In the world of mobile email, it's hard to compete with RIM and the plethora of BlackBerry devices it has to offer. With BlackBerry's latest smartphone for T-Mobile, the Curve 8320, the companies hope to capitalize by taking advantage of RIM's infrastructure, T-Mobile's wireless calling plans, and the undeniable benefit of adding a little WiFi into the mix. Does the device live up to the hype? Did RIM make a mistake when it outfitted the Curve with a small processor and WiFi? Continue reading on to find out.

Perhaps the biggest gem to come out RIM's Wireless Enterprise Symposium held earlier this month in Orlando, Senior Vice President David Yach let it slip that the company's first WiFi-capable handsets will launch in the second half of 2007. While pointing out that most of its rivals are owning RIM in the WiFi category, he said that the integration isn't great and RIM had been holding off on adding the feature until they could get it to the point that it would "just work." He goes on to say that WiFi will be used as an alternative when cell coverage isn't available -- and that carrier cooperation has been necessary -- suggesting that VoIP will be a focus. Frankly, RIM, as long as you hold out on delivering 3G to your throngs of AT&T and T-Mobile customers, we'll take all the WiFi we can get.

A feature notoriously missing from RIM's range, WiFi is one add-on we can pretty much all agree would make the average BlackBerry user's life noticeably better. We'd heard rumblings ahead of the 8800's release that Canada's newest handset would sport some manner of 802.11 out of the box, but alas -- the release came and went with no 2.4GHz (or 5GHz, for that matter) goodness in sight, allegedly due to technical glitches on RIM's side that the company was unwilling to delay the initial model for. No worries, though -- well, maybe a few worries if you're AT&T and you're trying to push the 8800 out the door -- the WiFi-enabled 8820 looks pretty official now thanks to a cameo in RIM's latest BlackBerry OS offering. Other changes should be minimal from its predecessor; a camera still isn't in the cards, leaving shutterbugs who like their BlackBerry served QWERTY style up the same creek they are now. No word on a release, but rumblings have the device launching mid-year.

Ahh, so that's what the WiFi indicator on the 8800's press shot was all about, eh? We've been hearing rumblings of a WiFi-enabled version of the BlackBerry 8800 for months before the darned thing's official release, and Pinstack's fanning the flames with a new comparison chart allegedly pitting the venerable 8700 against an "8820" that sports WiFi. Not much is known about the device at this point, but given the relatively modest bump in model number, we'd expect changes to be minor beyond the addition of the WAN radio. Pinstack's liking the chances of the 8820 launching by mid-year -- and given the 8800's lack of WCDMA, we think it couldn't possibly get out the door soon enough.

One of these days we'll see a single-chip solution that implements WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and even the obligatory FM radio receiver all into once nice, tidy package. Oh wait -- that day has come. Broadcom wants to garner more business from OEM handset manufacturers apparently, as it is trying to solve the dilemma of ever-shrinking handset internal real estate by stuffing in as many RF solutions into a small, single chip as possible. With both WiFi and Bluetooth hovering in roughly the same radio frequencies, Broadcom has assured everyone that both wireless technologies won't be interfering with each other based on an on-chip algorithm to prevent such a radio fuss. And hey -- that FM radio is prime as well -- no reason to leave that off the chip, right? Broadcom's solution here features IEEE 802.11a/b/g along with Bluetooth 2.0 and full-range FM reception to boot.

We've got all sorts of incredibly tiny chips serving very unique purposes, but Kyocera has developed a 10- x 8-millimeter wireless LAN wafer that should feel right at home in those oh-so-cramped innards of certain diminutive mobiles. The FWMG0-03 module comes in at just 1.25-millimeters thick, and provides full support for 802.11b/g protocols; aside from mounting all of the circuity on a single side of the board, compactness has been aided by the low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) used, "resulting in an enhanced bending strength of 400 MPa which is approximately double that of the general LTCC." The chip draws just 0.85 milliwatts while in standby, 550 milliwatts when transmitting data, and 291 (802.11b) / 345 (802.11g) milliwatts when receiving. While we aren't sure which cellphone manufactures are vying for batches of these minuscule modules, we do know that a trio of operating voltages will be available when these start "volume production within 2006," and SDIO / SPI will be the supported interfaces.