Vincent and I have had the odd argument over the past few months, and it’s all the fault of the iPhone.  I say that the absence of 3G high-speed data connectivity is a deal-breaker; he tells me that making do with EDGE and WiFi really hasn’t proved to be a major issue for him.  It all boils down to the sheer usability of the iPhone’s Safari browser and how pleasurable it makes surfing.  I’ll have to wait until Apple bring the handset to the UK at the end of the year to find out how true that is, but it’s a conclusion certainly shared by Information Week.  They gathered together handsets running the Palm, WM6 and BlackBerry OSes and pitted them against the iPhone in a browser Royal Rumble.

It’s not difficult to guess which handset won: the iPhone, of course.  None of the other three could compete in terms of ease of use, intuitiveness of control and general presentation of the full internet on a mobile device.  What’s key for me personally is this quote from David DeJean’s summary:

“One thing that became obvious to me as I looked at these various Web interfaces is that data speed isn’t as important as good software”

I admit, having been used to 3G handsets for a while now, I still have reservations.  But there seems to be an overwhelming body of reporting that reinforces the idea that the iPhone might just be the best way to explore the ‘net while mobile.