But Lurie’s strongest opinions were reserved for when it came time to talk about the company’s iPhone exclusivity, which is reportedly coming to an end in the new year. “Remember the Razr five years ago? We had an exclusive, and it was a $600 device. Everyone said that Cingular was dead and we were fine.

“We have 93 million customers and they all have different devices. We have come out publicly and said we aren’t concerned about it at all. The iPhone has been a great device for a long time, and we are in a position to compete with anyone who has any device at any time.”

And the hit reporters/bloggers keep on coming at All Things Digital.

Today, we are honored to add Tricia Duryee to the staff of our site, where she will be covering commerce, online payments, gaming and more.

In other words: She’ll show us the money.

Or not, in some cases.

The broad commerce beat is important to ATD, as we focus on what we think is another key space on the Web–a topic that straddles retail, mobile, social and virtual, as companies old and new try to come up with sustainable business models online.

While Amazon and eBay, as well as new upstarts such as Groupon and Square, are the obvious candidates for Tricia’s coverage, how commerce is innovating on the Internet is a wider-ranging story we aim to cover closely.

And Tricia is just the kind of superb beat reporter we were looking for to pioneer the coverage for us.

She comes to ATD from her recent job as Editor of mocoNews.net, an online site dedicated to covering the wireless industry. MocoNews is a sister publication of paidContent.org, and both are owned by the Guardian News & Media.

Tricia joined mocoNews in February 2008 and has written about how the Apple iPhone has changed the cell phone industry, how ringtones are giving way to mobile TV and how the carriers are building out the next-generation of networks.

Prior to mocoNews, Tricia spent eight years at the Seattle Times. In her first five years, she covered venture capital and Seattle’s start-up scene.

And, in her final three years, she wrote about the regional wireless industry, which included stories such as Cingular’s $41 billion acquisition of AT&T and how T-Mobile’s Sidekick was a must-have among celebrities, including NBA All-Stars such as Ray Allen.

The Seattle native attended the University of Oregon, where she received a degree in journalism and a minor in business.

Tricia is located in Seattle still, in a 102-year-old house, with a 10-year-old dog and a more recent husband.

We’re also thrilled Tricia is reporting from there and hope she’ll give our readers a flavor of what’s going on in tech in the Pacific Northwest, which is one of the key digital hubs in the U.S.

And the hit reporters/bloggers keep on coming at All Things Digital.

Today, we are honored to add Tricia Duryee to the staff of our site, where she will be covering commerce, online payments, gaming and more.

In other words: She’ll show us the money.

Or not, in some cases.

The broad commerce beat is important to ATD, as we focus on what we think is another key space on the Web–a topic that straddles retail, mobile, social and virtual, as companies old and new try to come up with sustainable business models online.

While Amazon and eBay, as well as new upstarts such as Groupon and Square, are the obvious candidates for Tricia’s coverage, how commerce is innovating on the Internet is a wider-ranging story we aim to cover closely.

And Tricia is just the kind of superb beat reporter we were looking for to pioneer the coverage for us.

She comes to ATD from her recent job as Editor of mocoNews.net, an online site dedicated to covering the wireless industry. MocoNews is a sister publication of paidContent.org, and both are owned by the Guardian News & Media.

Tricia joined mocoNews in February 2008 and has written about how the Apple iPhone has changed the cell phone industry, how ringtones are giving way to mobile TV and how the carriers are building out the next-generation of networks.

Prior to mocoNews, Tricia spent eight years at the Seattle Times. In her first five years, she covered venture capital and Seattle’s start-up scene.

And, in her final three years, she wrote about the regional wireless industry, which included stories such as Cingular’s $41 billion acquisition of AT&T and how T-Mobile’s Sidekick was a must-have among celebrities, including NBA All-Stars such as Ray Allen.

The Seattle native attended the University of Oregon, where she received a degree in journalism and a minor in business.

Tricia is located in Seattle still, in a 102-year-old house, with a 10-year-old dog and a more recent husband.

We’re also thrilled Tricia is reporting from there and hope she’ll give our readers a flavor of what’s going on in tech in the Pacific Northwest, which is one of the key digital hubs in the U.S.

That’s the gist of an argument put forth this week by Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, who believes that with the iPhone and App Store, Apple (AAPL) has upended the wireless market in much the same way it upended the music industry with the iPod and iTunes.

“It wasn’t that long ago that AT&T’s exclusive agreement with Apple’s iconic iPhone looked like a customer relations masterstroke for the carrier,” Moffett wrote in a note to clients. “AT&T Mobility, a brand that had once been cingular-ly stodgy and tired, was suddenly, well, relevant again. Apple’s iPhone meant that AT&T was the place for cool handsets. Better, it was the place for wireless data….Somewhere along the way, however, Apple has stolen the march, and in the process has recast AT&T from hero to villain.”

AT&T, says Moffett, was roundly jeered at every mention at Apple’s last Worldwide Developer Conference. And, as someone who attended that event, I can attest that this was indeed the case. Certainly the revelation that AT&T (T) wasn’t yet supporting iPhone features like MMS and tethering did not go over well with the WWDC audience, which was already abuzz with criticisms of the carrier’s slow data connections.

With the iPhone, Apple made AT&T Mobility relevant again. It brought the company millions of new subscribers. But in the process, Apple also realigned the strategic playing field in its favor. Radically. Writes Moffett: “Remarkably, Apple has so thoroughly stolen the customer relationship–who would argue that Apple iPhone customers’ first affinity is to the device rather than to the network–that the network is not only irrelevant, it is rather a source of derision.”

As NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said back in 2007, “Apple has destroyed the music business and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side.”

Or, perhaps, to the wireless business.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about whether to buy a smart phone now or wait for the iPhone, boosting the range of a wireless connection, and removing junk programs that come with a new computer.

I am in the market for a new smart phone. Should I wait for the Apple iPhone? When will it be available and when will you review it?

Apple says the iPhone is on track to go on sale in “late June,” and I expect to be able to test it and publish a review around that time. There will also be many other reviews around then that you can consult.

I stand by my earlier advice, which is that people shopping for a smart phone, who can wait until then, and who could imagine shelling out $499–the iPhone’s base price–should wait to read the reviews of Apple’s first phone and take a look at it before making a decision. However, if you need a smart phone now, or can’t imagine spending that much, then you can ignore the hype and buy a BlackBerry, or a Treo, or another competitor.

Three other key factors could also make you reasonably ignore the iPhone. It will lack a physical keyboard, relying on virtual keys that appear on the screen, so if you prefer a real keyboard, the iPhone would be a nonstarter for you. Also, it will only work on the AT&T wireless network (formerly Cingular) in the U.S. So, if you prefer another wireless carrier, forget the iPhone. Finally, it will only operate on a relatively slow network technology, called EDGE, so if you want a smart phone that operates on the fastest cellular networks, the iPhone is the wrong choice, even though it will also include Wi-Fi wireless networking.

The wireless connection to my wife’s Windows XP computer keeps going down. The computer is about 75 feet (but through three walls) from my Dell Truemobile 2300 router. Should I assume I need a better, more powerful router? And, finally, will it also connect to my MacBook Pro laptop?

A more powerful router might help, but wireless reception varies greatly depending on home construction and layout. You might look for a new router that features a technology called MIMO, which I have found in my tests can improve both speed and range. Even with a new router, you might also have to move its location. There are also various boosters and repeaters that can be used, though some of these require more technical expertise to install than most folks have.

One good method for extending the range of a wireless connection is to buy a set of so-called powerline adapters. These carry your network signal over plain old electrical lines, and some models allow you to create a wireless network by plugging a wireless router into such an adapter in a distant room. I described these adapters in more detail in a column you can find at: ptech.allthingsd.com/20060817/powerline-adapters-access.

In my own home, I have used both MIMO routers, and powerline adapters, successfully with mixtures of Windows and Apple Macintosh computers, including the MacBook Pro, and various Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard laptops.

Can I remove the junk programs that came with my new computer–the ones you call “craplets”–by using the “Add or Remove Programs” control panel in Windows?

Yes, but that is a tedious manual process and may not get them all. Also, in Windows Vista, that control panel has been renamed and is now called “Programs and Features.”

Instead, I would suggest first downloading and running a free program specifically designed to eliminate craplets, the crippled trial programs and advertising come-ons that are now packed into so many new Windows PCs. This program is called “The PC Decrapifier” and can be found at pcdecrapifier.com. If this program misses a few of the junk items you want gone, you can then use the manual method.

* * *

Because of the volume of email I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by email, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about accessing financial sites on a nonsecure Internet connection, which cellphones with email capability to take abroad, and what to do about Web sites that don’t work well in Safari.

I am concerned about security on my laptop when traveling and using nonsecure Internet connections available at motels. Is there a way to be secure when accessing my financial Web sites while using a motel’s connection?

You can install a good firewall, and sweep your laptop with security software for spyware and other malicious software that might transmit passwords. And you can make sure you are using antiphishing software. Better yet, you could use a sort of private Internet tunnel, called a Virtual Private Network, or a remote control service, like GoToMyPC, so you are actually using your home PC — remotely — to contact the Web sites involved.

But, the bottom line is that, unless you are on a network that you can control and secure, such as a home or office network, I wouldn’t advise accessing financial accounts online, or performing financial transactions. I wouldn’t trust sensitive online transactions to any public Internet connection, such as those at motels. There are too many people, including other guests, the motel staff, and the people at the company that provides the motel’s Internet service, who could potentially be watching what you are doing.

Is there a cellular phone that can be taken abroad that has a good email capability, for a comfortable price?

That depends on what you’d consider “good” email capability, or what price would be “comfortable” for you. It also depends on what countries you’re heading for. But, in general, any BlackBerry or Treo that works with the AT&T (formerly Cingular) or T-Mobile networks here in the U.S. will work in Europe and in many other regions. And both have what I consider good email capabilities for the price, which can vary, depending on model, and be as low as $99.

In general we love our new MacBook laptop, but there is one thing we’re not sure how to work around. We find that there are some Web sites that don’t seem to work well with the built-in Safari browser, and on some sites, we are unable to play a video. Is there a solution?

Yes. For the Web pages that don’t work well with Safari, you can download and use as an alternative the Firefox browser, which comes in a Mac version that is essentially identical to its Windows version. You can get Firefox, which is free, at mozilla.com.

The videos that won’t play were likely produced in the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Media format. Microsoft offers free software that allows these videos to play on a Mac. It’s called Flip4Mac and can be downloaded at: www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx.

* * *

Because of the volume of email I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by email, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

MobiTV, from MobiTV Inc., www.mobitv.com, gives people a way to watch television on their cellphones.

For lovers of portable video, the arguments in favor of TV on phones are speed and convenience. Rather than waiting to download movies, video podcasts and TV shows to a computer and then to transfer them to a portable player like an iPod, some would rather see current, live content streamed onto the device they already carry — their cellphone — whenever they want, wherever they are.

Live TV on cellphones isn’t new. We first tested it in 2004. But it was awful then, choppy and almost unviewable, because the cellular networks were too slow and the phones were too wimpy. So I decided to try it again.

Many cellphones are capable of displaying streamed television using built-in services, but few people are aware of these capabilities and not every phone will work as well as the next. The best results are delivered on devices with good quality screens that can retrieve and display the content using high-speed networks.

I used a mobile content-streaming service called MobiTV on three phones serviced by two carriers, Sprint Nextel Corp. and AT&T Inc.’s Cingular Wireless, watching a variety of shows on screens smaller than the palm of my hand. Monthly usage for watching cellphone TV with these two carriers costs about $25 and $30, respectively, on top of your voice plan. MobiTV is compatible with more than 150 handsets, offering roughly 40 channels — about half of which show live content like that found on your home TV.

All in all, MobiTV offers a fun and simple solution for people seeking TV on the run. High-quality images appeared on screen just moments after I opened the MobiTV application and an on-screen guide labeled each channel. TLC, ESPN, The Discovery Channel, The Oxygen Network and major news channels are entertaining enough. And though my eyes hurt after 30 minutes of watching such a small screen, I only ran into a few other snafus: on-screen images disappearing while audio continued, certain channels cutting out and lips moving out of sync with audio. In more cases than not, these instances were rare or corrected themselves in seconds.

Other carriers offer video clips that might easily be confused with MobiTV Inc.’s technology. Verizon Wireless, for example, offers its V Cast service. But V Cast requires that you download clips onto your device. Sprint and Cingular also offer video-on-demand options. But the MobiTV service streams content onto your phone, showing it just about a minute later than the same content on live TV.

If you don’t use Sprint or Cingular and you’d like to download MobiTV to your standard cellphone, or to your Palm or Windows Mobile smart phone, you can do so through third-party vendors like Handango.com; these options can be found on www.mobitv.com. Vendors charge about $10 a month on top of any data charges that you might owe your carrier.

MobiTV’s service includes a channel guide.

Sprint and Cingular encourage you to buy an unlimited monthly data plan in addition to your voice plan if you’ll be watching TV on your cellphone. Sprint calls its live-TV service Sprint TV Live — though it’s really MobiTV beneath the covers — and offers TV-inclusive data plans for $15, $20 or $25. These return 8, 13 and 25 channels respectively. Sprint’s exclusive content includes the NFL network. To further confuse matters, you can also buy stand-alone Sprint TV Live on top of those three data plans; it costs about $10 monthly. Cingular charges users about $20 for its unlimited data plan plus $10 for MobiTV usage. This carrier keeps the MobiTV name.

MobiTV worked relatively the same way on all three handsets with both carriers: two Windows Mobile devices, the Sprint PPC-6700 and Cingular 8525, and a basic cellphone, Samsung Electronics Co.’s SGH-A707 with Cingular’s 3G network. In my tests, MobiTV came pre-loaded on the devices, letting me simply select it from a list to start watching streaming content.

On the Cingular 8525, a smart phone running the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, I browsed through a guide until I found The Oxygen Network. The Isaac Mizrahi Show, not a favorite of mine, was just ending. It was followed by a quirky game show called “Can You Tell?”

MobiTV streams two types of programs: Live and Made for Mobile. Live shows are like those on your regular TV though slightly delayed and with different commercials in the local ad slots. I watched MSNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Matthews” using MobiTV and my regular TV, and an interview with Mia Farrow started about a minute earlier on my TV than it did on my mobile device.

Made for Mobile channels include special MobiTV content, such as music-video channels, or content for certain channels that MobiTV stitches together to show in a better format for mobile. The latter is the case with ESPN; in 15 minutes, I watched clips about football, Nascar, baseball, boxing and basketball with only a few quick commercials. In these snippets, however, lips weren’t synched with the audio.

I often opted to view content in full-screen mode, which, in 10 seconds, alters the image to take over the whole screen in horizontal view. A few times, while watching full-screen view, my on-screen content froze and had to restart in the regular view.

MobiTV says that using its service to watch programs saps battery at a rate equal to that of voice calls.

People who use digital video recorders at home to pause or rewind live TV will be disappointed to find you can’t do that with MobiTV. The company is hoping to offer these capabilities in the future. But because of the smaller screen, you probably won’t want to watch your mobile screen for as long as you would a regular TV, reducing the need to pause and rewind.

MobiTV’s services will never replace your home-entertainment center experience. But the ability to watch TV on your phone is a great way to stay plugged into news and entertainment. Just be sure that you’re using a fast network and a generously sized screen.

– Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

AT&T Inc. introduced Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry 8800 last week as a sort of grown-up version of the BlackBerry Pearl, released in September. The Pearl marked the hippest thing to come out of RIM, a slender model that used a pearl-like white trackball for navigation instead of the classic side scroll wheel. But devoted BlackBerry users admired its style only from afar, scoffing at its squished keyboard and smaller screen.

The BlackBerry 8800, $300 with a two-year AT&T contract, uses a trackball for navigation.

The 8800, which costs $300 with a two-year AT&T contract, meshes the newer Pearl features with the traditional traits of older, if duller, BlackBerrys. These improvements are well-done overall, producing the thinnest BlackBerry with the longest-lasting battery. Email menus were comfortingly familiar, and its phone worked well. I even surprised myself by adjusting to and liking the 8800′s most glaring change: its use of a trackball instead of a side scroll wheel.

But this device’s keyboard, a highly important feature, left me frustrated no matter how many emails I typed. Unlike the Pearl’s reduced keyboard, this one is full-size, with the traditional BlackBerry layout. But its keys are packed in, side-by-side, rather than spaced out. Instead of using essentially flat keys like those on older BlackBerrys, each key on the 8800 has a slight, distinguishing ridge that I found annoyingly restrictive; my thumbs had to be in exactly the right positions to type well. Keys on the older keyboards can be tapped from any direction or angle.

The BlackBerry 8800 is striking, with a bright screen and dark-blue coloring that looks closer to black. I dropped it by accident several times, and it seemed sturdy — a good sign for a device that will be used often. Shiny silver markings accent its sides, top edge and main navigational buttons. Its shape is a neat, thin rectangle, a welcome change from the bulgingly wide older devices. Even friends who don’t use BlackBerrys commented on its attractiveness when I pulled it out.

Setting up personal email accounts to work with the 8800 was easy on www.Cingular.com/BlackBerryStart or right on the device itself: I needed only to enter my Cingular account log-in and password, along with my personal email addresses and passwords. Personal email plans, including Web browsing, start at $30 a month, not including a voice contact; similar corporate accounts start at $45 monthly.

The trackball is better for navigating than the scroll wheel for a couple of reasons. Its location beneath the screen and above the keyboard makes it more accessible than the side-hugging scroll wheel, enabling navigation within an email as you type without moving your thumbs too far. The trackball also lets you move up or down and left to right, without having to press any other buttons to do the latter. This comes in handy when composing an email: If you make a mistake, you can simply scroll back or forward in a line; older BlackBerrys required holding the Alt key while using the scroll wheel.

But it took my thumbs quite a bit of retraining to be convinced of the trackball’s benefits. I was more familiar with my BlackBerry’s scroll wheel, and at first I kept touching the top right edge of the 8800 to find this and the Back button (volume buttons are positioned there instead).

In place of the traditional Escape button, which is below the scroll wheel on older BlackBerrys, an Escape button to the right of the trackball performs the same functions. A Menu key to the left of the trackball opened detailed options. The trackball can be pressed, too, to make selections.

I read and sent many emails on my corporate and personal accounts. Incoming emails were signaled with the device’s blinking red light — some things, thankfully, never change. But I just couldn’t get used to the keyboard. RIM claims that the 8800 keyboard’s keys are slightly wider than those of its predecessor, the 8700, but each key’s shape and raised ledge made it hard to use accurately. It takes time to adjust to any mobile keyboard, but this one seemed especially difficult.

The Web browser wasn’t bad, though it’s hampered by the fact that this new BlackBerry runs on AT&T’s pokey EDGE network, which is only one-seventh as fast as the speediest networks available. I found the 8800 easy to hold against my ear for phone calls due to its narrower width and slimmer thickness.

Media can be dragged and dropped onto your BlackBerry’s 64 megabytes of built-in memory or memory card (not included) using Media Manager, a program that comes with the device’s software. If you prefer taking your memory card out to load content, you’ll have a tougher time. I had to slide off the BlackBerry’s back panel, open a small metal flap and pull the microSD from its position. I did this a few different times and had a lot of trouble getting this card back in, making me hesitant to use it often.

Loading and transferring the actual data onto the 8800 worked without a hitch. I played Norah Jones tunes loud and clear on the relatively good speaker, watched a video on the screen and passed the BlackBerry around to show friends digital photos of me trying on a bridesmaid’s dress. I zoomed in on and rotated these photos using the trackball.

I wish the BlackBerry 8800 had a built-in camera and easy-access memory-card slot, two features that digitally savvy consumers will want to use often. The hip Pearl includes a built-in camera, but its memory-card slot is buried in an even more inconvenient place: beneath the battery.

A GPS system from TeleNav Inc. comes loaded on the 8800. When it worked, I saw detailed maps of my location. But it failed twice while driving along two different highways, saying that the GPS wasn’t able to pick up a clear signal.

Overall, the BlackBerry 8800 is a handsome device that looks good and functions well, as long as you rely on it for reading more and responding less. The keyboard has a steeper learning curve than the trackball — a useful new addition that you’ll learn quickly, forgetting the scroll wheel.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.

I attended the iPhone launch event, and was able to use one for a little while. That’s too brief an encounter to allow me to write a proper review. But I can say that it has the largest and most beautiful screen I’ve ever seen on a cellphone, even though it’s incredibly thin. It felt great in my hand. It has a brilliant new user interface; the handsomest email program and Web browser I’ve ever seen on a phone; a full-blown iPod music and video player built in; and even a cool new voicemail system.

The iPhone has some potential downsides — it doesn’t use a physical keyboard, instead relying on a virtual keyboard on the screen, which may put off heavy email users. It runs on the relatively slow EDGE cellular data network, though that flaw is partly offset by the fact that it can also use speedy Wi-Fi wireless networking. And, with a $499 base price, it’s expensive.

Still, the iPhone made my relatively new Treo 700p seem primitive in many respects when I compared them side by side. And the Apple product isn’t Palm’s only problem.

Palm’s position as the design leader in smart phones has been under assault for months. Major phone makers like Motorola and Nokia have introduced models that have most of the Treo’s capabilities but are thinner, sleeker and lighter — and much less expensive.

The Treo maker is starting to respond, but haltingly. It has brought out a couple of slightly smaller new models, but they’re no match in sleekness or style for competitors like the Motorola Q. They also aren’t as cheap. They do, though, have some advantages in software and functionality that, for some users, will make them preferable.

I’ve been testing the latest skinny contender, the Samsung BlackJack, along with Palm’s newest Treo, the slimmed-down Treo 750. Both of these phones — like the Apple phone — run on the Cingular Wireless network. Both also use Microsoft‘s Windows Mobile software.

The new Treo 750 is slimmed down a bit from the familiar Treo 700 and 650 models. The 750 is also a little shorter, because it does away with the protruding antenna. In addition, it’s a hair thinner and about 16% lighter.

But next to the new Samsung BlackJack, the Treo 750 looks bulky. The BlackJack is a striking, all-black model in the slim tradition of the Motorola Q. It manages to cram a full keyboard, like the Treo’s, into a body that is much sleeker and better looking. The BlackJack is 35% lighter — and 36% smaller overall — than the Treo 750. It has a physically smaller screen, but that screen has a third better resolution than the Treo’s. (Of course, both screens look tiny and grainy compared with the display on the new Apple phone.)

Also, the BlackJack claims 38% better battery life than the Treo, and it runs on a faster data network than the Treo. (Neither phone includes Wi-Fi.) And, to top it all off, the BlackJack is half the price — $199, compared with $399 for the Treo 750.

One of the Treo’s biggest advantages has been its Palm software, which I consider to be better designed for email and phone calls than the Windows Mobile software from Microsoft. But the new 750 model can’t claim that advantage because, while it has Palm hardware, it uses the Microsoft software.

The Treo does have a small software advantage over the BlackJack. It uses a fuller version of Windows Mobile that has more features than the stripped-down version used on the BlackJack and the Motorola Q. And, because it has a touch screen, the Treo is easier to navigate than the BlackJack, which must be controlled with buttons and a scroll wheel on the side.

Also, the Treo’s control pad felt better to me than the BlackJack’s, which was cramped. I kept hitting other buttons on the BlackJack while trying to scroll or select icons.

In my tests, both the Palm and the Samsung sent and received voice calls well. Both also exhibited the clumsiness that is inherent in Windows Mobile — multiple key presses were needed to do simple tasks. Both have basic cameras with resolutions of 1.3 megapixels. (The Apple iPhone’s camera will be two megapixels.)

The BlackJack runs on Cingular’s new broadband data network, called “3G” or HSDPA, while the Treo 750 uses a slower network called UMTS. Oddly, however, in my tests, the Treo was generally as fast or even faster at retrieving Web pages than the BlackJack.

Of these two phones, I prefer the BlackJack. But if you’re in the market for a smart phone and can afford $499, you might want to wait until June for the Apple iPhone. The Apple entry is so full of promise that anyone buying a smart phone in 2007 should at least wait for the full reviews and a chance to try it out.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

But there are problems with going cord-free. In the case of cellphone wireless headsets, loud street and crowd noises make it hard to hear. And the wireless iPod headphones have been big, bulky units of unremarkable audio quality.

Now, some wireless earphones address those problems. For cellphones, a new wireless headset called Jawbone promises to filter out all that background noise. For iPods, new wireless earphones called Ety8 promise to bring small size and great sound quality to the wireless category. Both products use Bluetooth wireless technology to transmit audio from the device to the ear.

I’ve been testing these two new products and have found that each lives up to its claims. Both are advances that have real advantages over the more standard cord-free competitors. But each also has some drawbacks that might deter some folks from using them.

The wireless Jawbone is a sleek, futuristic-looking gadget made by a small San Francisco company called Aliph. It will be sold, starting Dec. 21, for $120 by Cingular Wireless. The earphone will work with any Bluetooth cellphone, not just those on Cingular’s network. Aliph will also sell the new Jawbone on its Web site, www.jawbone.com. The Cingular model will be silver colored. Aliph will offer it in red and black, too.

What makes jawbone special is its noise-cancellation feature, called Noise Shield. You can stand in front of a blaring boom box or a weed whacker with a Jawbone, and its technology, derived from military research, will almost entirely obliterate that background noise. You can also hear the other party better.

This effect is achieved through multiple small, built-in microphones, including one that rests against your cheek, detecting the vibration of your voice through the bones in your face. The gadget uses that reading to help identify and cancel all other sound that isn’t your voice.

In my tests, on a Palm Treo from Verizon and a Samsung Blackjack from Cingular, the Jawbone worked well. On a downtown street, it silenced the sound of traffic and crowd noise. In an office, it blocked out loud music only a few inches away. The noise cancellation is far better than on any other cellphone headset I’ve tried. Battery life is up to a decent six hours.

But there are two downsides to the new Jawbone. First, it can’t defeat wind. Even a mild breeze made Jawbone calls noisy. Second, it has some user-interface problems. The same button that turns the Noise Shield on and off also raises and lowers the volume, and the beeps of the two are hard to distinguish. I also found it hard to get a comfortable fit, though the unit comes with multiple behind-the-ear loops and rubber earbuds.

If you’re an iPod lover, the Ety8 wireless earphones may be just the thing to replace those trademark white earbud cords. Unlike other cordless iPod earphones, the Ety8s aren’t large, over-the-ear headphones. They’re light, in-ear earbuds. They’re made by Etymotic Research of Elk Grove Village, Ill., a high-end audio company whose wired earphones are highly praised.

The Ety8 earphones cost $300 from the company’s site, www.etymotic.com. That includes the headphones and a small adapter that plugs into the iPod to give it wireless capability. You can also use the earphones with other devices with wireless capability built in. For that, you can buy earphones without the adapter for $200.

Like some other high-end earphones, from Etymotic and from competitors like Shure, the Ety8s are meant to go deep into the ear, and come with rubber and foam tips for a snug fit.

The Ety8 also has tiny buttons on the right earpiece to wirelessly control the iPod. You can adjust the volume, play or pause music, or skip ahead or back — all without touching the iPod, which can be 20 or 30 feet away.

They work with the current full-size iPods, the previous generation of full-size iPods, and iPod Nano and Mini models. Battery life is six to nine hours. The adapter draws power from the iPod’s battery, so it will also reduce the battery life of the iPod itself.

In my tests, the Ety8 earphones worked great, both on a new full-size iPod and on an older iPod Mini. They produced excellent sound and were comfortable to wear, once I got used to a cloth-wrapped cord that connects the two earpieces and is meant to be draped behind your neck.

The big downside of the Ety8 is this: They are ugly. They are relatively large, black rectangles that look like matchbooks pasted onto your ears. If you can get over that, the Ety8 wireless earphones for the iPod are great.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

It depends. If you need a relatively low-capacity player that stores music in flash memory, like the iPod Nano and Shuffle, you might look at SanDisk’s Sansa line, or at the iRiver players. If you want a high-capacity player like the full-sized iPod, which stores music on a hard disk, you could consider the new Microsoft Zune, or the hard-disk players from Creative. But all of these players offer a less satisfactory experience than the iPod does with buying and/or synchronizing music.

Also, only iPods can directly play the songs you have purchased from iTunes. So, even if you can get these purchased song files onto your new player, they won’t work. To overcome this obstacle, you will have to go through a tedious process. You must first burn, or record, each purchased iTunes song to a CD. Then you’ll have to re-import, or “rip” the songs from the CD back to your hard disk, as MP3 files. Finally, you will have to manually re-enter all the information — song title, artist name, album, and so forth — for every song.

I know the new Cingular Treo 680 works on a much slower network than the Verizon and Sprint Treo 700 models. But is it slower or faster than the older Treo 650 from Cingular? Will Cingular get the 700?

Both the 650 and the 680 use the same network technology, called EDGE, which is much, much slower than the network technology that is used by the Treo 700 on Verizon and Sprint. Neither the 650 nor the 680 can take advantage of Cingular’s new, faster network technology, which is called HSDPA, nor can they be updated after sale to do so.

I can’t say for sure what other Treo models Cingular will choose to carry, but the current 700 versions are incompatible with Cingular. The only other new Treo that is compatible with Cingular is a model called the 750, now sold in Europe only, and due in the U.S. late in 2007. In its European configuration, the 750 runs on faster network technology than EDGE, but cannot handle Cingular’s fastest network.

I have an internal DVD burner that I removed from a desktop computer that failed. I want to convert the burner into an external drive. Is there any way of doing this?

You can find external enclosures for DVD drives that will allow you to connect such a drive to a computer via a cable. Just search online for “DVD burner enclosure” or some similar phrase. I can’t guarantee that your particular drive will work as an external unit in an enclosure or that you will have the skill necessary to convert it.

The slender Motorola Q, despite software that is markedly inferior to that of the Treo 700p, is wooing some users because it is much slimmer and now can be had for just $99, versus $299 for the Treo. The Nokia E62 is about the size of the Q and also costs just $99 these days. The tiny BlackBerry Pearl is just $199. And Samsung has introduced the skinny BlackJack for $199, too.

So, this month, Palm is striking back with a lighter, thinner, cheaper model of its own, the Treo 680, which is being offered by Cingular Wireless at $199.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile has introduced a new slim, light competitor called the Dash. It has built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking to supplement the slower cellphone data network. And it costs just $149.

I’ve been testing the new Treo and the Dash. Both are OK, but neither is as good as it could be. The new Treo still has great software, but it makes some compromises and still fails to match the new competitors in slimness, lightness or price. The Dash has very nice hardware, but is hampered by lousy software.

The Treo 680 is shorter than the Treo 700, because it doesn’t have the 700′s protruding antenna. It’s about 11% thinner and 14% lighter. But it’s still much larger than the new class of Q-type competitors. The Dash is slightly wider than the new Treo and about the same length. But it’s much thinner and lighter. The Dash feels great in your hand because it has rubberized paint.

This new Treo works just like the 700p. It uses the same Palm operating-system software, which is much easier and faster than the Windows Mobile software used by the Dash and the Q. As I have noted in the past, simple operations like deleting an email or displaying your calendar are usually one-click processes on the Palm OS devices, while they often take two or more clicks, or involve opening menus, on the Windows devices.

Also, the Treo 680, like the costlier 700p, comes with better functionality for handling Microsoft Office documents than the Dash does, even though the latter uses Microsoft software. The 680 has the same large, high-resolution screen as the 700p. By contrast, the screen on the Dash, while bright and vivid, is lower resolution.

But the new 680 is less capable than the 700 series Treos. First, it runs on a much slower cellphone network, called EDGE. This EDGE technology isn’t broadband speed, and is only about one-seventh as fast as the networks from Verizon Wireless and Sprint that the Treo 700 uses. Cingular does have a new network with speeds comparable to Verizon‘s and Sprint’s, but the Treo 680 can’t take advantage of it.

Second, the Treo 680 is a big step backward in terms of its camera. The camera’s resolution is only about a third of a megapixel, while the camera on the Treo 700 — and the Dash — is 1.3 megapixels. Finally, the stylus on the Treo 680 is cheap and just plain awful. It actually bends when you use it.

The Dash is also stuck on the slow EDGE network technology because that’s the best data network T-Mobile currently offers. It makes up for it with built-in Wi-Fi, which is much faster than EDGE, and potentially much faster than the Verizon and Sprint cellphone data networks.

In my tests, I was able to use the Dash for email and Web browsing via Wi-Fi in my office, my home and a couple of coffee shops. The Wi-Fi setup and connection process was fairly easy, and T-Mobile has added software to the Dash that guides you through setting up access at Wi-Fi hot spots it operates in airports, Starbucks shops and other locations.

In fact, T-Mobile offers a data plan for $30 a month that includes both cellphone Internet service and access to its Wi-Fi hot spots. This is on top of the cost of a voice plan.

There are some downsides. The Dash doesn’t automatically switch on Wi-Fi. You have to do it manually. And, in my tests, it was much slower using Wi-Fi than a laptop was. For instance, in my home, on my very fast Wi-Fi connection, the Dash got just under one megabit per second, while a Mac laptop inches away got over 14 mbps. On a slower network in my office, the Dash got around half a megabit per second, while a computer inches away got 1.3 mbps.

I also found the keyboard on the Dash to be more cramped and harder to use than the one on the Treo. And the touch strip it uses to control volume didn’t work well.

If you have always wanted a Treo, but couldn’t handle the price tag, the 680 may be for you. Just be prepared for its slower speed and inferior camera. If you yearn for Wi-Fi in a slender smart phone, and can put up with a clumsy software interface, go with the Dash.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

This year, that tower of babble is higher than ever, as new terms have come into being, and old ones have come to the fore. So, here’s a quick glossary of some of the current techno terms you may encounter when shopping for a computer, television, digital camera or cellphone this holiday season.

Aero: This is the graphical user interface that’s a key part of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, due out around Jan. 30. If you want to get the full benefit of Vista, make sure any Windows PC you buy this season is capable of running Aero. Many are not.

Antiblur: Also known as antishake or image stabilization, this is a crucial feature of digital cameras today. Because few cameras have optical viewfinders, users tend to hold them at arm’s length to frame the shot on the LCD screen. This increases the likelihood of shaking the camera. An anti-blur feature can correct that. The best antiblur technology is optical. Digital versions are less effective.

Draft N: This is a new, faster, longer-range version of the popular Wi-Fi wireless networking system, and many new Wi-Fi products are built to comply with it. It succeeds the common “G” flavor of Wi-Fi. But, there’s a catch. As the name implies, this technology is based on a draft of the forthcoming new Wi-Fi standard, to be called “N.” And the final standard could be different enough to make Draft N gear outdated in 12 to 18 months.

Dual Boot: A computer that is configured to boot, or to start up, in two different operating systems, depending on which the user chooses at any one time. The most important example of this currently is on Apple’s Macintosh computers, which now can be set up to run either the Mac operating system or Microsoft Windows using Apple’s free dual-boot software, called Boot Camp.

Dual Core: A type of microprocessor — the brain that runs a computer — which packs the equivalent of two processors into a single chip. The best known dual-core processors in consumer computers are Intel’s Core 2 Duo and Core Duo, but rival AMD also makes them. They are a good bet for most people.

Flash Player: A small-capacity digital music player, like Apple’s iPod Nano and Shuffle. These players use flash memory, a type of memory chip that behaves like a small hard disk to store music, photos and videos. Larger players, such as the full-size iPod and the new Microsoft Zune, use actual hard disks, like the ones in computers. Flash memory is also what’s inside the small memory cards used in digital cameras.

HDMI: This acronym, for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, describes a new kind of cable for hooking high-definition TVs to things like cable boxes and DVD players. It provides a high-quality digital feed, and combines both audio and video signals via a single connection. When shopping for an HDTV, make sure it has HDMI connectors on the back.

HSDPA: An awkward name for a new high-speed cellphone network being deployed in the U.S. by Cingular Wireless. Its full name is High Speed Downlink Packet Access, and it’s intended to compete with successful high-speed networks from Verizon and Sprint called EVDO, or Evolution Data Only. All of these new networks allow Internet access at about the speed of a slow home DSL line, which is a big boost for cellphones. If you care about email and Internet access on a phone, and you are using Cingular, get a phone that can handle HSDPA.

Quad Band: A cellphone that handles all four bands, or frequencies, used in various countries by wireless phone companies adhering to a world-wide standard called GSM. Examples are Cingular and T-Mobile in the U.S., and Vodafone and Orange in Europe. A quad-band phone can be used on any GSM network anywhere, so if you travel overseas a lot, you may want one.

RAW: A file format for digital photographs that is uncompressed and largely unmodified by the camera’s chips, and therefore includes every detail of the color and image. It is prized by professional photographers and serious amateurs, who look for cameras and photo software that can handle the RAW format. But it produces enormous files, so most users should ignore it and stick with the very good, very common compressed photo format, called JPEG or JPG.

Shared Memory: A computer configuration in which the video circuitry lacks its own dedicated memory and must share, or drain off, a portion of the computer’s main memory. This is common in lower-price computers. It’s fine, but it reduces the amount of memory available to the nonvideo functions of the computer, so you may want to add extra memory to a PC of this type.

WAN: Any wide-area network, such as a cellphone network, that can be used to send and receive data. It is distinguished from a LAN, or local area network, such as the wired and wireless networks deployed inside a business or home. Some computer makers use the term for the built-in cellphone modems in their laptops.

Good luck with your gift shopping. Don’t get trapped in the tower of babble.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

And like the technologies themselves, digital jargon changes and expands all the time. Just when you thought you’d mastered stuff like RAM (computer memory) and GSM (the cellphone technology invented in Europe), new terms pop up like weeds on your lawn.

So here’s a quick and dirty glossary designed to make holiday shopping for the latest tech products feel less like taking the SATs.

Computers

Some of the newest terminology to know when you’re shopping for a computer, whether it be a Windows PC or an Apple Macintosh, involves the processor, the chip that’s the brain of the box. Until recently, most consumer computers had a single processor. Now it’s common to find them with so-called dual cores, which in effect means two processors packaged into one chip. Two cores won’t make your word processing or email go any faster, but they do potentially give you more horsepower for such heavy-duty tasks as gaming or video editing. I say “potentially,” because to make the most of a dual-core processor, you need software that sends some work to each core, and most programs are not yet designed to do that.

The labeling of these new processors is also confusing. Intel called its first consumer laptop dual-core chip the “Core Duo”; now there’s a second generation known as the “Core 2 Duo.” (In techland, apparently, the “2 Duo” moniker is assumed to be crystal clear.) And there are still some single-core Intel processors, dubbed “Core Solo.”

For laptops in general, one of the latest terms you’ll encounter is “ExpressCard,” which refers to the new version of that slot on the side of the machine into which you can pop a wireless receiver or some other add-on. For years these slots have adhered to a standard called “PC Card,” but the latest laptops are showing up with slots that follow the new ExpressCard standard. Worse yet for confused consumers, it comes in two flavors: a narrower one called ExpressCard/34, and a wider one called ExpressCard/54. And naturally, neither can accept cards designed for the older, PC Card standard.

Cellphones

One hardly knows where to begin when talking about cellphone jargon. But an obvious source of confusion is the baffling nomenclature being given to the various new high-speed cellphone networks that can transmit a wide assortment of material — music, video clips and web sites — to phones at speeds rivaling home broadband.

If you’re shopping for a phone at Verizon or Sprint, the high-speed capability is called “EVDO” or “EV-DO” (which stands for Evolution Data Only or Evolution Data Optimized). At Cingular, it’s known as “HSDPA” (for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access).

Since T-Mobile doesn’t have a network in this speed class, salespeople there will brag instead about “EDGE” (Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution), which, despite its aspirational name, is a much slower technology.

TV

Buying a television used to be simple. No more. There’s a whole new vocabulary for digital TV shopping. It’s too expansive to cover completely in this space, but here are a few select terms.

In addition to the familiar plasma and LCD (liquid crystal display) sets, which have an expensive digital panel at the front, there’s now a third type of screen, called a “microdisplay.” This is actually a rear-projection television, although much skinnier than the old behemoths. There are three main microdisplay types. Each uses a different sort of very small digital circuit in the rear of the set to generate the picture, which is then projected onto the large screen at the front. And naturally, each has its own jargony name. The first, called “DLP” (digital light processing), uses a special chip loaded with minuscule mirrors. The second, confusingly called “LCD,” uses a tiny LCD chip. The third, “LCoS” (liquid crystal on silicon), is sort of a hybrid of the other two, in that it uses both liquid crystals and mirrors.

And don’t forget the digital video recorder — the now almost mandatory add-on used to record and save programs on hard disks inside cable and satellite receivers or inside a stand-alone unit — which unfortunately goes by two names. Sometimes it’s called a “DVR” (digital video recorder) and sometimes a “PVR” (personal video recorder), but really, they’re the same thing. You might even hear the technology referred to as “TiVo,” which is actually the best-known brand of digital video recorder. Think of TiVo as the Kleenex of DVRs — its name is sometimes used as a generic term for the whole category.

Wireless

Wi-Fi wireless networks are now pretty familiar. Many people even know they come in two main speeds, designated by letters. The “b” variety, which was the first version to gain public acceptance, was succeeded by the “g” variety, which is faster and backwards-compatible with “b.”

Nice and simple, right? Not for long. Chaos has come to the Wi-Fi world in the form of a new standard,”n,” which is supposedly even faster than “g” and, more important, offers longer range. The problem is, the engineering committee that sets such standards has been taking forever to certify “n,” so companies have begun selling Wi-Fi gear that purports to use the “n” standard in some form but may not be compatible with it when it finally emerges. Last year there were “pre-n” products, which used some parts of the emerging standard; this year there are “draft-n” products, based on a draft of the proposed “n” standard. Stay tuned for the real thing.

But the most important Wi-Fi term of the moment is “MIMO,” short for multiple-input multiple-output. This is a technique that can greatly improve range and speed by capturing formerly stray parts of a wireless signal and merging them. It is expected to be a key component of the “n” standard, but is already in some “g” products, as well as in the “pre-n” and “draft-n” products.

Broadband

There are two main types of high-speed Internet service: DSL (digital subscriber line) is sold by phone companies, while cable modem service is sold by cable companies. Most people know these terms.

But now there’s a third type, called “fiber optic,” being sold in some parts of the country. This technology uses glass fibers, lit up by a laser and connected directly to your home. (Some other systems use fiber under the street, but not running right up to the house.) The best-known brand of fiber-to-the-home broadband service is Verizon’s “FiOS,” which can deliver TV channels as well as the Internet.

All broadband service providers boast about their speed, and they tend to do so in techie jargon. Slower broadband is measured in kilobits per second, abbreviated as “kbps.” Faster speeds are clocked as megabits per second, or “mbps.” (Note that these terms end in bit, not byte. The latter ending is normally used as a measure of storage capacity, not speed.) One megabit equals 1,000 kilobits. So a DSL line that tops out at 768 kilobits per second, for example, isn’t nearly as fast as one that registers three megabits per second.

Music

Almost everybody knows that MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) is the most common format for digital music files. But what is AAC? And how about WMA?

All of the above are compressed formats, meaning they take a song that would occupy lots of space on a disk and squeeze it down to a fraction of its original size while trying to preserve the sound. AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is an industry-standard music-compression format favored by Apple, while WMA (Windows Media Audio) is a proprietary music-compression format that is owned and used by Microsoft. Which of the three you prefer depends on your taste.

Both AAC and WMA are available in two versions. One is an “open” version, which gets created when consumers convert their CDs into these digital formats, and imposes no restrictions on usage. The second is an encrypted, or copy-protected, version, which includes code that restricts how often and under what circumstances the song can be played or copied. Songs sold at Apple’s iTunes Music Store are in the encrypted version of AAC, while songs sold by music services that use Microsoft software are sold in the encrypted version of WMA, meaning there are limits to what you can do with these files.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about Cingular data networks, the quality of Compaq laptops and options for connecting an iPod to home speakers.

In your review of the new T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl, you said Cingular Wireless has a data network that is much faster than the EDGE network that T-Mobile uses. But I have a BlackBerry from Cingular and it, too, uses EDGE. So how is Cingular faster?

In 80 cities, Cingular has now rolled out a new network based on a technology called HSDPA that, in my tests, can be 10 times as fast as EDGE. However, most of its phones and digital devices haven’t been updated in new versions that can use the new, faster network. So far, only a few regular phones and laptop data cards from Cingular can use HSDPA. Its data-centric hand-helds, like BlackBerrys and Treos, are still stuck on EDGE, which Cingular continues to maintain alongside the new faster network.

But Cingular plans to offer new versions of the data devices in the coming months that can take advantage of the new, higher speeds. By contrast, T-Mobile has nothing faster than EDGE. Verizon Wireless and Sprint also have networks that are much faster than EDGE, based on a technology called EVDO. They are way ahead of Cingular in both the number of cities deployed and in the variety of devices that can use the highest speeds. For instance, the Verizon Treo I carry uses EVDO and can download Web pages and email attachments much more quickly than any EDGE device can.

There is a catch. With Verizon, Sprint and Cingular, even if your phone or data device can use the highest-speed networks the carriers offer, they will drop down to a lower-speed network if you enter an area where the higher-speed coverage isn’t available.

I bought a Compaq laptop in January 2005. Now in August it will not turn on. Naturally I only had a one-year warranty. The Geek Squad tells me I need a mother board, and that will cost more than a new laptop. Does Compaq have a history of only lasting a little over a year, or did I get a lemon?

Neither my email from readers nor anything I have read suggests that Compaq computers typically last only a year or so. However, reader surveys published by Consumer Reports and PC Magazine rank the Compaq brand (which is now owned by Hewlett-Packard) at or near the bottom in categories like how often its laptops need repairs and how reliable they are.

In general, I believe that as the factories in China (where nearly all laptops are made) jam more powerful and numerous components into slender laptops, quality and reliability are falling. Even Apple, which ranks at or near the top on the surveys I mentioned, is having problems with some of its newest laptops (and I am not referring here to the burning batteries Apple and Dell purchased from Sony).

Are there any good, effective options for getting an Apple iPod to work with a home speaker system? I guess I’m envisioning a “receiver” that allows an iPod to dock with it.

There are lots of products on the market that allow you to connect an iPod to a home audio system, or even just speakers. They range from simple audio cables you can buy at Radio Shack to iPod docks that connect to speakers or an audio receiver, and even wireless approaches. Apple itself makes a $19 cable and a $39 dock for this purpose and also sells a complete kit, with dock, cables and remote, for $99. But other companies sell similar products as well as self-contained docks.

There are way too many of these to list here, but there are some Web sites that can help you. Apple has a Web page listing some accessories, at www.apple.com/ipod/accessories.html. More are listed at Apple’s online store, at store.apple.com, under iPod Accessories — “Cables & Docks.” Another good source for information about this topic is ilounge.com.

* * *

Because of the volume of email I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by email, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

But that image will change radically next week when the BlackBerry’s maker, Research in Motion, introduces a sleek but powerful model called simply the Pearl. It’s not only the smallest BlackBerry ever made. It’s also the smallest smart phone from any maker with a keyboard for typing emails and other text.

All shiny black and silver, the slender Pearl looks more like a fashion phone than a keyboard-equipped smart phone. It is shorter, narrower and lighter than the much-admired Motorola Q, though a bit thicker. And, like the Q, the Pearl, which is being launched next Tuesday by T-Mobile, costs $199 with a two-year contract. The Pearl is squarely aimed at consumers who need powerful email capabilities, but also want style and bells and whistles.

When it comes to email, the Pearl is a true BlackBerry. The email interface is essentially the same as on larger BlackBerrys. It can be used with a traditional corporate BlackBerry email system, and, for consumers, it works with the BlackBerry Internet Service offered by T-Mobile.

Still, for hard-core BlackBerry addicts, the Pearl is a shocking departure. The iconic side scroll wheel has been replaced by a tiny, light-up trackball beneath the large, bright color screen. It’s the first BlackBerry with a camera, the first with a memory card slot (though no card is included) and the first to play songs and videos.

And then there’s the keyboard, where the slim new design has required a major compromise. As on the older and bulkier BlackBerry 7100 series, the full keyboard has been replaced by a smaller version that squeezes two letters onto most keys. To avoid repetition and error, the Pearl uses smart software called SureType that has the uncanny ability to guess the word you meant to type in almost all cases. But it doesn’t work if you’re entering a new Web address or a person’s name that the phone hasn’t memorized.

To find out if RIM can actually be cool, I’ve been toting around a Pearl, testing all its functions. In general, I like it, and can recommend it to anyone who wants real BlackBerry email capabilities in a great-looking multimedia phone. Voice quality was excellent and the interface for making phone calls, once a big problem on BlackBerrys, is now decent. There’s even a Treo-like universal silencer button, and the speaker phone function turns on and off with a single key press.

Setting up an email account with the BlackBerry Internet Service is easily done, either on the phone or via a T-Mobile Web page. This service replaces a corporate email server with a Web-based email system that pushes messages to the phone from an existing email account or from a new one. T-Mobile plans to charge $19.99 a month for unlimited email and Web browsing on top of the price of an existing voice plan.

The Pearl pushed my normal email to the phone perfectly, and, in that respect, it acted just like every other BlackBerry I’ve used. Because of the different keyboard, some of the keyboard shortcuts for navigating in email and other applications differ from those on older models. If you change a couple of settings, you can delete an email with one click, and whole batches of emails can be deleted with two clicks.

Popular email attachment types, including Microsoft Word and Excel files, can be opened and read, but not edited. I was able to easily synchronize calendar and contact entries with Microsoft Outlook on a Windows PC, and to easily transfer songs, pictures and videos to the Pearl using RIM’s desktop software.

The Pearl’s music software correctly read the artist, album and song information on every track I loaded into the phone, and even displayed the album covers. The speaker on the Pearl sounds good, and music sounds even better with stereo headphones.

Photos also displayed well, and the Pearl can zoom in on them or show them as slideshows. Any song can be turned into your ring tone, and any picture can be used as your desktop wallpaper.

The Pearl really shone when playing video. Unfortunately, it accepts only a limited number of video file types, and even many of those I tested didn’t work. Some videos sucked up so much of the phone’s power that other functions, even pausing the playback, were very slow.

The Web browser is OK, but it’s hampered by what I consider the biggest drawback to the Pearl: the network on which it runs. T-Mobile uses a network technology called EDGE, which is much, much slower than the fastest networks offered by Verizon, Sprint and Cingular.

There’s another reason I’m not trading my Palm Treo 700p for a Pearl: the user interface. While RIM has jazzed up the hardware and feature set, there’s still way too much multiple clicking and menu opening for my taste.

But the Pearl is a beautiful piece of work, a very nice combination of hard-core email capability and fun features.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

And the cellular broadband services, such as Verizon Wireless’s BroadbandAccess, can operate at speeds roughly equivalent to, and sometimes well beyond, the speed of basic wired home DSL service. That means you can surf the Web, and get email and large attachments pretty efficiently.

The card for the Verizon network

A small percentage of users hook up to these cellular broadband networks using laptops that have the necessary gear built in. Another small group uses a cellphone as a modem. But most users of these networks use external cellular-modem cards that plug into a standard slot on the side of their laptops. Therein lies a problem.

The computer industry is in the process of dumping that standard slot, called a PC Card slot, for a new, incompatible slot called ExpressCard. So, buyers of many new laptops are finding their cellphone modems are obsolete.

Now, Novatel, a leading maker of these cards, has come out with a couple of new ExpressCard versions for cellular broadband networks. One, which works on Verizon Wireless’s network, is already on the market, sold by Verizon and by Dell. The second, which works on Cingular’s BroadbandConnect high-speed network, will go on sale from Dell and possibly Cingular later this year, likely late November.

I have been testing the Verizon version of the card, called the V640, as well as a pre-release model of the version that works with Cingular, which Novatel calls the Merlin XU870. The tests not only gave me a chance to evaluate the cards themselves, but also to compare the Verizon and Cingular high-speed networks.

My verdict: The cards were easy to set up and use, and worked well. But the two high-speed networks are very different. While Cingular gave me higher speeds than Verizon in a couple of locations, the Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess network crushed Cingular’s BroadbandConnect in most places I compared them.

This wasn’t a rigorous scientific test. I used two different laptops, an Apple MacBook Pro and a Dell Latitude D820. The Cingular tests were all conducted on the Dell, because the Mac software for the Cingular card won’t be ready until the card goes on sale. The Verizon tests were all conducted on the Mac. On both machines, I used the test service at speakeasy.net, accessed via the Firefox Web browser.

Also, I tested the cards in only Washington and New York City, and on Amtrak’s Acela Express trains in between. That is a heavily populated region; it’s also Verizon’s home territory, and Cingular might have done better in other parts of the country. Verizon has been rolling out its high-speed network since 2003; Cingular is well behind. Verizon offers the service in 185 metro areas; Cingular is in just 75.

Both cellphone carriers charge $60 a month for unlimited data service using the cards, if you have a voice plan with them. The new Verizon card costs $180. The new Cingular-compatible card is likely to cost $50 more.

The cards look nearly identical, and each works on both Windows and Macintosh computers. On Windows, you must connect using special software. On the Mac, you can simply use integrated software from Apple, if you choose. Both cards have small flip-up antennas and indicator lights. Both worked fine.

Verizon’s high-speed service is often called EVDO, for its underlying technology. Cingular’s service uses a technology called HSDPA.

In my tests, which involved about 20 head-to-head comparisons, the Verizon card and network averaged 818 kilobits per second “downstream” (to get Web pages, and to receive email and attachments) and 113 kbps “upstream” (to send email and files).

By contrast, the Cingular-compatible card averaged just 463 kbps downstream and 77 kbps upstream. Plus, during the three-hour train trip, Cingular disconnected me, or simply had no coverage at all, eight times. Verizon did so only once. Verizon has a deal with Amtrak that supplies data service inside the trains, which helped, but this in-train signal doesn’t include the high-speed EVDO service.

Cingular did beat Verizon in two places: my hotel in New York’s financial district and my office in downtown Washington. In the hotel, the Cingular service got a downstream speed of 1753 kbps — its highest in my tests — versus 888 kbps for Verizon and just 747 kbps for the hotel’s expensive wired Internet service. In my office, Cingular got 1133 kbps downstream versus 644 kbps for Verizon.

But the downstream speeds varied wildly. In Trenton, N.J., the Cingular service managed just 16 kbps. The best for Verizon was 1366 kbps in New York’s Penn Station, while its worst was 132 kbps between big cities in New Jersey.

I recommend both new cards. But unless you live, work and travel in very strong Cingular coverage areas, Verizon is the better choice for high-speed wireless data, at least today.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

The Finnish cellphone giant is introducing a phone called the E62 that resembles, and is aimed at, the Palm Treo, the latest BlackBerry phones from Research In Motion and the Motorola Q.

Nokia’s E62

Like those other smart phones, the E62 has a full keyboard and is actually a little computer that is meant to be a serious email device as well as a phone. Like the Q and the Treo, it can play music and videos, surf the Web, and display photos.

Unlike the Treo and the Q, however, the Nokia E62 can run a service licensed by RIM that allows it to behave like a BlackBerry. It can send and receive email using either a corporate BlackBerry server or a consumer BlackBerry service offered by a cellphone carrier.

I’ve been testing the E62 and I like it. It’s fairly utilitarian-looking and won’t likely become an object of desire like the Q and the Treo. But it gets the job done and may well be the best bargain in its category.

In the past, Nokia has relied on a smart-phone design that was a thick, long device that flipped open to reveal a wide, horizontally aligned keyboard and screen. That design sold OK in Europe but flopped in the U.S. Now, with the E62, Nokia is adopting the American-type design pioneered by the BlackBerry and used by the Treo and the Q.

Nokia is being coy about the timing, pricing and wireless carrier for the E62. But I expect it to be available late next month from Cingular Wireless. And I expect it to cost even less than the Q, which at $199 is the least expensive product in this group. The latest Treo models, the 700p and 700w, are being sold by Verizon Wireless for $299 right now, after rebates.

The E62 works on the so-called GSM cellphone standard that’s universal in Europe, and used by Cingular and T-Mobile in the U.S. This means it can be used in both America and Europe, as well as in some other countries. The Treo 700 models, sold by Verizon and Sprint, and the Q, sold only by Verizon, use an American technology called CDMA that doesn’t work in Europe or in most places outside the U.S.

However, that GSM technology also saddles the E62 with its biggest drawback: It is much slower at receiving data such as email and Web pages than the Q or the Treo 700, or even certain BlackBerry models. That’s because it uses EDGE, a GSM variant that has been blown away by a technology called EVDO used by the Treo 700 and the Q. In my tests, EVDO has been up to seven times as fast as EDGE.

The E62 also lacks a camera, unlike the Q and the Treo 700. But, like them, it has Bluetooth wireless technology.

Nokia has built in a sharp, vivid screen with a resolution of 320 by 240. That’s better than the resolution on the Treo 700w and identical to the Q’s screen resolution — but inferior to the resolution on the Treo 700p.

The new Nokia is a bit larger than the Q — wider, thicker, longer and heavier. But it’s thinner and lighter than the Treo 700, albeit a bit wider and longer.

In my tests, the voice quality of the E62 was very good. Battery life was decent, with a talk time of between four and 5.5 hours. The phone accepts memory cards for storage of files and applications.

The BlackBerry Connect service and software, likely to cost around $45 a month, worked well. After I installed the BlackBerry software on the new Nokia and configured the service on the E62 and on an accompanying Web site, the service “pushed” all emails from my regular account to the E62 reliably. There’s no limit to how much email you can receive, though the carrier may intervene if it believes you are abusing the service.

The only downside of the BlackBerry Connect feature is that there’s a noticeable latency when you open an email before it displays on the screen.

In my tests, the N62 could open most major email attachment types, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Adobe PDF files. It’s also supposed to work with PowerPoint presentations, but in my tests, this function failed.

The user interface on the E62 isn’t nearly as fast or slick as on the Palm operating system used by the Treo 700p. But I preferred it slightly over the Windows Mobile operating system used on the Treo 700w and some other smart phones. There were still too many menus and extra steps compared with the Palm system, but at least you can delete an email with one click. Turning on the speaker phone was also quick and easy.

I was able to synchronize the E62 with Microsoft Outlook, and bring over my contacts and calendar, using the separate Windows software that comes with the phone. And I was able to load up the memory card with pictures and songs from my computer and use them successfully on the E62.

All in all, the E62 is a solid and inexpensive smart phone.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about waiting for the new Mac OS, using an iPod with an old version of Windows and getting broadband in rural areas.

I am planning to replace my aging Dell desktop with one of Apple’s iMac machines. Now that Apple has announced that the new OS X Leopard will be released next spring, is it advisable to wait for Leopard’s release to buy a new iMac? Or will the current iMac be able to run Leopard when it is released?

If history is any guide, an iMac you purchase now, or in the next few months, should easily be able to handle Leopard, which is the sixth version of Apple’s Mac OS X to be released since 2001. Since Apple upgrades its operating system far more often than Microsoft does, the upgrades tend to require less of a jump in hardware capability. (Microsoft’s forthcoming new version of Windows called Vista, due in January 2007, is the first major overhaul of Windows since 2001.)

However, Apple hasn’t promised that every new feature of Leopard will run on any iMac sold now, and the company has coldly cut off users of older models in the past. So, if you can wait, do so. It’s always better to buy new machines with a new OS preinstalled, even though Apple’s OS upgrade process has generally been much quicker and more reliable than Microsoft’s. Another benefit: Apple typically charges existing users $129 for an upgraded OS, even if their machines are only, say, six months old. But new Macs next spring will include Leopard free of charge.

Even if you can’t wait until spring (you said your Dell was “aging”), consider waiting a few months to see if Apple brings out a new iMac with Intel’s latest processor, the Core 2 Duo, which is faster and more efficient than the Core Duo in current iMacs. I have no information that this will happen, but you should know by November or so.

I’ve got a new iPod I want to use with my Dell Dimension 4100 running Windows Me, but the iTunes software will apparently run only on XP or 2000. What’s my best bet for software to load files onto my iPod?

Try a product called XPlay 2, by Mediafour. It is specifically designed to work with older versions of Windows, including Windows Me. It costs $30 and can be downloaded at mediafour.com/products/xplay/. There is a free trial, but it is limited.

We live on a dirt road in rural Virginia with no cable and can’t get DSL. How can we get broadband? We would prefer not to do a satellite connection because you still need a phone modem to send material. Is there some kind of fast wireless connection we could get from our PC to our ISP? I see laptops with wireless antennas sticking out of them around here and they must transmit to somewhere.

Satellite Internet access has improved, and no longer requires a dial-up modem for the return path — in fact no use of the phone line is needed at all. Of course, as with any satellite service, your house must have a clear line of sight to the area of the sky where the particular satellite you use is situated. For more information, see www.hughesnet.com.

Another option, if you have good cellphone coverage, is a broadband cell-phone modem. It uses the cellphone network to connect you to the Internet at speeds roughly comparable with a slow home DSL line — which is still much, much faster than your current dial-up connection. This is probably what all those laptops with antennas are using.

These cellphone modems, using a technology called EVDO, are offered by Verizon and Sprint, and Cingular is slowly building a similar wireless broadband capability. For more information, see the Web sites of the phone carriers.

In some parts of the country, but not Virginia, a company called Clearwire is offering wireless broadband to rural homes.

* * *

Because of the volume of email I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by email, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Disney Mobile offers a $59.99 Pantech cellphone (far left) and a $109.99 LG Electronics cellphone (middle) for use with its Family Center programs, which help parents keep tabs on their children’s cellphone usage. The Family Locator feature (above) uses GPS to locate children.

The latest MVNO is Walt Disney Co., which believes it can leverage its famous brand, and carve out a niche, with a “family friendly” cellphone company called Disney Mobile. The idea is to sell phones and services that make it easy for families to stay in touch while giving parents easy control over their kids’ cellphone activities.

These Disney cellphones allow parents to limit how many minutes their kids can use, with whom they are talking and when they use their cellphones. A parent can even learn where his or her child is using a GPS locator. Yet they do meet another need: giving kids a way to stay in touch with a phone that looks normal, even a little cool.

We’ve been testing Disney Mobile and, overall, we think it’s a smart idea. The phones were easy to operate without reading any directions, and restrictions can be set using the parent’s phone itself or the www.disneymobile.com Web site. We think it’s a good thing for parents to be able to set limits on kids’ cellphone privileges, and these phones offer a no-nonsense way of doing so.

But there are three big downsides to keep in mind. First, Disney Mobile is a cellphone company, not just a phone or a feature, so you have to switch your family from its current carrier and phones, or at least add one or more new contract and phone. Second, the company is new and small and offers just two phone models, not the dozens its rivals sell. Third, it runs on the Sprint network, so, if your Sprint coverage is poor, Disney Mobile won’t be a good choice.

This isn’t the first effort to make a restricted cellphone for kids. Over a year ago, we tested Firefly Mobile Inc.’s kid cellphones — tiny, glowing gadgets with only five buttons that were ideal for young kids who aren’t ready for cellphones with numeric keypads. The Disney Mobile phones are aimed at the next age group of “tweens” on up to teenagers, who would rather die than be caught using the odd-looking Firefly unit.

These phones are offered in two brands and prices: the $60 Pantech DM-P100 cellphone with a digital camera and the $110 LG Electronics DM-L200 phone with a digital camera and camcorder. (These prices require a two-year contract.) Both are flip phones with color screens and full numeric keypads, and they look and operate like regular cellphones. Disney-related themes like those from the movies “Cars” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” illustrate the navigational menus in each phone.

Voice and data plans can be purchased for individuals or families; family plans include two lines and additional lines can be added for $10 each. Plans range in monthly price from $40 to $250, but all include five free GPS “locates” per month. Neither phone can use Sprint’s latest, high-speed network for Web surfing and email. They are based on older technology.

Using the phones was easy. When you buy them — either from the Disney Mobile Web site, by calling 1-866-DISNEY2 or at kiosks in malls around the country — the phone’s owner is designated. A phone can be configured either as a parent’s phone or a child’s phone, even though they are physically identical. The parent’s cellphone has privileges and features that the child’s cellphone lacks.

A special Family Center menu within the phone offers four parental features: Family Locator, Family Monitor, Family Alert and Call Control. Another option within this menu called Shop Family will eventually offer various applications that compliment the Family Center programs; as of now these aren’t yet available.

We selected Family Locator on our parent phone (child phones can’t access this section), chose the name of the child whose phone we wanted to find and were asked for our four-digit PIN. In one test, after waiting for about 20 seconds while the screen read “Locating,” we received a message and map accurately finding our child-designated phone. It said the child’s phone was “Near [1707-1773] K St. NW, Washington, DC,” and said that was within 40 yards of the actual location.

But during other tests, Disney experienced problems with Sprint changing its network configuration, and we weren’t able to receive GPS information about our “child’s” cellphone. Disney fixed this after almost a whole day, but we wondered about parents who might have used the Family Locator during this outage, panicked to find their kids.

The Family Monitor section lets parents set allowances or view usage for each child’s voice, text, pictures and downloads. Parents can set allowances, see how much allowance a child has left in each section, and how much has already been used up. We noticed that the data for each updated whenever we closed and reopened the Family Monitor section.

The Family Alert section is filled with canned text messages that a parent or kid — each phone is set up accordingly — might send to one another. The parent’s quick alerts include “Can U get a ride?” and “Call me when U can,” while the child’s include “Can I hang out?” and the ever popular “What time is dinner?”

We easily sent these messages from one phone to the other by selecting them and hitting Send. The receiving phone got the incoming message, labeled as a “Family Alert!” so as to distinguish it from other messages. Unlimited intrafamily messaging is included in each plan.

All three of these sections can also be accessed on a computer at the www.disneymobile.com Web site, where you can see more details about each after entering log-in credentials and a PIN.

Call Control, the fourth section within Family Center, must be set up on the Web site. After you choose a phone, you can go through a simple chart to designate when your child can use his or her phone according to times and days of the week. Below this chart, a section lets you enter Always On numbers that the child can always call regardless of Call Control restrictions, such as 911 and numbers of relatives. Likewise, a section of Prohibited Numbers blocks all communication with certain numbers, including receiving or making calls and text messaging.

We restricted the child’s phone during certain times of the day, and when we tried to make a call from that cellphone during those times, it didn’t go through.

Disney Mobile is good news for parents who have had a hard time cracking the whip on cellphone usage and bad news for kids who sneak calls at all hours of the night or who run up their phone bills with text messaging. If you’re looking for a way to keep better tabs on your family’s cellphone usage, this system works well.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about recording features for newer iPods, saving files to “write protected” floppy disks and choosing the right cellphone service for your business.

If you have a question, send it to me at mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg’s Mailbox.

* * *

I would like to record my yoga classes on an iPod for playback later, but all of the recording accessories I find work only with older iPod models. Is there a recorder that works with the new video iPods?

Yes. Next month, Belkin will begin selling a $70 plug-in recorder for the video-capable iPods. It’s called the TuneTalk Stereo, and features twin mikes, plus a jack for hooking up an external mike. I haven’t reviewed it, so can’t say how well it works. Another option is to buy an MP3 player with a built-in recorder, like Creative Technology’s Zen Vision: M.

I tried to save a letter on a floppy but received the message that the file couldn’t be saved because the floppy was “write protected.” How do I get rid of this write protection?

Floppy disks have a plastic tab that can be moved up and down to either allow data to be written to the disk, or to block the writing of data, which means the disk is “write protected.” This is intended to keep important files from being overwritten. The tab either exposes or covers a hole in the disk.

The tab is set by default to cover the hole. This allows the writing, or saving, of files. I’m guessing you moved it accidentally, so the hole is exposed, which protects the disk. To correct your problem, turn the disk over to the back, and look for the tab in the upper left. Move it to the position that covers the hole. You should now be able to save your file.

Our growing small business in Pasadena, Calif., is struggling with our decision on the right system and device for cellular phone and email. We are trying to decide between Cingular and Verizon Wireless as carriers and the Treo and the traditional model of the BlackBerry, the one with the full keyboard. What is your recommendation?

On your choice of carrier, I always suggest people decide based on coverage and reception in their home area, their office area and the areas to which they travel. Price and phone selection are important, of course, but they make little difference if you can’t get calls or email where you need them. So ask around and try and determine which one has coverage and reception where you want it.

On the devices, I generally prefer the Treo, which has a much better calendar and address book, and other features the BlackBerry lacks, including a camera, strong multimedia capabilities, the ability to edit Microsoft Office documents and a vast trove of third-party software. However, when you set up the BlackBerry server to work with the BlackBerry devices, it is a powerful email tool and an adequate phone.

One thing to note: Verizon Wireless has much faster data service than Cingular in most cities. The Treo 700s sold by Verizon Wireless use this faster service, and are more advanced than the older Treo 650 model sold by Cingular. The BlackBerry 8700c sold by Cingular is the best full-keyboard BlackBerry model, but it’s much slower than the older BlackBerry 7250 sold by Verizon Wireless, because of Verizon Wireless’s faster network.

* * *

Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

To manage these laptop-like tasks, they come equipped with faster and faster processors; more and more internal memory; expansion slots for increasingly spacious memory cards; and small, but usable, keyboards, instead of mere phone keypads.

We’ve been testing two new such phones. One, from Palm Inc., is an improved model of the Treo, which has long been our favorite smartphone. The other, an entirely new design from Motorola Inc., manages to pack most of the Treo’s functionality into a much thinner and lighter body, at half the Treo’s price.

The new Palm model, called the Treo 700p, uses the Palm operating system and is being sold by both Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. for $399, with a service contract. The Motorola challenger, called the Q, uses Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system and is being sold by Verizon for $199, with a service contract.

Palm’s Treo 700p, priced at $399 with a service contract (left); Motorola’s Q, priced at $199 with a service contract (right)

The Q is the bigger news here. In the tradition of Motorola’s RAZR phone, the Q is a sleek, handsome devil. It demolishes the two biggest problems with smartphones like the Treo: They are bulky and expensive. The Q is a little wider than the Treo 700p, but it’s just half as thick and, at 4.06 ounces, is more than one-third lighter.

Unfortunately, its Microsoft software is much clumsier than the Treo’s Palm software, degrading its utility. Also, the Q’s screen is lower-resolution than the Treo’s and slightly smaller, and its battery life as a phone is weaker than the Treo’s. While the Q keyboard is larger than the Treo’s, we actually found it worse for typing.

Still, the Q is a decent solution for light email users and for those who have avoided a smartphone due to bulk and cost. We assume that, at $199, the Q will sell well and will challenge the Treo and BlackBerry in the marketplace.

However, we still prefer the Treo for serious users of mobile email, Web and Office. And the new model, with greater speed and other enhancements, only adds to the Treo’s strengths.

Both of these phones run on the new, broadband-like EV-DO data networks offered by Verizon and Sprint, so they are actually practical for Web browsing and for downloading big email attachments. In our tests, both registered speeds of between 200 and 500 kilobits per second, compared with about 70 kbps for the older Sprint and Verizon networks. Neither phone has Wi-Fi wireless capability.

The new Treo 700p is essentially the same as the Treo 700w introduced a few months back, except that the “p” model uses the Palm operating system, while the “w” model uses Windows software. Like the 700w, the newest model has a squarer shape than that of the older Treo 650. It also has bigger, better keys than the 650, roughly twice the usable internal memory and a higher-resolution 1.3-megapixel camera.

Also, the 700p now has — built into its memory — the excellent Documents To Go program from DataViz, which allows you to view, and in some cases edit, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and Adobe PDF documents.

The main advantage of the 700p, however, is its ability to use the high-speed EV-DO network. And the new Treo can be used as a modem for a laptop, either via a USB cable or a wireless Bluetooth connection.

In our tests, over a couple of weeks, the Treo 700p performed well. Web browsing was a pleasure at the new high speeds. Our only complaint was a short but annoying lag in displaying the text of emails and in performing certain other operations. Also, our test unit crashed twice and had to be restarted. (It didn’t lose any data in the crash.)

The Q is a mixed bag. Its hardware is elegant. Its software is annoying, often requiring two clicks to do what takes one on the Palm.

Motorola chose a more stripped-down version of Windows Mobile software than the one used on previous keyboard phones, and it does work better one-handed. But it still requires many of the extra steps of its Windows sibling and yet lacks the touch screen and built-in Office programs of other Windows-based smartphones.

In our tests, we found the Q easy to carry, but often irritating to use. Things like muting the phone, locking the keyboard and even playing the built-in solitaire game took much more effort than performing the same tasks on the Treo.

The Q has four navigation buttons positioned below the screen like the Treo; like a BlackBerry, it has a scroll wheel and back button on the right edge. The Q’s keyboard has more space between each key than most smartphones, but the rounded shape of the keys themselves makes them uncomfortable to use for more than a few sentences of email.

The familiar green Send and red End keys are prominently located just above the keyboard, and number keys are distinguished in black. We chatted away using the Q’s phone, and it worked well on voice calls.

Special designated Back and Home keys are next to the Send and End keys, and two other buttons enable direct access to email and the Q’s digital camera.

We set up email accounts on the Q using EarthLink and Hotmail.com, but Windows Mobile software really started to get annoying while we were navigating through our email. Performing a task as simple as deleting a message requires two steps — selecting Menu, then selecting Delete — and we couldn’t find any way to highlight and delete a group of emails.

By contrast, on the Treo, using the major email programs, you can delete an email with one click and even clean out a whole inbox with a couple of clicks. This may not matter much to people who get little email, but for heavy users, it’s crucial.

We also had trouble with attachments on the Q. While we successfully received some pictures and documents, a test series of four emails, each with a different type of document attached, failed on the Q. On both of our test Q units, using two different email services, the four attachments simply disappeared, even though they came through fine on the Treo and on Windows and Macintosh computers.

Viewing Microsoft Office and PDF files on the Q is a more cumbersome process than on the Treo, and the files can’t be edited on the Q.

The 320×240 resolution on the Q’s screen is 25% lower than that of the Treo 700p, which has a 320×320-resolution screen. Many things — Web sites, photos, attachments — just didn’t look as good on the Q compared side-by-side with the Treo. The Q’s built-in 1.3-megapixel digital camera captured videos and still shots without a problem, but the view on our screen was cluttered by information bars at the top and bottom.

You might like the $199 Motorola Q because of its price tag or striking design. If you don’t use email too much, or if you’ve never used another smartphone, you might not miss the more user-friendly features that the Treo 700p has to offer. We wish that the sleekness of the Motorola Q could be combined with the intuitive features of the Treo 700p. For now, we’ll stick with what works best — the newest Treo.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

I’ve been testing two new small and light laptops from these companies: the Sony Vaio SZ160, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X60s. Both weigh in at under four pounds, so they won’t break your back when you tote them on the road. But each has plenty of power, decent battery life and a rich set of features. And, despite their small size, these machines are capable of serious work, partly because both use Intel’s new Dual Core processor, which packs the equivalent of two processors into one.

I like both machines, but they have different benefits and downsides. The ThinkPad is the latest entry in a long line of small, rugged laptops with great keyboards and strong battery life. It has a speedy, optional, internal cellphone modem for connecting to the Internet over a cellphone network. But it lacks an internal optical (CD or DVD) drive.

At the cost of just a little more weight and size, the Sony I tested includes an optical drive and a bigger screen, but it lacks a cellphone modem and has weaker battery life than the Lenovo configuration I tested. For enhanced security, both laptops have built-in fingerprint readers that can bolster or replace typed passwords. Neither is a bargain-basement laptop. The Sony SZ series starts at $2,000, and the ThinkPad X60 series starts at $1,900. They come in many different configurations, and thus many different prices. The ThinkPad X60s I tested, which included a cellphone modem, an extra-strength battery and a dock with an optical drive, costs $2,300. The Sony SZ I tested, which didn’t include a dock, an extended battery or a cellphone modem — but did have that internal optical drive — costs $2,500.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X60s

The Thinkpad X60S I tested weighed 3.46 pounds, while my Sony SZ160 test model weighed just 3.72 pounds, even with the bigger screen and optical drive. The ThinkPad is 10.5 inches wide by 8.3 inches deep, and it’s between 0.8 inch and 1.11 inches thick. The Sony is 12.5 inches wide by 9.3 inches deep, and it’s between 0.9 inch and 1.3 inches thick. The Sony’s larger dimensions are mainly a result of its bigger screen — 13.3 inches, versus 12.1 inches for the Lenovo. The Sony screen is also higher resolution.

I put both laptops through my usual tough battery test, wherein I turn off all power-saving software, crank up the screen brightness to the max, turn on the wireless networking, and then play an endless loop of music.

My test ThinkPad, with its double-capacity battery, lasted a very impressive four hours and 49 minutes. In normal use, with power-saving turned on and a more typical work pattern, I’d expect it to last six hours or more, which is excellent. My test Sony, which had a normal-size battery, lasted just three hours and two minutes, even though the machine was running on its so-called Stamina setting. In normal use, the Sony would likely top four hours. Presumably, a Lenovo with a standard battery would do worse, and a Sony with an extended battery would do better.

Neither can match Apple when it comes to the quality of its built-in software. Lenovo’s is too geeky and is aimed more at corporate than consumer customers. Sony’s is more consumer-oriented, but it’s inconsistent and confusing.

The ThinkPad X60s, like its predecessors from IBM, is compact and rugged, with strong hinges and the best keyboard in any laptop. It has both built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking and a built-in cellphone modem that works on Verizon’s speedy EV-DO network.

My test machine worked well on all the typical computing tasks most people do, but there was one small defect in a Lenovo-supplied wireless software program that kept turning off the Wi-Fi. The company says this problem appeared only in early models like mine and has been fixed. Overall, the quality seemed as good as when IBM was making the machines.

The Sony Vaio SZ160

But the Thinkpad X series really should have an internal optical drive by now. When it was introduced, few ultra-small laptops had them, but since then Sony and others have figured out how to install optical drives in even smaller boxes.

The Sony SZ series is interesting because, while it’s not Sony’s smallest or lightest line, it packs a larger screen and an optical drive into a package that’s under four pounds. Like the Lenovo, it worked well at all typical tasks.

The SZ’s biggest innovation is that it has two graphics systems and the aforementioned “Stamina” mode, controlled by a switch, which allows you to use the weaker graphics hardware to save battery power. Its biggest downside is that its optional cellphone modem (available this summer in a pricier premium model I didn’t test) works on Cingular’s EDGE network, which is only about a seventh as fast as the Verizon network Lenovo uses.

You won’t go wrong with either of these well-designed laptops. For road warriors, they are worth their hefty price tags.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

These wireless broadband connections, available over a wide swath of the major metropolitan areas where they are offered, have been sold by two big cellphone companies, Verizon Wireless and Sprint. Both charge $60 a month for unlimited use of the services, which Verizon calls BroadbandAccess and Sprint calls Mobile Broadband. Both companies’ services are based on a technology called EV-DO, which stands for Evolution-Data Only.

This is a revolutionary development. It means that, with a properly equipped laptop or smart phone, you can now get enough speed on a wireless connection to do everything you would do with a fast Internet connection at your desk — stream video, download large Web sites, open large email attachments. And you don’t have to shell out $4 for a Venti latte just to gain access to a Wi-Fi hot spot.

Not only that, but these fast, new networks have, for the first time in years, given the U.S. the edge over Europe in cellular wireless data networks. Actual speeds on the EV-DO networks tend to be 600-700 kilobits a second, which is double or triple the actual speeds of the fastest widely deployed cellphone networks in Europe. Even the lowest speed the U.S. companies promise, 400 kbps, is faster than the maximum speed of today’s common European systems.

Now, this American trend has taken another step forward. Last month, Cingular Wireless announced it is leaping into the broadband wireless arena. It rolled out a service called BroadbandConnect to compete with Verizon and Sprint.

Like its competitors, Cingular is charging $60 a month for unlimited use of its service, and it is promising speeds averaging 400-700 kbps — about what you’d actually see with the slowest home DSL services. But Cingular’s new offering is based on a different technology, called HSDPA, for High Speed Downlink Packet Access. It’s the successor technology to the one being used today in Europe.

Because of its late start, Cingular’s wireless broadband service is much less widely deployed than its Verizon and Sprint competitors. It is available in only 16 major cities — Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Las Vegas; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Salt Lake City; San Diego; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; Tacoma, Wash., and Washington, D.C.

By contrast, Verizon’s wireless broadband service can be used in 180 major markets, and Sprint’s covers more than 100. But Cingular is planning to have most major markets online by year end. Currently, the service is available on laptops using special wireless modem cards Cingular is selling for $99, after rebates. Eventually, it will also be available on smart phones.

I’ve been testing the Cingular BroadbandConnect service on a laptop around Washington, and I like it. It’s very fast — a bit faster, in my tests, than Verizon’s service. And it proved reliable, connecting properly every time. In tests in both downtown D.C. and a suburb about 15 miles away, the Cingular service averaged 640 kilobits a second, roughly 6-7 times the speed I have seen with EDGE, the company’s older data service.

In my tests, I used both of the laptop cards so far available for the service, the Sierra Wireless AC860 and the Novatel U730. Both did the job, but the Sierra model was consistently faster. In the same location, on the same laptop, within the same 30-minute period, the Sierra card averaged 689 kbps while the Novatel card averaged 449 kbps.

This may be because the Sierra card has a long, thin protruding antenna while the Novatel model uses an internal antenna. But the Sierra design can be annoying. You have to remove the antenna for safekeeping when it’s not in use, lest it snap off and get lost.

Like similar cards for Verizon and Sprint, these Cingular modems pop into the card slot on the side of your laptop. So far, they work only with Windows machines, not Macintoshes. And they require software supplied by Cingular to connect to the network. The company says Lenovo and Dell plan to build modems for the Cingular service into some laptop models later this year.

Why would you prefer a service like this to just using Wi-Fi? I love Wi-Fi, and it can often be even faster than these new networks from the cellphone companies. But with Wi-Fi, you have to find a hot spot, and you usually have to sign up with an access provider, which may charge high hourly fees and may not have service at the next hot spot you visit.

The biggest downside of the Cingular service — and those of its competitors — is cost. The $60 monthly tab, which usually requires purchase of a voice plan as well, is higher than what wired home broadband typically costs.

But if you are a frequent business traveler, it can pay for itself pretty quickly by allowing you to forgo the typical $10-$12 daily fee for Internet connections in hotels. And it can be a lifesaver if you really need fast Net access in some location where Wi-Fi isn’t available.

Citywide wireless broadband is now real — and widely available — in the U.S. Take that, Europe.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

But, just as the laptop is nipping at the heels of the desktop computer, another smaller, more mobile computing product is nipping at the heels of the laptop. It’s the hand-held digital device, including top-of-the-line cellphones and portable media players, notably Apple’s iPods.

The high-end cellphone is rapidly gaining functionality formerly reserved for the laptop. Phones like the Palm Treo, RIM BlackBerry and T-Mobile Sidekick have full keyboards, and are getting better and better at email, instant messaging, Web browsing, and even displaying and editing office documents. Other companies, like Motorola and Nokia, are racing to market with new entries in this category of do-it-all phones.

Apple’s iPod is nowhere near as versatile as the cellphone, and is mainly an entertainment device. But it is hugely popular, and includes nonmusic functionality found in laptops, such as large-scale file storage, playback of videos, and display of contact and calendar information.

Increasingly, it’s possible to leave a laptop home on some types of trips and rely on a combination of a high-end cellphone and an iPod, devices many people carry anyway for their core functions — making phone calls and listening to music. The added capabilities in these gadgets are, in effect, bonuses.

To test this theory, my wife, Edie, and I recently went on vacation to Ireland and Scotland without a laptop. I carried only a digital camera, a new video-capable iPod and a new, enhanced BlackBerry phone I was testing, the 8700c, which will soon be sold in the U.S. by Cingular.

Why I would even consider carrying a laptop, or anything to replace a laptop, on a vacation? I had a couple of business obligations to perform in the middle of the trip, and I needed Internet and email access for those. Also, I wanted some way to back up the photos from my digital camera, in case the camera was lost or stolen, or its memory card was accidentally erased. I needed to at least scan my email daily, so I wouldn’t be faced with literally thousands of unread messages when I returned. And, I like to be able to use the Web when traveling, to look up information on the places and sights I encounter.

A laptop can easily handle all of these tasks, but it’s a pain to schlep on a vacation and, sitting in your hotel room, it provides a major temptation for a tech addict like me to become screen-bound instead of enjoying the sights.

To my surprise, the no-laptop vacation worked really well. The experience convinced me that even some short, light-duty business trips could be conducted without a laptop.

The iPod was my solution to backing up my digital photos. Each night, after a long day of picture snapping, I connected my camera to the iPod using a $30 accessory called the iPod Camera Connector. The iPod quickly and easily sucked all my pictures into its large hard disk, without having to delete any music or videos. By the end, it held over 400 high-resolution photos of our trip, which it was able to display as a slide show.

The only downside to this process was that the iPod wasn’t smart enough to remember which pictures it had already backed up, or to allow me to select only the new ones. So, each night, it backed up the entire contents of the camera’s memory card, duplicating all the pictures it had already copied. But it worked.

I relied even more on the BlackBerry. The new 8700c model, which will cost $300, is the best BlackBerry yet. It is lighter and smaller than prior full-size models, and has a dazzling color screen.

Because my test BlackBerry used the same cellphone technology employed in Europe, it worked great in Ireland and Scotland for both phone calls and data. Before leaving for Europe, I set up my trusty Treo, which is a U.S.-only model, to forward my calls to the BlackBerry, and set up my email service at home to forward emails to the BlackBerry.

Stealing moments while waiting in lines, or riding in cabs, or sitting in the hotel room, I was easily able to use the BlackBerry to scan a deluge of email. I couldn’t have done this as conveniently, or with as little interruption in sightseeing, if I’d used a laptop, or relied on visits to Internet cafes or hotel business centers.

To my surprise, the Web browser on the new BlackBerry was very good and fairly fast. I was able to follow the news from home, and look up details of Irish and Scottish history and culture using the small gadget.

The only drawback to the BlackBerry was that I had to constantly monitor the email capacity of Cingular’s BlackBerry Internet Service, which governs how much email the hand-held can receive. It has a paltry limit of 25 megabytes, in an era when Google and others offer two gigabytes of capacity.

Still, my hand-held experiment turned out well. I was happy to see my beloved laptop when I got home. But I didn’t miss it on the road.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com