Essentially, yes. They were augmented to have specific characterists, like better strength, sharper eyes and such. They were apparently vat-grown or something so that they didn't take a full 20 years to reach maturity. Their brains were somehow "imprinted" with memories simulating a childhood they never had actually lived.
It's a really good movie on lots of levels, consider renting it next time your at Blockbuster.
I agree...I've seen it a few times. There is mention in the movie of Tyrell, "designing their minds", but I assume it was in the nature of improving what was there via "neural improvements" and memory implants. [I wonder how valid this concept of memory implantation is, however, after reading an article that postulated the brain's memory works on "holographic" principles (pieces of each memory are distrubuted), rather than on highly locallized collections of "data bits" you have in a computer memory.]
Even though they appeared to be cobbled together like Frankensteins (given the "cottage biotech industries" shown, like the eye-maker), I agree that being basically human, they deserve the full range of human rights.