Once again, I got an email from one of my sources- the one who tipped me off to the Cingular BlackBerry 8700c launch party with Lance Armstrong at Tribute NYC tomorrow nite.

This source is a high level, technically focused decision maker in a position to receive subsidized travel to the type of technical conferences where carriers such as Cingular and companies such as BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion show their products even before your IT managers have a chance to see them.

Wana know what he wrote about the BlackBerry 8700c? Read on.
"First, it was so much faster than the older Blackberrys because of the new Intel chip," my source writes. "They (BlackBerry) confirmed 68Megs memory as well.

"Second, and maybe this is just a 4.1 enhancement but when you click TO, it'll scroll through your address book like Outlook does as you type trying to recognize who you are sending to and when you click the wheel, it'll add another TO field so you can add another address right away instead of having to click the wheel, choose To and then add the next address," my source continues. "So it's much more efficient.

"PIN to PIN messaging gets integrated into the IM client which from what they say becomes universal (supporting multiple IM vendors)," he adds. "Also Emoticons (yellow smilies)."

My source tells me that most of what I've reported so far has been true to the device. "The spy photos are accurate. its dark grey like you see with some fancier brushed aluminum around the screen," he writes It's (th 8700c) is lighter and thinner than my 6280."

My source confirms the BlackBerry 8700c's downloadable MP3 based ringtones capability.

Here's some more points:

• "Much improved theme functionality. You can download these too and it'll change the whole interfaces icons and the like. Apparently Cingular has a couple of their own built in. But they weren't as nice as RIMs. Quick tranisition between themes, no waiting.
• "EDGE was built in and content download performance was much faster.
• "Not sure if this is a 4.1 thing or an 8700 thing but you can add web apps right on your main screen. So if you subscribe to say a stock ticker website, you can have an icon on the main page to bring you right there. I think its part of the Mobile Data Access component of BES. He didnt get into it much.
• "Batteries change on the new unit to be smaller (therefore the device can be thinner). The most interesting thing here is that the battery will have encryption technology in it so you can only use a RIM approved battery instead of a third party knockoff. Apparently a warranty saving move for them not just a revenue generator.
• "Most of my conversation with them was about reconciliation and network utilization and how they differed from MS and Good so while I played with the device for a few minutes, I didn't get deep into messing around with it.  Definitely the screen is amazing, the speed of the device finally is tolerable again including web downloads. No more waiting for search or delete prior to finish. Its basically instantaneous.

"The image zoom and enhancement was cool but already available in 4 so I think the change here is with performance," my source adds. "Before there was a short wait.

"Not much else to report that is all that interesting that you havent already wrote about in one story or another," my source concludes.