Mobile e-mail the new communication choice
By JONATHAN SIDENER Copley News Service

Look around any airport waiting area, courthouse corridor or trendy restaurant and you're bound to find busy professionals thumb-typing on their shrunken keyboards.

Road warriors, lawyers and other deal-makers find sustenance in mobile e-mail. In the past, chances were, typing on a BlackBerry. But that's changing. Maybe they prefer the Palm Treo, or the Motorola Q, or the Samsung Blackjack, or any of at least a half-dozen other phones from Sony Ericsson, LG, Nokia and Kyocera that come with little keyboards.

In recent months, manufacturers have been cranking out a slew of new models optimized for mobile e-mail. Most sport "QWERTY" keyboards on their faceplates. Others, such as the new Wing from HTC and TMobile, have hidden keyboards that slide or flip into view. And the iPhone offers a virtual keyboard on its touch screen.

Manufacturers and cell phone carriers appear to be convinced that phones with keyboards are the way of the future, that every butcher, baker and candlestick maker needs the same level of information connectivity as a stockbroker, Hollywood agent or chief engineer at a nuclear reactor.

A generation ago, only doctors and other important people could afford or justify the need for portable pagers, but over time, the exclusivity and price fell. Eventually, nearly every kid in the neighborhood had pagers to summon them home for dinner. In some ways, the e-mail phone is this generation's version of the pager. At first, it was a status symbol that spoke of its owner's indispensability. But with competition from the new models, smart phones with full keyboards are coming down in price. Not long ago, most cost at least $600. Today several can be bought for around $100, along with a two-year contract.

"Some people buy technology as a status symbol," San Diego technology psychologist Larry Rosen said. "They feel that as soon as somebody else has a new gadget, they need to have one. They're the early adopters who tend to carry it and show it off." Rosen, who recently bought his first BlackBerry, said there are two other types of consumers for a BlackBerry-type device, those who need mobile email access for productivity and those who are enamored with the technology, even if they don't need it.