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Looking for a new Mobile Device

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I’m after a new Mobile Device and a new Mobile plan… notice I didn’t say I’m after a new Mobile Phone, because I actually don’t make that many phone calls. I currently have a Nokia 6110 purchased in October 2007. I usually find that I either want or need a new device after 1 year. This time I need one as the 6110 is showing it’s age and not behaving well.

The most things I use a mobile device for, in order of use, are:

  • Clock and Alarm Clock – I don’t wear a watch
  • Calendar – to sync with my Google Calendar
  • Contacts – Including Syncing to my O-Sync account
  • Twitter
  • SMS
  • Gmail whilst out and about
  • Voicemail
  • Phone
  • Calculator
  • Maps
  • General Internet
  • To Do List
  • Notes
I very rarely use my mobile device for:
  • Music
  • Photos / Video
  • MMS
  • Voice Recording (only because you can’t attach them to reminders)
  • Video calling
  • Games
  • Reading office documents
  • Internet downloads
The additional features I want on my mobile device that I don’t have currently are
  • WiFi
  • Better Camera
  • Larger Screen
  • Less slippery, glossy buttons
  • Unlimited Internet usage
  • Push Gmail
I am currently on a Vodafone $79 cap. I love Vodafone 90% of the time. Their My Vodafone website sux, their new business plans are terrible, and their timed internet connection is not so great, but their network, service and billing is generally great.
For $79 I get $550 worth of calls and 100 free text messages a month. The $550 value includes all calls, national and international text messages (great for twitter) and internet charged at $1 per 5 mins. The $1 per 5 mins is the only part of that package that sux, because I hate restricting the time I’m online for. Thankfully however, the new Vodafone Internet Cap Plans are available and I can get 400mb included in my $79 cap plan. I think 400mb should be ok.
I recently tried a Palm Treo Pro for two weeks courtesy of the excellent promotion from Palm called Trial a Treo (I wish all manufacturers did this, because I want to trial a Blackberry Bold, a HTC Touch Pro and an N96 – even if it was for a few days only). The Treo for me was a love / hate relationship. There were things I loved about it and things I absolutely hated and the qwerty keyboard was one of the things I hated. The Treo is a Windows Mobile 6.1 device – now some of the things that I love and hate about it may be related to WinMo and some may be related to the device, but as it’s the first WinMo device I’ve trialled for any length of time, I just don’t know which is which, but here are some other things to love / hate about the Treo:
Love
  • The size and feel of the device
  • The touch screen (but I’m still not convinced I could go for a full touch screen like the iPhone, Omnia, or Blackberry Storm)
Hate
  • The Alarm – who’s stupid idea was it to have an alarm that beeps 3 times then turns off! My God! How is that ever going to wake anyone up! Thankfully I downloaded G-Alarm which does the job.
  • The phone just turning off in the middle of about 1/3rd of my calls.
  • When holding the phone up to my ear my face opens up multiple apps whilst being on the phone – yes you can disable the touch screen whilst being on a call, but then you can’t use the speakerphone at all – WTF! who’s brilliant idea was that?
  • The connection manager – the first day I had the Treo it connected to the internet and stayed connected for 2.5hrs before I realised. That is $30 pff my plan, and it only downloaded 2kb in that time! It also connected on it’s own at least 3 other times, even though I had turned off all auto connections. And it’s just too much of a pain to go into the connection manager to turn off the internet connection.
  • The keyboard – keys are too small and too slippery. I did try the other WinMo input methods but they are very slow. I tried using it with fingernails and thumb pad and either way didn’t work too well. The keys are too slipery for fingernails and too small for thumbs.
  • Wifi – as soon as the screen goes into sleep mode the Wifi turns off – again WTF! – can have an active Wifi connection without using it for a max of 1min!

Ok the hate list is getting too long and the love list is a bit light on. But when I got my old 6110 back again after using the Treo, it just felt right, and was easy to use, and did all the things I wanted it to do. So I guess I shall have to stick with a Nokia. I think my bad experience with the treo has turned me off WinMo devices for now.

I had a quick play with the blackberry bold and even though the keyboard was really nice to use, the trackball would drive me crazy. After just a few minutes of using it, I could feel that my wrist was not happy at all – damned RSI that flares up occasionally.

So I think the device of choice will be the Nokia N85. It has all the standard Nokia features that I love, most of the new things I want in a device and it’s around the same size as my Nokia 6110 (just a bit thinner). I was lucky to be able to test one out for a few minutes in Dubai. The main issues with the N85 are the following:

  • Very plasticy keys – worse than the 6110 – the N95 8GB has very good keys
  • OLED screen is aparently not good in bright sunlight
  • Some reported issues on the forums about call drop outs etc

The N85 is available in stores now, but unfortunately not with Vodafone yet. It’s in the Vodafone catalogue as “Coming Soon” but they can’t tell me when “Soon” is. Hopefully it will be before Xmas but it does not look likely at this stage.

However, I can’t talk mobile devices without mentioning the Jeebus phone and why I don’t want one. It’s mainly to do with the touch screen input, I just don’t like touch screens as the only input method. I *may* think about it for the next device when it has all the features that it’s currently missing, but the new Nokia N97 has been announced this week and depending on the reviews of that in the wild, it will be something to think about as the next device. And knowing how long Nokia devices take to get to us her in Australia, in store, it will be another 12 months anyway. So I think the N85 will be a good phone to have for the next 12 months.

All my old phones get recycled. The 6110 is going to my neice who wants a navigator phone, and will probably want a new phone within a few months. My previous 2 phones went to my mum. It’s good to be able to re-use them like this.

So Vodafone, please, get your act together and get the N85 in store this week! Please!