i have the Bold, and the straight and simple is that you cant geek out with BlackBerries.

I have to give BB that their intuitive means of organizing contacts, and allowing you to select the means of communication (BBM, call, PIN, MMS, SMS, etc) right from within the contacts app is a real convenience. *AHEM* protocol association *AHEM*

The screen on the bold is like no other BlackBerries screen, but surfing the net on it SUCKS DONKEY NUTS. pages are zoomed out, scrolling every which way, because half the last word on a line is obscured beyond the side of the screen... if your trackball sensitivity isnt right, you cannot scroll to links that happen to be in an unfortunate place on the screen. overall hogwash in terms of usability.

the BIS or how the phone gets to the internet when using cellular or WiFi access proxies the connection with a squid 3.6 version (cool), but does not allow you to circumvent the proxy (not cool) and is proxied in canada (invasion of my rights to privacy as an American citizen) as those oppressed liberals watch my traffic even more closely than the Bush-ist PATRIOT act allows for. for those who care, i would need to put my squid instance into transparent/intercept mode, and make the linux box the default router on the network to force the blackberry through my proxy. The BES server for Exchange has a mechanism to allow the configuation of the proxy that the BBs uses, but i dont have that, dont run exchange, and dont want to invest that much into a phone that will be replaced with the n900.

The wifi stack is horrible, and frequently drops connection to my AP. Its the only device i have that does this. 2 laptops, printer, n800, wii - they all stay connected without problems. the bold wont stay connected for more than 10 - 20 mins, and then reverts back to cellular connectivity. PITA

the available apps for the BB arent that cool either. and the selection is poor. most are pay apps, and the few that are cool lose their luster quick. i really havent found too much in terms of useful or amusing apps that i would install on my bold. i found an ssh client, and was a bit apprehensive on using it, as i didnt know/trust the source. i removed it once i realized it could only go through the cellular network. screw that.