As I fly home from a long week of meetings, parties and the over abundance of mobile phones I think I’ve seen the future. I imagine this is the same all over the world and in many industries and that it will trickle down into the general population.

Every year I see a trend and find that I’m noticing 1 phone stands out more then the rest in that it’s more commonly seen during MWC being used by the mass of people there. I will say I’m still shocked at how many feature phones I see at this show from people in the mobile industry, it’s amazing and not in a good way. Last year it was the HTC Nexus One (that could have been because Google gave a ton of them away at the show) and the year before that it was the Nokia E71 and the year before that it was the Nokia N95 and N95 8gig. Every year I see lot’s of iPhones but they’re not everywhere like you might imagine if you live in the US.

Well this year was unique. The device to have was not a phone. The most popular device to have that I saw was the iPad. It seemed like everyone had them. Some people told me they had a laptop in their hotel room to get serious work done and others said that that’s all they brought with for computing. Now here’s the interesting thing. It wasn’t just the iPad I noticed, it was a combination. It seemed like many of the iPad users had a BlackBerry to compliment their iPad’s. With the iPad you get all the greatness of iOS and it’s similar to an iPhone but with the BB you get a great email experience enhanced by the QWERTY keyboard and battery life of the BB. It’s a match made in heaven and I can definitely see why people go for it. Additionally BB’s use much less data then an Android or iPhone which is great when traveling abroad.

I see this as a combo that might last an entire year we just might see it back at MWC again as the combination to have. Or maybe it will be a BB combined with a Rim PlayBook.

Stay tuned for much more MWC ’11 coverage.

So I’ve been a big user of the Ovi Store lately.  It has come a long way in the last few months and I’m very keen on it.  But while I was in Barcelona a few months back I had a meetings about the Ovi Store and voiced my frustration that I couldn’t purchase handsets from it.  I said how silly it was and I thought they were missing out on an untapped market.  Some people don’t have computers and some (like me) don’t have shops to visit to purchase Nokia handsets.  Then it happened…

Last week I was on top of the world.  I had a great day and I was thinking it was time to get a brand new white Nokia E72.  So I actually (knowing it wouldn’t be there) opened the Ovi Store app on my E71 and searched for the E72.  Of course it didn’t appear.  It didn’t even give me a link to go and buy the phone from the Nokia website.  Seriously Nokia, there needs to be a link that appears if I search for any of your phones that will shoot me off to give me a chance to purchase the phone.

So Nokia missed the boat on me.  Sunday morning I was in a bad mood about an email and when I thought about it I was in no mood to spend the money to purchase and E72.  If it was only possible for me to buy the phone somehow via the Ovi App Store they would have made a sale.  And I know I’m only 1 person but how many people do they lose out on in a day/week/month because they can’t buy from their phones?

Now I also know some people will say, “I don’t want a $300-$400 phone on my phone bill”, fine, ask me for a credit card.  I don’t mind.  I’m used to shopping on line and I don’t find my phone to be any less secure then my computer.

I don’t think any of the mobile phone app stores sell handsets and I just don’t get it, not at all.  I can imagine someone dumping their phone in the sink accidentally (I didn’t say toilet because I wanted to be classy) and killing it.  People can’t live without their phones so I would imagine them borrowing a friends phone and buying a new one on the spot, no questions asked.  So Nokia, let’s get the show on the road, it would have been nice to have purchased the E72, but I’ll have to live with my old E71 a little longer.

So I used the E75 for a while then went back to my trusty E71 and back and forth and back and forth for weeks now.  I love the format of my E71 but like the menu and speed of the E75.  Plus the E75 has US 3G and my E71 doesn’t.

I keep telling myself be patient the E72 is coming.  SO WHERE IS IT NOKIA?  We haven’t heard a peep in what feels like months about the E72.  I’m actually getting tempted to buy an iPhone to tide me over until the E72 arrives.

I was told that it should be out around CTIA in San Diego next week.  Well next week is almost here.

Import thing is I’ve been told that emoze and Truphone will both work on the E72.  I would imagine that Nimbuzz and JoikuSpot will also because they work on the E75.  So I’m set in terms of my must have apps.

Now I was told that there would not be a North American version but I was then reminded that probably meant that it wouldn’t be picked up by a provider like AT&T or T-Mobile but that Nokia would still launch it.  My only question is how long will we have to wait for the NAM version?  Nokia has a nasty habit (except for 2 handsets recently) of launching NAM versions weeks or even months after the European variant is made available.  So let’s hope they launch at the same time.

A few reasons I’m so excited about this handset is that it will have the same physical format as the E71.  It will have the upgraded firmware including Feature Pack 2 and have the juiced up processor/RAM.  Lastly because of the 5mp camera and 3.5mm headphone jack.

I’m tapping my fingers on my desk as I wait………

So as all of my readers know I’m a hard core Nokia E71 fanboy.  I’ve been infatuated with the E71 since I first heard about it roughly 2 years ago.  Now I’m impatiently waiting for the much anticipated E72 but I decided to whip out the E75 I was graciously lent for review and have been using it for 4 days now.  Hot shit, this phone is great.  I forgot how much I liked it.  It’s not perfect but I’m really digging it.  I forgot how much I liked it when I first used it.

S60 3rd edition feature pack 2 is really a nice upgrade to the E71′s feature pack 1.  There are so many little things I like more about it, but what the E75 is missing is memory/RAM.  The E75 seems to stall out sometimes and needs a reboot but that’s really my only single complaint about the software.  Of course it could be a little faster and of course it could have more of this or smarter that, but in general it’s all around solid software.

As far as the hardware goes it’s a candy bar style with a side slide QWERTY keyboard that’s 90% great and 10% ehh because of the lack of tactile feedback on the QWERTY portion.  I find it to be very useful and descent to type on.  You do need 2 hands to type on it because of the width of the keyboard which is good or bad depending on your preference.  Personally it is not my taste but I know quite a few people that are gaga over this style and particularly the E75.

Software wise the E75 does support the 4 apps I can’t live without and of course many many more apps but in particular
emoze – a push email and content client (my companies client)
Truphone – mobile VOIP offering me cheap international calls around the world and to my home country when I’m traveling
JoikuSpot – an app that turns my phone into a wifi hotspot by rebroadcasting the 3G it pulls in
Nimbuzz – an instant messaging (IM) client that supports GChat, Skype, MSN, AOL, Yahoo and ICQ

All in all the E75 is a solid piece of kit that doubles and triples as multiple devices.  Regular phone, VOIP, email, IM and wifi hotspot one by one or all at once.  This phone won’t disappoint and won’t let you down.  I have high regard for it but it’s not perfect because of the minimal RAM.  Most people would never miss it but I like to run everything all at once so if you’re a power user hold out a little longer for the E72 or something else otherwise I say pick one up and enjoy.

I hate to be a complainer about things and I tend to only be the squeaky wheel when it’s necessary.  Well this is really annoying.  I’m a huge fan of Nokia and they are good to me but there’s something about all their phones that drives me bonkers.  Nokia S60 phones are little computers and that’s what I like, but they are computers and as computers go, need to be restarted every so often.  Now I install all kinds of beta apps and sometimes even alpha apps.  I do a lot of email and just use my phone a great deal, being a computer it freezes and crashes every so often.  So what I need Nokia to do is add a restart option.

When I hit the power button to change profiles I would like to see a restart option.  Dozens of times I’ve had to restart my phone and forget to turn it back on after shutting it down and putting it down.  I can’t imagine that it’s a big deal to add this into the menu and for Nokia to include an app that will restart the phone.  This is actually a really big deal for me having a child I have to be reachable all the time.

Does this bother anyone else?  Do you ever shut your phone off but forget to turn it back on?  I can’t be the only one…

So I just looked up the Nokia E72 on the Nokia website and noticed that it is missing a few things.  First off it won’t have included in the packaging a wrist strap or pouch like the E71 had.  It’s not a huge thing but come on, this is supposed to be a step up from the E71.  I know I know

Second thing is that it is apparently coming in 3 versions, Euro, US and a third I believe is APAC. What’s missing is the 3rd band on all the handsets.  They are all 4band GSM but only 2band 3G according to Nokia Europs Spec page.  Your options are

• E72-1 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 900/2100 HSDPA
• E72-2 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900 HSDPA
• E72-3 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/2100 HSDPA

Now I was under the impression this handset was going to be tri-band 3G.  Am I reading this wrong or or does the HSDPA count as a band?  If so what wave length is it?  I’m just trying to figure out which model to get.

Alert: This just in: I was told my a Nokia employee that we will not see a US/NAM version of the E72 released anytime soon.  I am extremely disappointed about that and don’t really know what to think.  I’m now perplexed what to do and what model to get.

I haven’t written about the E72 on the blog yet because I was waiting for some reviews to come in and now one has, Eldar from Mobile-Review posted his thoughts and I only found it thanks to Stefan at IntoMobile.  Now I’m ready to talk.

The E72 is going to rock and is stepping up Nokias game.  The device it self and the numbers it sells will be good to say the least.  I have been reading and 1 number that jumped out at me recently (I don’t remember where I read it, sorry) was that people are now replacing their smart phones at a rate of once every 14 months on average.  Whether it be by choice or because it got wet in the washing machine etc. it is happening.  That means more people are ready to buy more phones more often.

I have been using the E71 for a while now and I can’t seem to put it down.  I tried reviewing the N97 and E75 and couldn’t keep my sim in either.  It is just an amazing device and I keep telling people how amazed I am because it is a year old and I still keep going back to it.  So now I hear from Eldar that the E72 is even better then the E71 which I suspected it would be.  Nokia doesn’t take the E series lightly.  This means that Nokia is going to sell boat loads of these devices and accross the world it will be the “it” phone to have if you go for a QWERTY keyboard handset.

I think I’m like most people in that I see the E72 as a worthwhile upgrade.  I won’t stick to the E71 if I can get an E72 with a 5mp camera that blows the E71′s paltry 3.2mp (always with a blue tint) camera out of the water.  For me the camera and the feature pack 2 upgrades make the phone worth upgrading for.  At least I won’t have to carry around 2 phones now, 1 for taking pictures and one for everything else.

Anyways, keep your eyes open for the E72 and if you get the chance to pick one up or upgrade to it I highly suggest you do, I don’t think you will be disappointed.  I for one will be getting one as soon as I can.

So as many of my readers know emoze is a client of mine and I tend to write about them a great deal.  We are going to be launching an emoze blog very soon so there will be a great deal less posting about emoze on here.  This post is all about emoze but it’s definitely for this blog.

I have been using emoze for a while now on my beloved Nokia E71 but I was also using Nokia Messaging at the very same time.  I am a bit of a mobile email enthusiast and pretty addicted to being connected all the time.  I generally checked different email addresses with each of the different apps but a few weeks ago Nokia Messaging went down.  It is a good email app but just not super reliable.  I got tiered of not being able to count on it to always be getting my email.  So what do I do, I decide to go solely with emoze.  I could not be happier.  I have been using just emoze to collect my mail for a few weeks now and it has been wonderful.  I have the icon on my home screen letting me know all is well with emoze and I’m reliably getting all my messages now.

emoze is just rocking and rolling and I’m very excited about what’s coming out soon.  I’ll share a little secret, it has to do with emoze push email on the iPhone.  I know many of you are waiting patiently and I only ask that you continue.  I know it’s not easy but we want to get this right for you.

I left on vacation a few days back, as I write this I’m in the passenger seat of a giant 12 passenger Ford F350 van.  This thing is a monster but I like it. I’ve been preparing my electronic gear bag (I like to call it my toy bag) and I never know exactly what I’m going to bring until I leave.  I have also been updating the firmware on some of my phones (N85, N79, and N97) and in the case of my E71 I had to reinstall all my apps and have it ready for this big trip.  So I decided to make a list of all the apps I’m putting on my E71.

• emoze – push email – 1 email or facebook account is free, then it’s a yearly subscription
• Taskman – manage the apps on my phone – 1 time fee
• Nokia Email – mobile email – free for now but will start charging for it
• Ovi Maps 3.0 – map program -free with option to buy voice guidance
• Ovi Contacts – mobile IM – free
• Ovi Store – place to download apps for Nokia phones
• Qik – Video Capture and instant upload to the web – free
• Gmail Java app – mobile email – free
• Google Maps – java map app – free
• Skyfire – web browser – free
• Truphone -mobile VOIP (highly recommend) – free within SIP network and paid for other
• Boingo – agrigated wifi service – paid
• Nimbuzz – IM and VOIP – free
• Fring – IM and VOIP – free

This isn’t a complete list but what I put on for this trip knowing I needed my phone to be my single point of communication at some times.

Update: Truphone is my lifesaver. I had nearly 0 reception in my cousins newly remodeled basement and not very good reception anywhere else in their house and Truphone made it possible for me to conduct a few business calls and conference calls I needed to participate in.  I also loved how easy it was to reroute my Google Voice # to my Truphone # in just a few seconds.  Once again Truphone combined with Google Voice (previously Grand Central) saved the day land kept me working.