Over the past four years, I’ve gone through six Treos. One, admittedly, I lost while making out drunk in the back of a cab. But the other five, through no fault of my own, and after merely standard smart-phone use, self-destructed in sudden, unexpected, work-derailing ways. So, this time through, when my latest Treo stopped answering incoming phone calls, I decided to look into other options. I may be slow, but eventually I catch on.

For a few weeks, I Googled cellphone reviews obsessively, and even considered leaving behind my long-loved T-Mobile (with whom I’ve been since their Voicestream days), in search of the perfect smartphone. Fortunately, however, the bluebird – or, rather, the BlackBerry – of happiness was in my own backyard, as I eventually settled in on the spanking new T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl.

During my Treo years, I endured countless ‘refrigerator phone’ jokes, was often forced to reply, “actually, that is a phone in my pocket, and I’m not just happy to see you.” So the Pearl’s form factor alone was nearly enough to convert me. Thinner than a Razr, swankily silver and black, it had a look that, refreshingly, implied ‘indie film hip’ rather than ‘corporate tech support worker not-so-much’. In fact, it didn’t even include a belt clip.

And, it turns out, it works well, too. The phone sounds clear, the email functionality has been far better than the Treo’s, the PDA software syncs cleanly with my Mac, the weird two-letter-to-a-key QWERTY is far, far better than I feared, and the Google Maps application has more than serviceably replaced Vindigo, a piece of software I’d previously assume I couldn’t possibly live without.

Plus, as an added bonus, Jess’ corporate BlackBerry is apparently attached to her like a pacemaker, allowing me to harass her via BlackBerry Messenger IM throughout the day or evening. Which is good, as we’re both inexplicably semi-retarded when we speak to each other via phone.

So, in short, the BlackBerry Pearl = crazy delicious. If you’re carrying any other smartphone, do your dorky self a favor, trade in for one of these suckers, and get as close as you can – while still, frankly, remaining kind of a smartphone-carrying loser – to looking at least passably cool.