You've seen them now for several years. They come out at board meetings, at restaurants, and on commuter trains. They're those people huddled over their pagers with their thumbs moving frantically. They are addicted to their pagers and the services they provide. Paging, wireless email, contact functions; all in their hands with a multi-function flywheel and qwerty keyboard. The loyalty and devotion that this BlackBerry device has inspired is almost cult-like in its users. The original RIM (Research in Motion) 850 and 950 with their BlackBerry email package were two of the first interactive pagers in a small, convenient form but were never really a threat to the Palm at the PDA level. Until now. With the release of RIM's 957 BlackBerry, everything changes. The playing field begins to level as this model prepares to invade Palm turf with a vengeance.

	The 950 and the 957

The first thing you notice about the 957 is that it is sleek, well-styled, and surprisingly light, with a weight of 5oz which is around that of a Palm V. Bear in mind, however, that this INCLUDES the built-in modem!! The dimensions are also similar to a V with the 957 being a little thicker depth-wise. Again, for those with hanging jaws, this INCLUDES the built-in modem!!! The unit comes with its own cradle/charger that connects via a serial port (sorry, no USB yet). The manual is concise and well-written although the unit is so intuitive out of the box, you may not need the manual at all. The unit is controlled (all with one hand, if need be!!) by the flywheel on the side that lets you scroll from app to app or up and down within an app. The keyboard makes thumbtyping a pleasure (look, ma!! no @!$%^* Graffiti!!!). The unit is surprisingly tough, having survived my attempted mangling of it on a number of occasions. The screen is a readable razor-shop black and white that unlike a Palm is tough to scratch. It comes with the usual PDA accoutrements including alarm, datebook, addressbook, to-do list, and calendar. The unit is powered by an internal Li-ion battery. I would tell you how long it lasts except that I charged it (through the docking cradle) 10 days ago and it's still going strong.

The 957 I tested was supplied by GoAmerica which includes its fine Go.Web browser. The service in general was quite good. This is probably the best handheld browser that I've seen. It is surprisingly fast with good content to choose from. Not enough content or too much from GoAmerica? You also have the ability to customize your browser as well as adding your own personal links. You can disable images for a faster browsing experience. This is not web-clipping by any means and the only sites the browser can't handle are those that are frame dependent. With POP3 access you can check any of your other POP3 accounts via Go Web.

What really lets the BlackBerry outshine the Palm are several common sense approaches that RIM took in making their units. First, the unit can be "always on" that is, always connected to the net so that you can be alerted for email and pages anytime. Alerts can chime and/or vibrate. Pages? Yes, pages. Blackberry offers a number of paging options that include personal 800 numbers with voice mails as well as number and text messaging capability via a modem and TAP protocol. Now why OmniSky or Palm.net can't do this is beyond me. As mentioned, I've been using this unit full bore as an email unit, pager, fax (yes you can send basic fax messages using Jfax) and the unit is still going. Part of its longevity is that screen will go into standby mode when placed in its holster, conserving battery life and coming back when removed from the holster or when a message arrives.

After several days of use, I admit it , I'm hooked, bad. I've been using this almost exclusively with my Palm reserved for tasks it can't do. And yes, I did write the draft of this story on the BlackBerry. And it no doubt it saved my sanity while taking my six-year-old to Pokemon 2000. Something very comforting getting Yankee surge and Met choke results via Fox or ESPN while Peekachu seizes on screen.

Peeves? The backlighting is subpar and could use a custom function to adjust the time it stays on. Despite GoAmerica's fine Go.Web and service, the price for the unit is still somewhat high ($399+) as is the monthly service ($54.99). If I ruled? I'd dramatically slash unit and monthly service prices with discounts for professional (AKA MD's) to drive up Palm's agitta threshold. But in the meantime, I'd rate the BlackBerry and GoAmerica far ahead of any wireless handheld solution because of its ergonomics and versatility. If the RIM and outside developers get serious with real apps, Palm could have a serious problem, real soon. In the meantime, those of who remember Cheech and Chong, feel free to join in:

"BlackBerry jones, I got a BlackBerry jones, oh baby ooh eee oooh........."