On the flip side (ha!), the primary buttons below the screen are in two rows—Call and Hang Up above, Menu and Back below—which is easier to learn and feel than the Bold’s single row of four buttons.

The Bold, on the other hand, costs a jaw-dropping $300. It’s not svelte by any means—it’s much wider than an iPhone, for example, because of that broad thumb keyboard—but it looks like a million bucks. Like the iPhone, the front is black with a silver bezel, but the back panel is bold indeed: it’s pleather. Yes, that’s right: textured vinyl.

The Bold is a very fast little computer, responding instantly to every touch. A gigabyte of storage is built-in. The web and e-mail messages are speedy when you’re in a 3G network area. Phone calls on the Bold are unbelievably crisp and clear, and there’s enough power in the speaker to fill your office like a tabletop radio.

The Bold also has GPS with turn-by-turn directions. And like most BlackBerrys, you can charge it from any computer with any USB cable. (The Flip, alas, abandons this tradition and requires a special cable.)

You should note, however, that although the BlackBerry platform is now mature, it’s showing some cracks; with great features comes great complexity. Both phones make you look in three different places for a certain program: on the home screen, where you can park five favourite icons; in the “expanded home screen,” which lists a full panoply of icons; and in the Applications folder, which lists still more. This problem will only get worse when the online BlackBerry Applications Store—like the ones for the iPhone and Google phones—opens in March.

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