I admit that I have been very critical of Verizon for releasing BlackBerry devices a year, in many cases, after they first appear on the GSM carriers, especially after Mike Lazaridis boasted about how quickly they can port the BlackBerry over to platforms other than GSM.

I, however, have to give credit where credit is due. Set to launch May 14th, it is only taking Verizon about 3 months to release the BlackBerry 8830, a variant of the BlackBerry 8800 which first debuted back in February on Cingular and just a few weeks after the 8800 appeared on T-Mobile. To top it all off, Verizon is offering the BlackBerry 8830 $100 to $150 cheaper than the other carriers.

Not bad at all Verizon…

Verizon BlackBerry 8830