Saturday, July 24, 2010

Summer phones

Holidays are going to end next week and summer 2010 has been really nice. Weather has kept us warm and daily temperatures has been near 30 deg here in Finland. Shortly stated, summer has been warm. As gadget guy, it has also been very adventurous summer. I've been switching my sim card from phone to phone, like Nexus one, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini and Mini PRO, Samsung B2700 (rugged one), Nokia E72 and finaly N900 from Nokia.

It's a mystery for me to decide which one to keep in continuous use. Every one of those has a features which keeps me going back. Few to mention;
  • Android; usability, responsive and clear user interface. Fast web browsing and nice outfit of nexus one.
  • Sony Ericsson X10 Mini PRO; form factor and keyboard (I do also have plain mini, which is small!)
  • E72: qwerty keyboard and basic functionality just works. A bit hacked refreshed components thought, like gallery and email. Symbian is outdated as platform, I see.
  • Samsung B2700; free from worries, how to handle my phone. Just great in that part.
  • N900; IM-integration, I just need my Jabber client (to company own XMMP server) among skype to handle few international contacts. Shame it's a bit clumsy and maemo got replaced with meego in future plans of Nokia.
If I had power to design my own GSM terminal, it would be combination of those great concepts which keeps me switching SIM from phone to phone. Ultimately I would love to have these on my phone;
  • Hardware optimised for size with qwerty keyboard
  • Open Linux based operating system, with non-US crypto parts, fast and clean UI.
  • System without version numbering, modular and upgradeable all along the way.
  • Multi account emailing with GPG support
  • Standard XMMP IM-client, with possibly Skype and other proprietary accounts supported as well.
  • Camera and video recording with good quality
Give me some resources and I come out with the phone.