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’ll be honest here and not fluff Nokia, for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t all that impressed with the a Nokia handset I had to review, the 5800 Xpress Music to be exact….  at first.  After using the 5800 for a few days now it has grown on me in a big way.  It still has it’s short comings but I don’t want to focus on those at the moment.

The phone has taken some great pics over the weekend.  My wife and I took my daughter to Disneyland for the first time and shot a bunch of photos.  I was happy with the picture quality and the speed in which the GPS locked on so my pics could be geo-tagged.

I love getting asked about my phone and that happened over and over again during the weekend.  People were shocked to see such a nice looking touch phone coming from Nokia.

I’m also quite happy with the size and weight of the handset.

The only thing I’m having trouble with and 1 and only single gripe with the phone is the QWERTY keyboard (I’m used to using an E71).  It’s touch which I’m not used to at all.  Though by the time Monday rolled around I was getting pretty fast with it.  I

All and all now I’ll give it a thumbs up and I think if  anyone who is used to using a touch phone would have no gripes at all with this handset.

I was recently reading a Nielsen report and it has some very interesting facts that really make me ask my self when will the mobile telcos figure out what young people want and offer them plans that reflect their needs.

Did you know that the average US consumer now uses their mobile phone fore texting more often then making a phone call?  I’m not surprised but I figured it was still the other way around.

Teens aged 13-17 send average 1,742 texts/month and only average 231 calls/month

Young people aged 18-24 average 790 texts/month to only 265 calls/month

The opposite is true for folks aged 45-54 who only average 128 texts/month but make 193 calls/month

Notice how the 13-17 year olds send more then double the amount of texts but only make a few less calls then the 18-24 year olds.

After having a nice chat with an AT&T “high-up” last week I’m learning that AT&T sees these trends and is doing something about them.  They have 3 handsets priced to move into young peoples hands and guess what all 3 handsets have QWERTY keyboards on them.  This says something very important to me, AT&T is listening and making actual moves to embrace these numbers.  I’d personally like to see a very competitive new set of pricing for people that text more then talk but that may still be a ways off.  I’m just happy for AT&Ts current moves.

I’m most excited to get to report that AT&T my provider of choice will start selling the extremely popular Nokia E71 in the next few weeks.  I still won’t bet the farm on it but it seems to be true.  I’ve also heard rumors that it will run you $99 with a new 2 year contract.

UPDATE: I got to play with the Nokia E71x as it’s being referred to during CTIA.  It is a beautiful piece of gadgetry and I have high hopes it will be a stepping stone and an in road for Nokia and S60 to have a stronger presence in the US.

So in the last few years I have become a bit of a mobile email junkie.  I think I have been doing mobile email for about 5 years now, I know I’m late to the game compared to some. I had a very interesting conversation with a “high up” from AT&T last night.  I was very interested with what he had to say when it came to mobile email.  Now I’m not going to reveal any propriatary numbers but he was telling me that young people are spending a very significant amount of time typing versus talking on their mobiles.  AT&T has a few handsets specifically geared toward messaging with QWERTY keyboards, I’m hoping to play with some of these next week.

Now my question is how are they getting to their email?  Are they using services like Emoze (client of mine) who provides a very useful and enhanced user interface for your email?  Are people using an email client that comes built in on the handset when they purchase it?  Are they downloading the Gmail Java app for use with only Gmail? I’m really curious how people access their email on mobile handsets?  I’m guessing most people just use what comes built in.

If you’re a user of mobile email or you want to be there are a bunch of different 3rd party applications that are free and downloadable. Now I will find out next week at CTIA if any of the AT&T handsets are able to download apps.  I’m guessing they can at least run a Java apps like Emoze has.

Please let me know what you use for mobile email.

Update just before I hit publish: AT&T will be selling the epic Nokia E71 and the rumor is it will run $99 on a new contract.

Suddenly it seems like everywhere I turn everyone has a phone with a QWERTY keyboard.  I am curious why that is.  Is it the new statuesque?  Does this mean everyone is writing emails on their phone?  Or are people just texting with their QWERTY handsets?

I have asked a few people and one or two of them have said it’s because _____ (fill in a provider name here) was just offering the phone for free or really cheap.  I asked why not a phone with just T9 and they just responded with a plain old “why not???”  Why not get a business class phone, it’s the same price as something else….. Free.

So basically I see high school and collage students walking around using Blackberries just to make/receive calls and do sms.  Does this make sense?  I’m not sure.  A senior at the local university told me she thought it would help after she graduated when looking for her first job.  By already knowing how to use a Blackberry she figured it would look good on a resume (CV for my non North American readers).  Okay, I have to take a step back now and breath.  Yes she really plans to put on a resume that she is proficient in using a Blackberry.  Just like putting down that she knows how to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint.  I guess it would go between proficiencies in Microsoft Windows and Apple OSX.

Okay back to everybody having a QWERTY device.  Have you noticed an upswing since the Fall?  I sure have.  I mean for G-d sakes, do 6th graders really need handsets let alone a QWERTY handset? Oh well I guess I’m old fashioned.

While looking for a pic to use for this post I found a great post on Lady Geek.  The author talks about preteens wanting Blackberries.  I ended up using their pic because I thought it was so representative of what I’m talking about.