The PC World Test Center is currently tesing this smart phone's battery life. We'll update the review and assign an overall PCW Rating for the Bold when testing is complete.)

The most stylish BlackBerry yet, the Bold comes with a removable black leatherette cover that gives the phone a classy, sophisticated look and makes the handset comfortable to hold. (You can personalize the back cover with an optional blue, brown, green, gray, or red back.) At 4.5 inches by 2.6 inches by 0.55 inch, the Bold has roughly the same dimensions as its predecessor, the BlackBerry Curve 8300; it also has curved corners and a glossy face. The phone weighs 4.8 ounces, making it heavier than the the BlackBerry Curve 8320 (which weighs about 4 ounces) but equal in weight to Apple's iPhone 3G.

The Bold lacks the iPhone's touch screen, though that feature will appear on RIM's forthcoming BlackBerry Storm. But the Bold does have a terrific keyboard and the various corporate e-mail and infrastructure-friendly characteristics that the BlackBerry platform is known for.

Unfortunately, the Bold's call quality disappointed me. For some reason, while calls to landline phones sounded clear, calls to other cell phones (on various carriers) consistently suffered from background hiss. And though voices had ample volume, they sounded somewhat tinny. Meanwhile, the people I called on the Bold reported hearing a lot of background noise, as well as some distortion in my voice; one of my contacts said that I sounded robotic.

Though it takes a lot for a handset's QWERTY keyboard to impress me, the Bold succeeded. For this model, RIM revamped its keyboard with sculpted keys designed to minimize finger slippage. Thin metal dividers akin to a guitar frets separate the keys and enhance the keyboard's usability. The result is a roomy, ergonomic typing area that makes texting and e-mailing a breeze.