The Pre, on the other hand, allows you to move events across calendars, and it can accept calendar invites and handle reminders from Exchange and Google.

Galen: Reading e-mail is a comparable experience on both devices, though the iPhone's larger screen, its ability to view messages in landscape mode (where the text is bigger), and controls over the inbox’s text size reduced the strain on my middle-age eyes. With the Pre, I need reading glasses.

I also liked the iPhone’s ability to select multiple messages for quick deletion, which the Pre doesn’t do. But I got frustrated that I had no way to search e-mails on the Pre, something very useful that the iPhone 3.0 OS update adds to the iPhone.

Brandon: It’s true that bulk deletion is not currently possible on the Pre. But for individual message deletion, the Pre has the iPhone beat: A single push of the screen is all it takes. On the iPhone, swiping in the right place to get the Delete button -- without opening the message instead -- is tricky.

Both the Pre and the iPhone let you view common attachment formats such as Word, Excel, and PDF. But neither can handle zipped attachments. I give Pre a nod for letting you save attachments for use with other apps, which the iPhone still can’t do.

On the Pre, adding a person from a phone call, SMS, IM, or e-mail is a simple click operation. With the iPhone, it’s a single tap, so that’s a draw. And both devices show multiple calendars, while distinguishing each; both also preserve calendar names from Exchange, iCal, and so on.

As for integrating conversations with the same person across IM and SMS in a single view, only the Pre can do that.

Galen: In the address book, the iPhone lets you jump easily to contacts by tapping a letter, such as T to navigate to people whose last names begin with T. Or you can search for someone in the Search field by tapping part of the name.

Brandon: The Pre has a similar function, using its universal “type for what you want” approach: Type a T to get to the T’s. And you can type more of the name to narrow your search, just as the iPhone can in its search window. So there’s one way to navigate the address book, not two.

The winner: The iPhone, by a nose. Overall, the iPhone -- thanks to the iPhone 3.0 OS upgrade -- is more suitable for business communications, but the Pre comes in a close second. Most people would be satisfied with the Pre, and those who communicate through multiple channels will prefer it.