In ChangeWave's recent Smart Phone report

In ChangeWave's recent Smart Phone report, the results showed a rapidly evolving two-horse race between Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry and the Apple (AAPL) iPhone - with second tier companies like Palm (PALM) and a host of others being shoved to the sidelines.

To follow-up, this report takes a closer look at the features users love and hate most about their BlackBerrys and iPhones as part of a March 2008 survey of 864 smart phone owners.

The previous report showed excellent consumer satisfaction levels for the two top rated smart phone frontrunners MBT Sport 2 - with Apple sporting a 79% Very Satisfied rating for its iPhone models and RIM grabbing a highly respectable 54% rating for the BlackBerry. But what is it about these two brands that have consumers so very satisfied?

RIM BlackBerry

We first asked RIM BlackBerry owners. By an overwhelming margin, the feature they liked most is the BlackBerry's extraordinary access to email (56%).

No other feature comes even close in terms of popularity. As respondent MBR29407 explains, "The email integration of the BlackBerry 8800 is probably its single best feature, but I am constantly amazed at the quality of the phone itself." NEW06507 adds "I like the seamless way my BlackBerry works with corporate MBT Karani Shoes, email, and the way you can call a number from within an email by highlighting it."

BlackBerry owners also reported a few key dislikes, number one being the speed and quality of its Internet browsing experience (13%). A second major dislike was the size of the keypad (11%), with owners complaining that the MBT Tunisha Shoes, keys are too small and cause too many typing errors. "The overlaid keyboard (two letters per key) and TrueType feature make my BlackBerry slow to type messages without errors," reported respondent PET91787.