BlackBerry Bold-ly Surpasses iPhone

Listen up, $99 Apple(AAPL Quote) iPhone wannabes: behold the small-business majesty of the BlackBerry Bold.

Trust me, it's not as glamorous as it sounds, but my job actually is ordering up promising gadgets for small-business customers. I, and my associates, usually test these units for a couple of weeks. There are, however, the rare few gadgets -- or services -- that ace that test and get deployed in this little digital world of ours for a deeper, more real-world test.

The BlackBerry Bold, from Research In Motion(RIMM Quote), was one of my elite little soldiers. ($199 with plan from AT&T(T Quote))

I've been testing it since January, and -- being an ethical journalist who isn't allowed to keep freebies, darn it (!) -- next week I have to send it back. I don't mind saying I'm feeling more than a little upset about our pending separation. Here's why: For small-business people looking for a good portable, do-it-all business tool, the Bold is the state of the small-biz art.

What you get: The Bold is not merely a smart phone, it is a portable small-business computing solution.

After six months of near-constant use, it's no understatement to say this unit does all things small business. Setting up of our mobile corporate e-mail was a one-touch affair that took just 20 minutes. And I found I could use both BlackBerry's service and the mobile Web version we use through Google(GOOG Quote) Apps simultaneously almost without a hitch. I found mobile messaging to be remarkably robust. As was mobile picture mail. Calendaring. Contacts. Mapping. Wi-Fi connectivity. It all just rocked. The mobile versions of Microsoft(MSFT Quote) Word and Excel were terrific. I filed stories regularly using the device.