The BlackBerry operating system gets a makeover as well. Now in version 4.6, the interface looks cleaner and more attractive than it did in previous iterations. The home screen features background wallpaper, and a customizable application-shortcut view, also known as the Ribbon. Pushing the dedicated menu key takes you to the main application screen, which is populated with spruced-up new app icons. Sometimes it's a bit hard to tell what a particular icon symbolizes; many of them look pretty similar. But when you roll over an icon with the Bold's handy trackball, a label appears in a text line beneath, clearly identifying the icon's function.

The phone supports 3G, tri-band HSDPA and quad-band EDGE data connectivity. Accessed over AT&T's 3G network, Web pages loaded quickly on the Bold's browser. NBC.com's home page loaded in 21 seconds, as did PCWorld.com; and Amazon.com loaded in 31 seconds. Wi-Fi performance impressed, too, with NBC.com loading in 18 seconds, PCWorld.com loading in 14 seconds, and Amazon.com loading in 21 seconds.

The phone's display wowed me: Images and video looked spectacular on the Bold's 480-by-320-pixel VGA display (with support for over 65,000 colors). That's twice the resolution of the BlackBerry Curve, and it matches the iPhone's resolution (though not its screen size). Video playback looked great, and ran smoothly with little pixelation or blurring.

Unlike the T-Mobile G1 and the iPhone 3G--which display large album art and are highly visual--the Bold incorporates a fairly plain native music app that leaves much to be desired. You can view your library by song, artist, or genre. During playback, a miniature album thumbnail appears. The app also has playlist and shuffle features and a headphone equalizer.

The Bold comes with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack (the T-Mobile G1 does not), which boosts its potential as a media player.

The 2.0-megapixel camera includes some advanced features, including a flash and 5X digital zoom. But in my hands-on tests, the flash was blindingly bright, causing indoor pictures to look grainy and overexposed. For such an expensive smart phone, the Bold seems weak on megapixels (3.0 would have been a more suitable number) and extras (such as white-balance controls and a self-timer, both absent here).

The BlackBerry comes preloaded with applications such as Facebook for BlackBerry (the most popular BlackBerry app) and Mobi4Biz (a subscription-based on-demand video service), as well as a few games. RIM's BlackBerry Storefront, due to launch in March 2009, will provide a centralized online market for BlackBerry apps, to compete with Apple's iPhone 3G App Store and the T-Mobile G1's Android Market.