Samuel Keret the VP of Biz Dev at Waze (one of my personal favorite companies in the mobile space) gives us a few minutes.  Thank you to Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review for letting me film during his interview.

Waze has been doing some amazing things for a while now and from the inside stuff that I hear about them, it’s only getting better.  My source, not Samuel, was going over some numbers and it’s darn impressive.

Okay, so I’ve had the Nokia N85 NAM for about 2 months now and I have thoroughly enjoyed using it for the most part.  The UI speed is amazing.  It connects to the 3G/EDGE and wifi super quick.  I’m using it on AT&T.  The browser is fast.  The build quality is absolutely amazing (though I’m not a big fan of sliders).  Let’s not forget how utterly fantastic the picture and video quality is, it’s so good Channel 10 news in Israel used some pics I took with it.  I mean it’s far and away the best 5mp camera I have ever used.  It’s even better as a point and shoot then my old Canon Elph.  It is slow in processing the images but I have heard from sources at Nokia that this issue will be fixed in the upcoming firmware upgrade and I’ve seen it fixed in upcoming handsets like the N86 and N97.

Now I’m a big fan of Nokia and love to get these devices to review, but if I didn’t tell you what I didn’t like about the phone it wouldn’t be fair to you.  So here we go, 2 big gripes.

The screen sucks.  Let me be blunt, it’s hard to see the N85 screen when outdoors in direct sunlight.  That is to say I can see the screen but not what’s on it. This might have to do with the new amazing technology utilized by the screen called OLED.  Well it sucks.  Didn’t anybody take the phone outside to test before it went into mass production?  Now they can easily fix this issue on the next model by just putting in the older technology or turning up the brightness on the phone.  Don’t get me wrong, it is bad but the phone is definitely usable outdoors, it will just take a little extra work to see the screen.

My other gripe about the handset which I think is even more of a detraction is the stiff buttons around the D pad.  The menu, clear, and 2 soft keys are all to difficult to press.   You will notice this from the first moment you start using the phone.  Again this is an easy fix and I don’t think I need to explain it Nokia, they have already taken notice and the N86 is a whole lot better.

If you need a new handset today from Nokia I would say you won’t be disappointed with the N85, but if you can wait a few more months then I suggest you do and get the N86.  I like this handset and will continue to use it on and off but it’s not my daily phone.  That honor this week goes to the Nokia N79 and I have a review coming soon.

So I am going away for 3 weeks this winter.  I will  be visiting the beautiful country of Israel.  I am trying to line up my technology in advance for this trip and trying to keep it as light and little as possible.  I will have a handful of phones with me including the Nokia N78, N95, and my trusty yet dated E61i, I have a review netbook at the moment.  It is an Asus Eee PC 901 and I am loving it.  I also have a Proporta battery pack, which will keep my Nokias charged everywhere.  As for connectivity at airports and around the city I have a Boingo account that should keep me connected at the 4 airports I will be visiting and I hope lots of other locations around Israel.  I am concerned though that I will run out of juice on the netbook mid flight.  I am planning on making it a video  player for my daughter and I don’t want her upset the battery died mid Elmo episode.  I wish I could get a tip for my Proporta charger to use with the Asus.  I am considering purchasing a converter for use in cars and on the airplane to plug the Asus into.

I now have to start thinking about my connectivity to the grid.  I already have an Orange Big Talk sim card to use for my voice needs.  I am now looking into data so I can stay connected to email, IM, Jaiku, Twitter, and mobile maps and search.  I count heavily on mobile connectivity and being able to search and look up maps whille I’m mobile.  I am hoping that I can add data onto my Orange sim card but don’t have high expectations.  Last year when I was in Israel I had the sim in a Nokia N95 and it was not able to access the data I paid for.  My contingency plan for data is using United Mobile.  I have to check on the data rates but they usually pretty competitive.

Two of my favorite services I use everyday are GrandCentral and Truphone.  I take all my calls via GrandCentral and forward them to Truphone.  I can either answer the calls via Truphone or forward them to my current GSM #.  When I change sims upon landing in Tel Aviv the Truphone app on my phone will ask me if I want to forward my calls to my Orange sim versus my AT&T sim I use in the US.  This means I can have all my calls forwarded to my Orange sim in  Israel and not pay a penny for the service or to receive calls on the Orange sim.  If this is getting confusing to you imagine how I feel, but it works and it works quite well.  I did the same kind of thing when I was in Barcelona earlier this year using a Yoigo sim card.

I am traveling to Israel in a few weeks mostly for vacation and a little business on the side.  I have a local Orange BigTalk sim card that gives me an Israeli mobile number.  I will likely be using the Nokia N78 that runs S60 Feature Pack 2.  One thing I like about Nokia S60 devices is that they can hold my entire contacts database including notes about many of my contacts.  This is something I rely on heavily and really have a hard time living without.  In years past when I travel abroad I have had to clear my address book because I transfer the local numbers I have on my local sim cards to the device I’m using during that trip. I don’t like to have the 800+ numbers in my address book plus the 20 or 30 numbers on the local sim.

Anyways, to the point of this post, I popped my Orange BigTalk sim into the N78 a few nights ago and went into the contact settings.  I was happy to find that ability to change my view of the contacts from whats on the phone memory, to the sim card memory or to both.  This is fantastic news for me, I won’t have to remove any contacts from my address book, just change the settings.  I can’t tell you how uncomfortable I am without my entire address book at my fingertips.

I have now confirmed that this feature is specific to S60 Feature Pack 2 devices.  It appears obviously on the N78 and thanks to PhoneBoy I now know it also appears on the N96.  These were the first to FP2 devices to appear so I’m venturing to guess this feature will continue to be present in future FP2 handsets.

Now I just need to figure out if my Orange BigTalk sim can handle doing data on the N78 (it couldn’t do it on the N95 last year).  If anyone knows about this or someone can put me in touch with an English speaker from Orange I would be grateful for the help.

Interactive Voice and Video Response IVVR makes it possible to make voice calls and interact with the web. For example with DSPV you can check traffic, look up stock quotes, and check up on store pricing. This is absolutely amazing because with just a phone call you are able to check on local traffic and view a live stream of it on your mobile phone. It’s possible to actually interact with the web versus just use it. There is a great deal of potential and a huge future for this technology in my opinion.

WiNetworks is a WiMax vendor to the operators. They actually create the base stations for the operators. WiMax is (simply put) long distance WiFi, this means that all over a given area you can use your WiFi enabled device. Never having to look for a hotspot because the whole region is a hotspot. This is specifically beneficial in areas where phone lines and wired internet don’t reach. Ariel told me that Clearwire and Sprint may start to roll this out in the United States in the near future (I heard someone in the know confirming this in Barcelona airport). Also many smaller domestic operators are going to be offering the WiMax service (hopefully free of charge) to the general public. This will be fantastic if we can get companies to incorporate the technology in our phones and computers.