Having a BlackBerry makes one reflect on those flyblown theories that all our communications will converge on the mobile phone. I’ve just spent a few days in Donegal where I was for the most part deprived of wired connections to the Net, so the BB became my prime communications channel. And it works fine — in the sense that stuff gets through. But wading through a stack of email messages on a small screen, and replying to them using an ingenious but fiddly keyboard (which, for example, always assumes that when I type ‘see’ I really mean ‘are’), is not something I would wish on anyone. It’s fine for a few days, in extremis, but not really viable as a sole platform. And although it’s terrific to be able to access Google or BBC Online from anywhere with a GPRS signal, browsing on such a small screen is purely for masochists. The laptop has some life in it yet.