Originally Posted by ungratefulninja

For just email the Blackberry is the way to go. The 8700 has a faster connection than the older 7290 it replaced. The Nokia 9300 (look on cingular.com or nokiausa.com) also has blackberry connect. It will allow you to do a couple more things than the RIM-made Blackberry devices, like play music. It has a wider screen than just about anything else, which is nice for web-surfing. It doesn't have a vibrate feature, oddly enough.

With the blackberry options you're going to miss out on a camera. If you want to still have that, I'd go with either Treo 650 or the Windows-based 8125. Every I know that's tried the smaller 2125 hates it. Personally I think the Treo is more convenient to use. The camera is nicer on the 8125. The 8125 is made by HTC, so you might have a harder time finding accessories for it.

If you're in a major city most of the time (I'm not) Cingular is rolling out Broadband Connect (UMTS) - which is going to offer a lot faster internet speeds. It's kinda like Verizon's EVDO. None of the devices mentioned can do this. You could wait until someone comes out with a smartphone that can handle UMTS.

BTW, if you would want to use your smartphone as a modem for a laptop, Cingular now officially supports the Blackberry for doing that. It's a little extra each month.