA batteries. (Unfortunately, a Universal Serial Bus cradle is not yet available.) The cradle lets you synchronize the RIM 850's built-in address book and calendar with popular desktop applications, using Puma Technology's Intellisync application. When you aren't consulting the RIM 850, the device rests in an included, well-designed plastic belt holster. Or, you can clip the unit onto a pocket inside a briefcase or handbag.