That's right, the Berry can act as a phone as well; it just requires a landline instead of a mobile service carrier. The experience is pretty good, kids love to have their own things, and a small portable phone has a certain coolness to it. Kids will be able to talk on the phone while keeping their hands free to do homework, errr, online chat. The top piece slides off, making for a tiny tote-able phone. The dialer doesn't actually connect to the phone book, but what do you want at this price point?
The really funny thing about the Berry is the keyboard is better than the keyboard on some PDAs I've used. The Straw model has a number pad that doubles as a text entry system, similar to that of a cell phone. I found it to work as expected, a little tedious at times, but most kids have more patience than I do. The Berry comes with a small manual that gives explicit directions on how to operate each function and input data. There's a little bit of a learning curve, the interface is pretty limited.