It's a great time to be a BlackBerry user.
Standard-issue "crackberries" with thumb-style keyboards below screens are now coexisting with hot design variants, including a flip-style BlackBerry and a BlackBerry that - gasp! - replaces the physical keyboard with a touch version.
But is a BlackBerry the best you can do?
I kept asking myself this as I tested the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 flip phone from T-Mobile along with the BlackBerry Storm (this is the famed new touch-screen variation) from Verizon. In a world where most cell phones are still hideously designed and inexcusably hard to use, these are a cut above.
The problem is, Apple's iPhone has me spoiled rotten.
This handset has no equal, despite aggressive competition from BlackBerry designer Research In Motion along with Google, which is behind a promising new Android operating system for phones. (The first Android-based handset, the T-Mobile G1, was released recently; here's my review.)
The iPhone has the best touch screen, the best Web browsing, the best e-mail implementation and so on, along with the most and best add-on apps from third parties.
It is simply a joy to use.
It's the only smartphone powerful and graceful enough to serve as my mobile stand-in for my computer without making me feel frantic (even with AT&T data service that isn't as fast, reliable and pervasive as I'd like).
The Storm, though quite a feat of engineering, does not quite measure up.
That touch screen is a pain, for starters. You have to press down on it - the whole screen is basically one big physical button - to activate any on-screen controls. Shockingly, these can only be highlighted, not activated, via light iPhone-style taps. You have to push down.
(Apple has taken a similar approach with the trackpads found on its newest MacBook laptops. These pads lack an adjoining button since they are a big button - Just press down. Unlike the Storm, however, you do have the option of tapping instead of pressing, or even doing either as the mood strikes you. And the MacBook trackpads have all kinds of awesome multifinger gestures the Storm lacks.)
I gather RIM wanted to emulate the feel of a physical keyboard, but this gimmick doesn't seem to increase typing accuracy, and it wears thin after a while.
Little about this handset has the fluidity of the iPhone. One glaring omission - the lack of Wi-Fi for use with wireless networks - makes it a nonstarter for many would-be buyers even with Verizon's reliable, pervasive and very fast data network.
While I've enjoyed testing a Storm, recurring hiccups have made me want to lob it against a wall at times.
As a Google addict, I like that I can install Gmail- and Google Calendar-related apps on the Storm (I had no luck getting these onto the flip BlackBerry).
But Google also has apps for the iPhone along with Web versions of its marquee services for the iPhone's Safari browser. This makes the iPhone the superior Google phone (it's better than the G1, in fact). There's a handy voice-searching feature from Google that works only on the iPhone, for instance.
Now, your phone purchase will be influenced by other key factors.
What does your workplace support? A BlackBerry makes sense in some offices, an iPhone with Microsoft Exchange support in others (at my office, both are supported). What carrier do you prefer? Verizon has the most extensive (and arguably best) high-speed data network. What phone style suits you? If a physical keyboard is a must (and the iPhone's on-screen keyboard gives me fits at times), the BlackBerry Bold from AT&T may be right for you.
But all other things being equal, I can't recommend a BlackBerry over the iPhone. The latter is just too much fun to use given its killer blend of phone, iPod and mobile-computer features (some of which saw recent upgrades).
The Storm, though competent for the Web and multimedia, is more messaging-centric in the BlackBerry tradition. It's a great business device, but the iPhone is the better do-it-all handset.
Update: My fave local Verizon operative e-mailed after reading this post and suggested three handsets - here, here and here - as potential Storm alternatives with Wi-Fi.
Update: David Pogue apparently isn't fond of the Storm.
Update: AT&T finally dropped off a BlackBerry Bold, and it's a beauty.
I like it much more than the flip and touch-screen BlackBerrys because it has a fabulous, full QWERTY keyboard. (The flip BlackBerry has a more-cramped numerical keyboard with a predictive-text feature I despise, and don't get me started on touch-screen keyboards again).
While I still prefer the iPhone overall, thrashing away on work e-mail using the Bold's physical keyboard rocks. If I had to buy a BlackBerry, this would be the one.
Getting the Bold to cooperate with my workplace's e-mail infrastructure took a bit of doing, however. The so-called "enterprise activation" with a BlackBerry is a pain compared to getting an iPhone going with my office's e-mail system -- Plug in a couple of settings, and you're done.
