Nokia E90 Communicator: The Best Business Productivity Smartphone on the Market?

My latest obsession is with the Nokia E90 Communicator phone. This phone is a beast. It is a big phone at 5.2” by 2.24” by .79” and might be a tight fit for jean pockets. But there is a reason for the dimensions of this phone. It opens up, in a clam shell fashion, to reveal a tremendous full qwerty keyboard, and more notably a 800 by 352 LCD display. I am reminded of the promise of the Celio Redfly to increase productivity. With the Nokia E90 true business productivity is possible. With the 800 by 352 LCD screen and the excellent keyboard I can truly imagine preparing or reading a spreadsheet or viewing slides. How anyone was able to work on spreadsheets using a device with a 320 by 240 screen is beyond me. I read that the device is Blackberry-Connect compatible. I am not familiar with Blackberry Connect, but to have BES quality push email service with this device would just be a phone nerd’s dream.

But, this phone is big. And, its not particularly sexy. You won’t get oohs and ahhs when you whip this baby out. Opinions might change when you flip the phone open to reveal the keyboard. It’s always what’s under the hood that counts.

First Peek at Blackberry Niagara 9630

Total props to Crackberry.com for these first teaser shots of the Blackberry Niagara. Verizon Wireless customers are long due an update to the Blackberry 8830. This new Blackberry offering seems to meld features from the T-Mobile 8900 Curve with the awesome Blackberry Bold. I actually considered switching to AT&T for the Bold, but may stick with Verizon Wireless for just a little while longer for this sexy number.

Nokia N-95 For Sale for $379!

The Nokia N-95 is now available for $379! It wasn't that long ago that the phone sold for $700. Remember Brian Tong's enthusiastic endorsement of the phone on CNET naming it an editor top choice phone of 2007? http://cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-31287.html.

The Nokia N-95 sports a 5-megapixel camera 5 MP with a 2592 x 1944 pixel resolution using Carl Zeiss optics and shoots VGA video. It is on sale for above price at the Nokia Flagship store in New York City.

Going Retro

A colleague of mine uses the T-Mobile 8700. I work for a firm that encourages Blackberries so it was surprising for me to see this particular model when everyone here carries 8830s, Curves and increasingly the Bold.

I love all things retro (I sport a Zune), but felt compelled to tell her about the upcoming 8900. T-Mobile customers don't often get bragging rights, but in a few short weeks, they'll have first dibs on what some may consider the coolest Blackberry device.

Verizon Wireless XV6800 and Celio Redfly Pairing

In December I bought a Verizon XV6800 Windows Mobile smartphone. I decided to try on trial the Celio Redfly which is a mobile companion designed to be used with Windows Mobile phones.

The XV6800 is about a year old, and already feels dated compared to newer offerings such as the HTC Touch Pro, and Diamond. It is a powerful device taken on its own with a 320x240 screen, and reasonable specifications. I have written in blog posts last year about my affection for this phone. It isn't a beautiful phone, but there was something defiant about its design which appealed to me. It is a true geek phone, and meant to be tweaked, flashed, and customized which brings me to the Celio Redfly (http://www.celiocorp.com/).

The Celio Redfly extends the capability of a Windows Mobile device by providing a beautiful seven inch 800x460 pixel resolution display, and a fuller Qwerty keyboard for selected Windows Mobile phones. The Redfly provides an almost netbook like experience for Windows Mobile users. The Redfly has no operating system of its own. It is powered by the Windows Mobile operating system and computing power of your smartphone via either a USB or bluetooth connection.

With all the extra screen real estate of a 7 inch 800x460 screen resolution it becomes possible to work on an Excel spreadsheet, or to do real word processing using the Windows Mobile Office suite that comes pre-installed on most Windows Mobile smartphones. I liked the idea of extending the functionality of my XV6800, and pushing it to its limit. Unfortunately, you can't push too hard. Some applications work great like Excel and Word. Powerpoint slides look awesome, but you have very little editing capability. Opera Mobile browser works well, but I wasn't able to get a fully rendered NYTimes page. It always defaulted to a mobile version which frustrated me.

I downloaded Skyfire, which works amazingly well on the XV6800. It doesn't work on the Redfly though. On my XV6800 I get fully rendered webpages with embedded flash video. ESPN's website looks great. But, it didn't work on my Redfly.

I thought I would carry my Redfly everywhere with me. I had visions of connecting to the internet anywhere via my EVDO Rev A connection, and typing my articles seated at a Starbucks. However, I found I left my Redfly home more than I brought it out with me. The editor of PocketNow might have said it best, "..my Windows Mobile phone IS my mobile companion." He also wrote that if he needed more computing power out on the road that netbooks work better for him, and seeing the prices and relative computing power I am prone to agree with him.

The Redfly can be purchased inexpensively for about $230. However, with the competitive prices of netbooks, I can't justify keeping a device because I like the idea of the Redfly. I'm probably going to send it back, and save for a netbook.

Microsoft, what are you doing?

I am pissed with Microsoft. How can they treat Cesar Menendez - the voice of the Zune community this way? So you didn't make your quarterly estimates. You still made $16.63 billion in Q2. Why would you splinter your Zune community by treating one of your faithfuls in this manner? One of the reasons why I love the Zune is because I felt I was part of a small dedicated and loyal community. Now one of our own - one of our best is adrift, and that makes me very angry. Microsoft, you were becoming a company I was rooting for because you were the underdog in this space, but now you've shown your stripes as the large, profit margin clinging behemoth that you are. Cesar better get one hell of a severance package.

Zune

I am sticking with the Zune. Happy New Year!