5. Size Matters: Dinky Doesn't Work, Continued

Now for the really, really crappy part of smart phone design: All that multiple pressing of the numeric keys required to get the letter you want. You press the "4" key once for a "G", twice for an "H" and three times for an "I". Choosing between upper and lower case and numbers is a nightmare. Sure the phones offer suggestions as to which word you're hunting for, but I'm so busy concentrating on hitting the right key that I rarely see the suggestion.

With smart phone generated email messages I have two options: send a nearly unreadable message or spend most of my life correcting bad key press errors so I can send a meaningful missive. And, don't tell me about those 15 or 20 canned messages that come with these dingbat devices. I guess if you live your life in a can you can use canned messages. My life is too varied and rich for my communications to be covered by messages like "Honey, I'll be home in 15 minutes."

I find it much, much, much easier to type out real email messages on my Blackberry 7250 than on my Motorola V557. In fact, I've given up responding to email on the V557. When I'm carrying only it, I read my email and wait to reply until I get to my Blackberry, my Sony wireless WAN enabled laptop or my home brewed desktop computer.

And, that's not all. Have you ever tried to navigate around a smart phone? Cripes! Aside from hitting the correct keys, the functions of the specialized and generic keys and the joystick seem to change with every new screen. I especially hate the way the up, down, left and right arrows on the joystick change function and how the joystick button sometimes executes the same command as the right most generic key and sometimes doesn't.

Finally, I really love the key on the right on Motorola phones with the little red phone receiver and a power symbol below it. Who would ever guess that you can not only hang up calls with the key, but also turn the phone off and, ahem, turn it on. You can press on the key with the green phone receiver on the right all day and the phone won't turn on. It's sort of like the Start button in Windows XP. You click it to stop (shut down) your computer. Phooey!

So, smart phones are no match for PDAs when it comes to actually getting things done. Join me in the next section where I'll compare the way the smart phones and my Blackberry implement key services like email, contacts and calendar synchronization as well as Internet access.