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.

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.

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.

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