One knock on BlackBerry devices from the likes of competitors such as Microsoft and Palm has always been that BlackBerries are short on horsepower. When you compare the processor and memory of a Blackberry to a similarly priced Windows Mobile or Palm device, it is really hard to argue that point. This was the case until the Intel powered Blackberry 8700 line was introduced last week.

The new BlackBerry 8700c from Cingular is powered by the 312 MHz Intel PXA901 processor which is to say the least, significantly faster than processors found in older model BlackBerry devices. So much faster that RIM doesn’t even bother to mention the processor speeds of devices other than the BlackBerry 8700c on their website. Lets just say that the difference is profound.

So, the question that has to be asked is, “What can you do with all that new horsepower?” Existing apps should run at least as fast as they currently do, but for the most part, were developed for slower hardware. Will we start to see developers create new applications with the faster Intel processor in mind? It will be interesting to see where mobile applications go in the coming months.