Well, I've got it. Due to a cockup in the ordering process, I'll have another one tomorrow, but that's not important right now.

Build: solid. Nothing squeaks, creaks or feels cheap. The box contains the handset, the CD and booklets, a SIM card, charger and adapters, case in rich Corinthian leatherette, USB cable and headset. Disappointingly, Vodafone didn't see fit to chuck in a microSD card, so I'm stuck with the onboard storage for now. 16GB cards are about £35. The handset is quite heavy, at a beefy 160g (about five and a half ounces); however, I think this lends it a feeling of quality more than density.

The battery came with a pleasing 50% charge, which meant that I could immediately start faffing about with the handset without fretting about charging it.

The screen is absolutely first-class. Brighter and crisper than my iPhone 3G, with better blacks. It's got a sort-of haptic thing going on, inasmuchas you flick around the resistive screen like you do on an iPhone, but then push to choose things, which results in a positive >click<. Weird as all fuck at first, but I think I like it. The on-screen QWERTY keyboard is frustrating at first but I've noticed that I've acclimatised pretty quickly over the course of the afternoon.

It's a complete culture shock coming from the Apple handset. There's lots more to twiddle and do. The visuals are nice; clean, clear icons abound. The dependence on menus is profound and pervasive. If you don't like picking things off menus, this isn't the UI for you. I find it surprisingly non-annoying... for now. Time will tell if this is a shitgripper or not.

It's got all the toys; 3G, WiFi, Quad-band, GPS, Bluetooth. Radio performance is pretty good, and voice quality is really good. This is a marked improvement over the iPhone, which has only so-so radio performance (although some of that is undoubtedly down to O2's frankly shit network in the UK) and voice quality. What really cheers me, though, is that it's fast. Hopping in and out of applications has much more snap than the iPhone, although there are many more rough edges in the interface design.

The messaging is really strong, with integrated support for email, SMS, MMS, PIN (whatever the hell that is), BlackBerry Messenger (WTHTI) and things like Facebook. All have a unified interface, which is clear and consistent. I can see email with this thing being very easy to handle.

The camera's OK; it has an LED flash and autofocus, but compared to some of the cameras being fitted to phones these days, it's pretty pedestrian. It'll do. Good enough for Facebook pictures of drunk people.

Importantly, the Mac software is good. BlackBerry Desktop Manager works well, even though it's a bit limited compared to the Windows version. Critically, it hooks into Sync Services to gain access to iCal and Address Book, and uses the iTunes public API to sync your music (>koff koff Palm Pre koff koff<) which means there should be no surprises. There's a reasonable amount of control over how sync is managed, too, in terms of when/what/conflict resolution.

It's no iPhone; the user interface is far more complex (the PDF user manual is 317 pages) and the actual feature set is greater, but it's got much less of a fun-oriented nature. There are some hilariously stupid bits in the quick-start leaflet; "don't use your BB when driving": OK. "Don't use non-RIM-approved holsters": WTF? "Don't use your BB whilst walking": Get a fucking grip. Printed documentation is minimal and not enough to sort you out if you have problems. Connecting to my WiFi network wasn't trouble-free (had difficulty actually working out how to enter the PSK) and I still have to divine how to get the thing to ignore the Vodafone network when there's WiFi about.

But then there's the useful "bedside" mode where it goes into dimmed mode with a clock (RIM thinking of the business traveller), and the preinstalled ringtone selection has far more that you'd be happy with in the office than is supplied by (say) Nokia or Apple.

Based on the past few hours, I think it's a keeper; the niggles in the interface are just that - and every phone ever made has those.