The BlackBerry 957 is for e-mail power users. If you've ever been stuck out of the office and unable to check your e-mail, the wireless 957 BlackBerry is for you. If you are a professional who needs to send an e-mail while you're on the road or trapped in a meeting, the BlackBerry 957 is what you need.

The 957 BlackBerry looks almost like a Palm device and is a definite improvement over the dinky 950 model, which looks like a pager. The 957 BlackBerry is smaller and lighter than the Palm VII and has a rechargeable battery. The viewing screens are a similar size but I felt the BlackBerry was easier to read. Both have the black-type-on-green-background display. The BlackBerry costs $100 more at the full retail price. But the compelling difference is that the BlackBerry 957 is a radio device that is always turned on and has software that will re-direct incoming e-mail directly to the 957 handheld. You are never out of touch.

For clarification: RIM is the manufacturer in Ontario, Canada, BlackBerry is the hardware, and 957 is the model number.

It was truly exciting the first time the BlackBerry vibrated and peeped when a new message arrived (I know, I'm easily amused). The alert felt very urgent. I could check the handheld to see whether the e-mail was important and respond immediately if I needed to. Like the Palm handhelds, the BlackBerry 975 also comes with a docking cradle, which allowed me to synchronize my Outlook address book and calendar on my desktop computer.

I love the 957 BlackBerry's ability to look up a phone number or email address anywhere, anytime. With that information, I can send an e-mail immediately from a taxi, from an airplane seat or from my favorite coffee shop. In the morning I can check my appointments in a day, week, month or handy "agenda" view, which displays only dates when I have an appointment. I like being organized and this handheld keeps me on time and in touch.

If you can program a VCR, you'll have no trouble operating a BlackBerry. It took me a few tries to get the hang of the tiny keyboard buttons, which mimic a desktop keyboard. But I mastered it quickly. This compared to the tedious process of learning to operate the Palm VIIx; it took me weeks to learn to navigate in the Palm and to learn the Graffiti writing function. Luckily I have a technophile friend who coached me and encouraged me not to give up.

The BlackBerry redirects email from an existing email account. The device is always on and connected, so I receive email in real time. The 957 can be installed in two ways: to redirect email from office email (which would require the help of my firm's IS network staff) or to redirect my personal email account. I chose to forward my personal ISP email so that I could stay up-to-the-minute.

This meant, however, that I needed to keep a desktop PC on and running all the time for the redirection to work. Redirection simply forwards a copy of the message to the handheld; it does not delete it from the desktop (unless I set it to delete email automatically when I place the 957 in its cradle). Installation was a hassle and I needed help from RIM's tech support staff, which thankfully was very knowledgeable.

The Palm VIIx required me to get a new email address, at Palm.net. Like many businessmen, I already have an office and personal email address and I was unhappy about having to keep track of yet a third email address. So I use the Palm VIIx only to transmit email, although it can be used to receive as well. Plus, to send and check messages I had to turn the device on, raise the antenna, tap an icon and wait a minute for the mail to arrive.

I put the BlackBerry into its cradle every day, so the battery never ran down. The company says it'll run two weeks without a recharge. To save battery life, I can set the 957 to switch itself off - say at midnight - and to turn itself on at 6 a.m., and to make a beeping sound to wake me up in the morning. The Alert feature can be set to sound a tone, vibrate, make both a tone and vibrate, or show an on-screen message.

Like the Palm, the BlackBerry displays a reminder message on the screen about pending appointments. Being a Palm veteran, I kept tapping the screen but the message wouldn't go away. Then I remembered that I had to press the Escape key on the BlackBerry instead. Old habits die hard.

A drawback to the BlackBerry is the miniature keys are hard to see. On the BlackBerry, to type punctuation marks and numbers, I must press the orange Alt key with the appropriate key. I needed an up-to-date pair of reading glasses to see the tiny orange period, apostrophe, and comma marks on the BlackBerry keyboard. The punctuation marks are like specks of dust. The keyboard does include a very handy Delete key, which is used to get rid of typos, old messages and appointments in one click. I decided to enter the information by using my desktop computer, and then syncing the data over to the BlackBerry.

I was disappointed that the BlackBerry appointment calendar doesn't show "all-day" events properly; it lists them all as occurring at Noon. There is no way to create an appointment with no specific time, as I can do with the Palm VIIx. I use my calendar to record tasks and to-do items that I must do on a particular day, without specifying a time; the BlackBerry's inability to do this spoils this handy calendar feature.

One of my favorite things on the Palm VIIx is to browse the Web, using its web clipping feature that shows text-only selections of Web site. I can download news, weather, restaurant listings, travel info, yellow pages, driving directions and stock quotes. The BlackBerry does the same thing using the GoAmerica's Go.Web or WolfeTech's PocketGenie service. GoAmerica is preloaded onto the BlackBerry but costs an extra $10 to $20 per month to use. When accessing the web over a wireless modem, both the Palm and BlackBerry can make me wait up to a minute before I see any content. The connection speed is about the same as a 28.8K dialup modem. But it's tolerable if all I want is a quick weather forecast or the after-the-close earnings report of a stock I'm following.

Will the BlackBerry take the handheld market by storm? It will be tough, because 88% of all the handheld PDAs run on the Palm operating system (including Handspring Visor devices), according TheStreet.Com. In addition, Microsoft is trying to attract buyers of devices with its Windows CE operating system, fancy color screens and the unnecessary ability to play music files. Handhelds are starting to get junked up with pointless features like a global-positioning unit, a clip-on camera and voice recorder. In my opinion, this like putting antlers on a cow - interesting but unneeded. If you primarily want email and you want it immediately, the BlackBerry is the best choice.