Curve's unique appeal lies in its lifestyle attributes. It has a camera accompanied by a bright white LED, but software is lacking. On the device I tested, camera mode blanks the display, so there's no viewfinder. After shooting an image, the camera complained that it was unable to save it. I expect that the camera will improve in future software releases, which, unlike Nokia and Microsoft, RIM always makes freely downloadable.

Curve's most satisfying personal touch is found in the BlackBerry Media Player. Yes, Virginia, you can leave your MP3 player or video iPod at home. Curve's video player is the same player that's on the BlackBerry 8800, but only Curve has stereo Bluetooth: Using a stereo Bluetooth headset like the Plantronics 590, you can listen to music on Curve from the other side of the room, and the wireless audio quality is identical to that of high-end wired headphones. The Plantronics 590 headset has remote control buttons for next and previous track, which are recognized in Curve's music player, and the mute button works to pause and play music. Like the 8800, Curve has a standard 3.5mm headset jack for wired listening and calling, a feature that I prize and which is becoming increasingly rare as Bluetooth takes over.

Curve is the first laid-back BlackBerry with a full keyboard, and its shortcomings are balanced by the fact that it is completely compatible with heavy, square BlackBerry devices. The difference is that Curve is more likely to be a mobile professional's phone, one that you'd buy yourself and use with your wireless operator's BlackBerry Internet Service. As a final note, AT&T has a U.S. exclusive on the 8300, but handsets that are purchased unlocked, or unlocked after purchase, will work on other GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks.

The HTC Advantage X7501 is a Windows Mobile 6 Professional handset that I didn't expect to like, but after I figured out what it was designed to do, it soon became my favorite battery-operated device.

The X7501 shares iPhone's can't-put-it-downedness. The display is of extraordinary quality. The screen resolution is 640-by-480, and even at its lowest brightness, the white is snow white. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the display is the most expensive part in this handheld.

The X7501 shares Windows Mobile 6 Professional with the T-Mobile Wing, so it has all of the qualities described in the T-Mobile Wing review. HTC licensed the Opera browser. Opera has a substantially different feel next to Pocket Internet Explorer, which is also standard on the X7501. The browsers are enhanced by HTC's proprietary VueFlo, an innovation that scrolls Web content up and down as you tilt the handset. This struck me as a novelty until I realized that without the keyboard, there's no easy way to scroll smoothly through a Web site. VueFlo worked for me, but only when I set it to low sensitivity. Otherwise, a mild tilt would send a Web page zipping off the top or bottom of the screen before I could set the display flat.

Unfortunately, VueFlo only works in Internet Explorer or Opera, not both, and it functions in no other Windows Mobile applications. The only other place I'd find it useful is in Adobe Reader.

Once again, Windows Media Player inexplicably turned in a pitiful performance with video. A freeware app called TCPMP plays video content without dropping frames. A TCPMP add-in called flvbundle enables direct viewing of full-resolution Flash video content from YouTube, Google Video, Veoh, and other sites. With its 8GB Microdrive plus swappable, expandable SD memory, you can blow raspberries at your iPhone-toting friends.

The X7501's three-megapixel camera is autofocus, rather than fixed focus as most phone cams are, so you will get satisfyingly blurred backgrounds in bright light. The attached LED light is no substitute for a flash. Close-in objects shot with this light are usually overexposed. The X7501 won't make you want to leave your camera at home, but it will do in a pinch, and it shoots movies as well.

As a phone, the X7501 is, well, not a phone in the traditional sense. You can't hold it to your face, and I'm glad that HTC didn't even try to make that possible. The X7501 works just fine as a speakerphone, and it mates with every Bluetooth headset I tested, including the Plantronics 590 stereo headset. This handheld also has a headphone jack, in part, so that you can connect the X7501 to a monitor or projector and a speaker system. HTC includes a VGA adapter in the box, so you can jack it straight into a data projector and run the slides that you organized in Pocket PowerPoint without transferring them to a PC. At 640-by-480, it's a little tight, but it beats balancing a notebook on a podium. An optional cable uses the same connector to output a composite or S-Video TV signal, but I didn't get that cable for testing.