BlackBerrys Again Get Sleeker but Can't Challenge iPhone

From left, the BlackBerry Storm, Pearl and Bold, from Research in Motion. (By Frank Franklin Ii -- Associated Press)

The Bold, with RIM's traditional combination of miniature keyboard and trackball, requires no retraining for BlackBerry vets, and a review unit seemed free of the Storm's other teething problems.

It also, unlike the Storm, can log on to WiFi networks in addition to AT&T's 3G service. And it includes the same USB port as other BlackBerrys, not the Storm's shrunken connector, so you can easily borrow somebody else's charger or sync cable.

But the Bold's browser was inexplicably and irritatingly slow to display pages compared with the Storm (or an iPhone 3G on the same AT&T signal). Its e-mail setup was less obvious than the Storm's. Its battery expired after 4 1/2 hours of talk time, compared with the six delivered by the Storm -- the best time I've seen from any 3G (third generation of mobile networking technology) smartphone.

Home users face an additional problem with either new BlackBerry: RIM's clumsy, dimwitted synchronization software.

On a Windows Vista laptop, the BlackBerry Desktop program required confirming every change to the phone's calendar, contacts and memo pad. It bundled an ugly, awkward Roxio media-management program, plus a separate iTunes music-sync tool that didn't work until I downloaded an update hidden on RIM's site.

On a MacBook laptop, the PocketMac program didn't even see either phone until I visited a separate site to grab a newer driver file.

RIM's developers need to get back to work on the Bold's browser and the Storm's onscreen keyboard. But they might help their customers even more if they did something about this embarrassingly inept desktop software first.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at robp@washpost.com. Read more at http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward.