The best thing about the new BlackBerry Bold 9930 is its form factor. It's simply fantastic. The new Bold is the first "candy bar" style BlackBerry with both a traditional, "physical" QWERTY keyboard and touch screen. The device also features the common BlackBerry Send/End calling keys, Menu and Return/Escape buttons and the BlackBerry trackpad for additional modes of navigation. All of these elements work seamlessly together to provide a wonderful navigation experience.

The keyboard on the new Bold 9930 is without question the best keyboard RIM has ever shipped on a handheld. And it's the best smartphone keyboard I've ever used. If messaging and typing are of the essence to you--and I know they are for many business users--you'll want to consider the Bold 9930 for the keyboard alone.

I was a bit skeptical of the new Bold's combined trackpad/touch screen navigation, but have discovered that it works very well. I find myself mostly using the touch screen for scrolling through message lists, selecting and deleting e-mail, zooming in and out in the browser and for other general navigation. If I want a bit more precision to, say, click on a link within some tiny text on a webpage, I can simply jump over to the trackpad, which activates a cursor for a bit more control than just clicking with the larger surface of a thumb or forefinger.

I easily and quickly got used to the touchscreen/trackpad navigation combination. After just a week or so, I was hopping back and forth between screen and trackpad, where appropriate, without even thinking about it--a good indicator of a well-designed UI experience.

The Bold 9930 is RIM's thinnest BlackBerry ever, and it fits unobtrusively into a pants or shirt pocket. A brushed, real stainless-steel bezel adds both style and durability. The glassy-epoxy battery cover not only looks cool, it's functional as well, since it contains a key component that enables the Bold's Near Field Communications (NFC) support. (I do have a few complaints about the battery cover and NFC, but I'll elaborate in the following section.) And I'd be remiss to not mention the cool, new backlit trackpad, which, along with the backlit keyboard, makes the device easier to use in dark environments.