Sprint has launched the first push-to-talk BlackBerry in the form of the BlackBerry Curve 8350i, sporting iDEN technology on Nextel Direct Connect. Adding push to talk capability is especially appealing to some enterprise and small business customers who rely on the feature to utiize phones as two-way radios to coordinate teams around a job site and in time-critical operations.  The Sprint BlackBerry Curve 8350i is available today from business sales or Sprint’s sales line, priced from $149.99 with a new two-year agreement and after an $80 instant credit and $100 mail-in rebate (bah). Meanwhile the smartphone will be finding its way into Sprint stores come January 11th.
The BlackBerry Curve 8350i is the first push-to-talk BlackBerry smartphone to offer:
- Built-in Wi-Fi® support, allowing customers to browse the Internet and download email attachments quickly and easily wherever they have Wi-Fi access, and they can also send and receive emails or browse the Internet while talking on the phone.
- Group Connect, enabling customers to instantly set up group conversations with up to 20 participants.
Additionally, the BlackBerry Curve 8350i smartphone supports:
- Integrated business solutions, including a large selection of GPS-enabled solutions and access to thousands of other third-party mobile applications for jobs such as dispatch operations and fleet and workforce management.
- International Direct Connect, which enables instant connections between the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru.
- Talkgroup, which connects groups of up to 200 people at once within the same local market and in the same fleet.
Other key features include:
- BlackBerry Device Software v4.6 for a simple and easy user experience with an updated interface, new shortcuts, an enhanced HTML web browser, support for free/busy calendar lookups and more.
- BlackBerry “push” email for easy and efficient delivery of corporate and personal email.
- Robust messaging capabilities with support for popular instant messaging, multimedia messaging (MMS: 32.69, -0.89, -2.65%) and text messaging services.
- Integrated GPS for step-by-step directions, navigation and local search as well as support for other location-based applications and services.
- Advanced media player for listening to music, watching videos and viewing pictures.
- 2 megapixel digital camera with digital zoom, flash and video recording(i).
- DataViz(R: 32.69, -0.89, -2.65%) Documents To Go(R: 32.69, -0.89, -2.65%) preinstalled for editing Microsoft(R: 32.69, -0.89, -2.65%) Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the smartphone.
- Speakerphone that provides exceptional sound quality.
- Expandable memory of up to 16GB through its microSD/SDHC memory card slot, providing plenty of storage for pictures, videos, music and documents.
- Bluetooth(R: 32.69, -0.89, -2.65%) 2.0 support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals.
- Support for thousands of applications, including business, lifestyle and entertainment titles.
- Stereo headset jack for calls, push-to-talk conversations, music and other audio.
- Removable/rechargeable 1400 mAH battery.
