So I’m very excited about the E72.  It’s going to rock, blah blah blah, I can talk about it for hours.  I think it will change a few things for many people.  It looks like your average QWERTY keyboard phone, it will have good email (I use emoze), it will hopefully include Ovi Contacts (but I’ll still download my current favorite IM app called Palringo), the voice quality and speaker phone will be Nokia esqu… great, and it will be an all around solid phone.

Now what I think may change things for people is the 5mp camera built in.  It is not N97 quality but I think people will start to leave their point and shoot cameras at home and start relying more on their phone.  We’re already seeing this but the E72 is the first business class Nokia that will have a 5mp shooter.  It will give people the option to leave their pocket camera at home.  Or in my case leave the N97 or N79 at home.

Do you leave your P&S at home or do you lug around a small camera and a camera phone?  If you do or plan on owning a 5mp camera phone do you think you would leave a pocket camera at home more?  Let me know what you think.

I want to start off by thanking WOM World once again for sending me the amazing Nokia N97.  It is without a doubt in my mind one of the most technically advanced and good looking mobile phones on the market to date.  It blows many handsets out of the water, chews them up and spits them out, in some ways.  In other ways it’s inferior to much older phones produced by Nokia also.

To start with it’s beautiful when opened up.  I’m a fan of phones with a QWERTY keyboard and this bad boy sports a pretty reasonable keyboard when it’s opened up.  The buttons don’t give much feedback at all but sometimes that nice.  The phone feels good in your hand and in my pocket, it looks big in some aspects like thickness but it really isn’t all that thick compared to other similar devices.   Physically the N97 is just splendid, it incorporates so many aspects and does it well.

Now when it comes to the software it fails miserably in my opinion.  It’s not a phone for the meek.  I consider myself a well versed and competent Nokia phone user and in so many cases I stumbled around with the N97.   I have been able to hand almost any other Nokia S40 or S60 phone to my Dad and he can easily figure it out, I would not even attempt to give this phone to my Dad.  He would be lost and frustrated.  For example the auto rotation doesn’t always work when the phone is slid shut and going back and forth from vertical to horizontal and back.  The response is also quite slow to a point that I’m hitting things again because I think I missed it the first time and then I’m getting into the wrong app when it finally catches up.

I have had the N97 browser crash more times then I can count.  I think it may have something to do with the lack of built in Ram.   How can Nokia let that happen to a flagship phone?  I expected these problems to go away as soon as the first firmware update rolled out.  I even waited to write up my review till I had that infamous first firmware update but the update came and went and I continued to have the same issues.

There are a ton of great aspects to the N97 including it’s camera, 3.5mm audio jack, video out, slider lock and many many more points.  I have tried giving it chance after chance but it just kept failing me.  Battery life and lack of ease of use are two big points without tearing it apart.  I can’t in good faith suggest that you go out and buy this phone at this point.  I hope that we will see additional updates and I hope I get to give the N97 another try.  It has some awsome aspects to it but to many major draw backs.

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.

Great news everyone, emoze (a client of mine) is now available on the Nokia N97.  We haven’t exactly had to wait long for them but I am pleased to tell you that it’s now ready for you to download.  I have been using it for a little while now and it’s fantastic.  It’s the best email experience you could ask for on a touch screen phone and you’re not going to compromise anything.  It’s wonderful and even if emoze wasn’t a client of mine I would still use them.

I currently have 3 email addresses being checked, my emoze work email (Exchange via OWA), my Gmail, and my work email from BrilliantExpos.   emoze is tightly integrated into the phone so there’s no funny quirks.

Anyways, if you’re interested in giving emoze a test run watch the video below, it will walk you thorough the very simple steps of installing emoze on a Nokia N97.

To download emoze go to www.emoze.com from your mobile browser.
If you have any questions or need any help with emoze don’t hesitate to contact me
Twitter: @JebBrilliant  and  @emozepushemail
Email: Jeb@emoze.com

+ = Happy Jeb

Last night I got some great news from a friend at emoze.  Nokias newest flagship phone the N97 has just launched and emoze is about to release the touchscreen enabled app for it.  I don’t have an exact date but it should be very soon.  I’ll let you know as soon as it does go live.

emoze is staying right on top of what Nokia is up to, thank goodness because I hope to be getting the N97 this week or next.  As soon as I do you can count on a walk through video explaining how to install emoze on it.  Stay tuned for an update of when it launches.

I have heard two interesting rumors floating around the internet about emoze and I’d like to happily address them.

The first is that there’s going to be an emoze app for the Nokia N97.  That is absolutely True.  We can publicly say that yes we are currently working on getting emoze migrated over to the N97 and  hope to be done with it and get it out the door very soon.  UPDATE: It’s available and working WELL.

The second rumor I have heard and have been asked about extensively is regarding emoze and the iPhone.  So the big question is will there be an emoze app for the iPhone?  The big answer is YES.  We are working really hard to get the app to you as soon as we possibly can.

I hope that clears up some peoples questions.  Hang in there a little longer if you are waiting for the iPhone or N97 and I promise to keep you updated.

For the most up to date news about emoze follow us on Twitter at @emozepushemail.

I’m not here to criticize my friends or Nokia or my friends at Nokia.  Nor do I want to pressure them.  But I haven’t seen all that many people on Ovi Chat.  I know what you’re going to say, I don’t need another IM ID.  Well I know lots of people who signed up for Ovi Chat so they have an ID.  The question is why didn’t they add it to Adium or any other IM app.  It would be quite easy to.

Is Nokia planning on doing much with Ovi Chat?  I get the feeling the answer is yes. I think we will see a great deal done with presence over the next few months and years.  I think the N97 will play a large roll in this too.

Back to my point, where are all the people?  Why aren’t more Nokia folks on Ovi chat as well?  I only know of a few that I’m connected to.  Maybe there are many more but I have used the search tool and not found many.  Shouldn’t Nokia folks be using it? Is Nokia using it internally for instant communications?  I get the feeling the answer is NO and I’m wondering why.

By the way, what’s up with the name, Ovi Contacts?  Shouldn’t it be Ovi IM or something like that?

Anyways, the Ovi Contacts (IM) integration on the new E75 I’ve been reviewing is fantastic, I hope we see an update for many of the handsets and I hope it is included/implemented on many of the new handsets.

So I just got back Friday afternoon from CTIA in Las Vegas. As a whole in terms of announcements, hardware and software it was quite a boring show. I did get to play with the Nokia E71x, N97 and E75 (I got to take one of these home, I have a review coming), those were the only 2 pieces of phone hardware I liked and found interesting.  I did get an earphone/microphone to test, it will turn an iTouch into a VOIP phone using Truphone (one of my favorite apps of all time).

The other interesting application I saw and have been using of late is Emoze (a client of mine).  It’s a 3rd party app you download on your phone to give you a greatly enhanced email experience. I like it because it connects to my Gmail, it also has the ability to connect you to Yahoo, Hotmail, and Facebook.  It also syncs with Outlook and has a good OWA (Outlook Web Access) interface.

I can’t forget that I saw Nimbuzz and really like what they’re doing with all the different communications methods they’re enabling people with now.

All in all it was a pretty boring show as shows go.

I can’t believe I never came across Clinton Jeffs blog until tonight.  Anyways, I just read on it that Fring (an IM/VOIP client) is now available for S60 V5, meaning the Nokia 5800 and soon the N97.  I download Fring via m.fring.com.  You can also watch a quick interview I did with Boaz Zilberman Frings Chief Architect at Mobile World Congress ’09.

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.