Four Slick Smartphones

The Blackberry 8830 World Edition from Research in Motion has a solid, strong metallic look and feel with all of the traditional Blackberry functionality. The screen is a 320 x 240 landscape TFT color display that supports over 65,000 colors. Video and images are bright and of surprisingly high quality.

The Palm Centro is smaller than its older brother, the Treo, but carries the core Treo functionality that its fans have come to love. Even though it's a smaller device than the others examined by the Test Center, it has a nice feel , fit and finish to it. With the Palm OS and network functionality, it's a device VARs may want to consider for the Palm aficionados in their customer line card.

The Samsung BlackJack II is built with a burgundy color, a metallic finish and push-button QWERTY keyboard -- but VARs may want to focus more on its network-friendliness and tight integration with Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Office Mobile software. Running on the AT&T Wireless network, the Test Center had it on a three-hour phone call and, afterward, not a single battery bar had dropped off. We loved it.

The Samsung Ace runs on the Sprint network, and its battery life was tested to be substantially lower than the BlackJack II. But, like the BlackJack II, it integrates nicely with Microsoft's mobile architecture and via USB connection provides "Internet Sharing" with laptops. For VARs with customers who do not have access to AT&T Wireless or Verizon networks, it's a viable option for solutions that require handheld access to the corporate network.