Took a visit to an AT&T store in Monterey, which was still bustling in the late morning. I briefly chatted with a scruffy twenty-something in the store who said he had spent the night outside to get his iPhone. Turns out there wasn’t much of a crowd when he got there so he and others went to see Hellboy II at midnight (it should not be surprising that anyone who finds Hellboy II to be good cinema would be willing to spend the night at a mall waiting for an iPhone).

As you may have seen by now, it was iChaos today. The AT&T staff looked like they all desperately needed a drink. This store, like others across the U.S., had sold out of phones, but had not run out of pushy customers trying to get their hands on one. Thanks, Apple, for not letting us buy this thing online.

Onto checking it out. The iphone 3G looks magnificent – and there is no denying the excellence of the user interface and the responsiveness of the touch screen. the new App store gives you days worth of extensions for your device. And the new 3G model feels even better in your hand than the first one. But such a decision can’t be made on cosmetics alone. If that were the case I’d be typing on a Macbook Air, but would have a weak processor, one USB port, and goofy icons on the bottom of my screen.

Put ‘em on the glass

Which brings me to an issue that ties up so many people with the iPhone: typing. This is probably one of those areas where it really comes down to user preference. With practice (by practice that means holding up others in AT&T stores while I play with an iPhone) I have become pretty solid at typing away on the glass. But it’s clear that over time, typing would be much faster on a Blackberry, as some are able to touch type without looking, just as I do on my laptop.

But there’s no beating that Safari browser. More on that later.

Final Blackberry Curve impressions: despite the rock-solid keyboard and navigation, I found some issues that kept me from being overwhelmed. For example, the trackball, while easy to use, left a crater in my thumb after 20 minutes of use. While the trackball is probably as good as you can get for a non-touchscreen phone, (the fact I used the phrase “non-touchscreen” shows how much has changed in this industry in a year due to the iPhone) I felt like my thumb has been transformed into a hamster scurrying on its wheel.

After playing with the Curve some more, I got a better hang of the OS. By quickly using the button with the Blackberry symbol (don’t have that key on my keyboard) you can quickly scroll through functions and get to other programs. When it comes to e-mail, there still probably isn’t a better device around. The BlackBerry is a solid, reliable phone in an ocean of pretenders.

Just got an email from a reader in Texas who is in a line that is wrapped around a mall and into a parking lot. It’s a phone, people! (Of course, kind of wish I was in one right now).