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As you know, I own the Nokia E70. I thought I would make a brief reply to “brklynsurfer’s” comment on excluding the E70.

From a distance, the E70 (and Nokia’s business line in general) looks like an interesting contender. Up close, I am not sure it makes the grade.

The build quality seemed good, and the keyboard is fairly easy to get used to. It has good tactile response, and the way it folds up is very compelling. The keys are a little slippery, and the gray on silver lettering is hard to see under certain light–even with the backlight on. I suspect the black model would be easier to see. The joystick is a little awkward, and in only a few months its functioning has become very unreliable (not to mention that the fake chrome paint has rubbed off of it). I often have to push (to select) the joystick several times to get it to register.

Nokia’s attitude toward support for this phone has been completely unacceptable. Because it was not released in the U.S. when I bought it, they were incapable and unwilling to support it. U.S. support said, “we don’t support that model.” Any other country’s support site said, “we don’t support people from the U.S.” The net effect is that I bought a Nokia phone and Nokia refused to support it. Fortunately, I found answers to a good portion of my concerns on the Internet.

As someone who has used PalmOS since 1997/8, it is difficult to take Symbian seriously. It is clear that Symbian was built to turn a phone into a smart phone. Arguably, PalmOS was built either to squeeze a computer into your pocket or to create a new class (at the time) of computing device that was still easy to use. Symbian is cluttered and slow. Preferences for a robust feature set are scattered in separate applications and panels. It is difficult to make shortcuts to the things you use all the time.

The Nokia E70 is very short on memory. Here I don’t mean storage space. With an expansion card I can get all the storage I require. But application memory is very limited. If I open the gMail application for Series 60, it will automatically kill the Web browser. If I open the Web browser with other things open, the Web browser will often run out of memory after a few pages and crash. Some users have reported that the browser crashes have corrupted the memory of their device so badly that it had to be fully reset. Even without another application running, the Web browser is likely to run out of memory before you are done browsing. Also, opening the keyboard takes up a significant chunk of application memory (to support screen rotation). The loading of this additional software slows the first screen-rotation after booting the phone, and it takes up the memory until the phone is restarted.

Finally, the application software on both the phone and the PC is just not all the way there. The PC synchronization software is clunky and somewhat unreliable. It has duplicated countless items on several occasions. It sometimes refuses to recognize that the phone is connected (and ready to synch) until I reboot the computer.

The software on the phone lacks maturity. The calendar and address book do not make very good use of the screen space they have and looking at detail on any entry involves a lot of scrolling with the joystick (which doesn’t work so well). The applications do not contain and synchronize nearly as many fields as PalmOS and Windows mobile. For example, you there is no way to look at only one category of your memos, contacts, or calendar events.

The applications have other quirks of varying degrees of importance. On the relatively painless end, you cannot view the notes on a calendar entry without “editing” them. This winds up causing synchronization problems because you “edit” the item on both platforms. In fairness, Palm still hasn’t figured this problem out either. On the much more painful end, setting the email application to automatically retrieve email introduced two problems: a) the email application does not recognize gMail’s SSL certficate and refuses to memorize it. So you get prompted to accept the certificate every time it talks to the gMail server. b) If the connection ever fails, the email application gives an error message and disables the auto-retrieval function. Given the complexity of the menu system, turning the auto-retrieval back on involves a lot of clicks and selections. This is probably the stupidist of the design flaws that I have uncovered. And combined with the way Nokia has implemented POP support, it indicates that Nokia doesn’t really get email just yet.

Just a few thoughts for anyone considering the Nokia business phones. If you want a phone that does a few tricks, they might be alright for you. If you are accustomed to smart phone features, try before you buy. These phones are not cheap, and they are not in the same league of software as the others Pierre has discussed.

As we’ve followed you over this experiment, my business partner and I have decided to replace our Treo 650s with Blackberry Pearls. We’ve found that the 650 was having growing email and sync problems over time, and the Palm legacy that was important to us at the 600 stage was less important now that other devices have caught up in usability.

Why the Pearl? 1- Form factor: smaller than the Treo and smaller than our RAZR backup phone! 2- Bulletproof email setup in minutes. 3-Cingular friendly to avoid extra hassle. 4- As my partner used to say, “How many investment bankers do you see using Treos?” 5- Voice dialing & voice notes are a big bonus for time-pressed activity. 6- Application multitasking: Taking notes and sending an email while on a call was a major chore with the Treo.

Thanks for all your hard work, and keep us all posted on your next (and current!) experiments!

I did choose the cingular 8525.. It is very similiar to the T-Mobile MDA, except: a. it comes with Cingular’s 3G internet capabilities. b. It has the backlighting and a more efficient layout on the keyboard (keystrokes are smooth, and the buttons are responsive). c. I have not experienced any freezing, and the landscape to portrait changes have been smooth. I must say, I have really enjoyed using the phone the past few days, and will recommend it to anyone. It was a little confusing setting up the email because there are so many “marketed” options. I discovered that the email client built into the phone with microsoft’s push technology suits my 4 pop3 email account needs very well. (I did set up xpressmail in an attempt to access my laptop documents remotely, but I have been having a little difficulty logging in on the site. It lets me log in, but then when I navigate to the documents, it tells me that I have entered an incorrect password… makes no sense, and I can’t seem to find any guidance) The ability to use the phone as a modem has been great. I am thinking about canceling my home internet service as soon as they implement 3G in the savannah, ga area. My partner and I drove from Savannah, Ga to Bradenton, Fl… I was in the passenger seat with the laptop online the whole time. When we got around Tampa, the 3G apparently kicked in because the internet speed could compete with any internet connection I have used in the past (DSL/Broadband) The only complaint I have about the phone (and this could just be resulting from my lack of experience…having the phone only 4 days or so) I can’t seem to figure out how to turn the Alarm Volume up. I have always used my cell phone as an alarm clock, and its just not cutting it for me. Also.. the speakerphone works extremely well/loud, and the headset has great quality when I am using it during phone calls; however, the speaker seems a little weak when I am playing songs or video through the onboard windows media player.. I found that to be quite odd as well. I am also having difficulty receiving files from other phones (motorola) through the bluetooth, as it says that the service is not supported. File transfer through the iRDA was not a problem. One other feature I found to be quite cool is the transcriber and note features. I can make notes with the stylus, and it stays in my handwriting, or I can turn on the transcriber, and it converts my handwriting to text (very accurate when you write neatly… which I kinda do) Going back and making changes when you use this feature can be quite cumbersome. My only real qualm is that the camera quality is quite poor. I need to look further into the tweaking though, because there are so many different camera controls, with the flash, the flower, [+] signs and trees, I have to think that I am just not getting the settings right.. after all, it is a 2.0 megapixel camera.

It was exciting to have won your contest, and I will keep you posted on my experiences with the 8525. Sorry to take up so much space on here, but I hope it helps someone.

As for myself, I am stuck on Verizon for the time being and while the service is very good, CMDA is the bain of my existence. Due to a recent move from one state to another I can’t change carriers without changing my number, so I am out of luck for the time being.