That’s exactly what Galen Gruman of IDG Connect and InfoWorld was wondering, so he decided to experiment.

Not one to steer clear of a challenge or the chance to be labeled "crazy" by colleagues, I decided to spend a month seeing how far I could go toward replacing my laptop with one of the two more popular smartphones on the market, the BlackBerry 9000 (Bold) and the iPhone 3G.

The experiment makes for interesting reading – frustrating at times, yet joyful at others.

Downtime on my train-and-bus commute, where I normally catch up on magazines, was no longer downtime. Neither were rides to and from the airport. Nor many moments standing in line for coffee, groceries, and so on. “Going smartphone” kept me up with everything that was happening at the office and with colleagues, no matter the time zone difference between us.

Accessing the Web on the iPhone is a positive experience. The Safari browser handles most modern Web pages, and the ability to zoom and scroll via gestures makes navigation simple. Forms, menu options, graphics, DIVs, and MP3 files all work.

Click the links for the Apple iPhone 3G experiment and the Blackberry Bold experiment.