There has been an incident.

Remember how I fawned over the Nokia 6120 classic? I couldn’t wait for it to go on sale. Then I couldn’t wait for the white version to go on sale. Then I couldn’t wait for the price to settle at something a little reasonable. But FINALLY I bought one on eBay. That was a moment of pure conspicuous consumption. It felt every bit as wonderful as Thorstein Veblen said it would.

So, as I said, there has been an incident. On Sunday afternoon, during work, I started to feel nauseous. I tried ignoring it but it became too difficult to concentrate on work. I called some coworkers to ask them to take over my shift, but no one was answering their phones. Finally my boss returned my call and agreed to take over. I was so relieved, I went right to bed, leaving my 6120 on the coffeetable. That is where Tyler found it and had his fun.

So… what should I replace it with? I actually was planning on replacing this in August when the Meizu M8 is scheduled to be released. That is supposed to be the best Chinese iPhone knock off in case you didn’t know. But the thought of using my old Nokia 6230 until August (at the earliest!) is too much to accept.

Dilemma! Dilemma!

It’s no secret that I don’t like Apple so there is no chance I will ever own an iPhone. Does that mean I will never have a choice of a touchscreen phone that can comfortably display websites and play videos? Gladly not! There are already some iPhone knockoffs coming from China (of course!) but they’re a little on the cheap side.

Engadget brings us news Nokia will have an iPhone-clone for sale in 2008. I know nothing about the specs but since it’s coming from Nokia I rather expect it to be feature rich. Quad-band GSM is a given. Wi-fi is a given. We already know it’s a smartphone because that prototype was also running a demonstration of touchscreen capability on Symbian. What’s nice is that it won’t be a crippled smartphone like the iPhone, so you’ll be able to install any applications you like. I would bet it will have 3G capability too so browsing the Internet will be a lot faster than on the iPhone. 3G is certain for overseas. I’m hopeful it will have 3G capability in the US as well.

I feel those features are certain. Everything else is a toss up. I would guess Nokia would include a screen with better resolution. Memory will probably be the same. I say it will have 4 GB internal memory and some sort of expansion slot. I can’t predict what kind of camera this will have. The iPhone has a 2 megapixel camera and that is really the lowest you can have for a high end phone. However the Nokia N95 has a 5 megapixel camera. That’s the most megapixels on a US camera. Will Nokia try to cram that camera in? Honestly I doubt it. I think they will go with a 3 megapixel camera.

Spec-wise I’m sure this will be superior to the iPhone. Aesthetically though it doesn’t measure up. It lacks panache. I suppose I shouldn’t make judgment from a grainy picture but of course I will anyway. It looks like Nokia used a cheap black plastic case. C’mon! What a bean counter mistake. It’s just a prototype though so there’s hope for change.

Let me stop reading tea leaves and move on to the second alternative to the iPhone. This one, fortunately, is a little more concrete. It also hails from China. The Meizu MiniOne! These are the specs I got from Gizmodo.

• 533Mhz Samsung processor
• 128MB of DDR SDRAM
• TFT touchscreen
• 720×480 resolution
• 3-megapixel back camera
• 0.3-megapixel front camera
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• DMB TV Tuner
• GPS
• video output
• AVI/MPEG4/WMV support
• 4GB to 16GB versions

I am so blown away by this phone. Depending on the feature it is either the equal or the superior of the iPhone. The price is much lower too. The 4 GB version will cost $250, while the 16 GB version will sell for $450. I’ve seen conflicting release dates though. Some websites have said it will be sold in Q4 2007 while others said early 2008. So I guess if you plan for November through February you’ll be reasonably right. This is simply the best touchscreen phone you’ll find. I don’t know for certain what frequencies it will use, but as long as it uses 850 MHz and 1900 MHz there is no reason for Americans not to buy this. It’s fantastic!

Just a footnote about the MiniOne. If you search for more info on it, you’ll come across a lot of pictures of an earlier prototype. It’s the one with a button with an “M” on it. That version is old. The current version is the one pictured above with the silver button.

It’s decided. I am getting a new cell phone. I had put this off for a long time because my current phone, the Nokia 6230, is a straight up reliable phone. It’s not too heavy. The buttons are comfortable for extended use. It gets excellent reception and has bluetooth. I’m not a roadwarrior so I don’t need all the heavy duty productivity apps. Even though I love playing around with cell phones I never felt right about giving this up for a newer one.

That has changed tonight though. When I bought the phone in 2005 I knew it had some problems. It did suffer from random restarts and shutdowns. However I didn’t think it was a big deal because it happened so rarely; maybe once every three months. I knew it was because of the firmware too. The 5.19 version was known to be buggy and if these restarts did bother me, I could always pay $25 for a firmware update. Recently though I’ve been having restarts a lot more frequently. From every three months, now I think I’m averaging once a week. I suppose age is making it deteriorate.

It’s time to move on to a new phone. No sense in mourning forever. I’ve decided what my next phone will be. I want the Nokia 6120 Classic. It’s not scheduled to be released in the US but I should be able to import one from Europe. Why go through the effort? Because it’s the first phone I’ve been excited about in a long time. I remember sweating from anticipation for the Sony Ericsson T616. I went ape for months hoping for prices to slip on the Nokia 7610. Since then though I can’t think of a phone I’ve lusted after. I briefly yearned for a Samsung D900 until I read about some very complicated firmware problems.

I nearly went for the Nokia N73, but in the end I decided against it because it was slightly broader and a lot heavier than my current phone. It felt like I was taking a step backwards for $400. Yeah I know the N73 is a smartphone but that extra power isn’t a requirement for me.

The 6120 Classic (don’t forget the classic part because the 6120 is also an old TDMA phone) is a quad-band GSM phone that includes HSDPA on 850 MHz and 2100 MHz. HSDPA is just another technology for faster data speeds on a mobile phone. In case you’re wondering, no the iPhone does not have that. That kind of sucks for a phone that is promoted as a ‘bring the Internet everywhere’ device. Anyway, the 6120 Classic is only 15 mm thick (compare that to my current 20 mm thick phone) and has a QVGA screen that’s 240 by 320 pixels. That’s so beautiful. Screen size has been my biggest gripe about the 6230. It’s only 16-bit and 128 by 128 pixels.

All that can be mine for about $350. That price is a killer, but I would rather bite the bullet now than wait to have a dead phone. I really can’t afford that since I’ve become so dependent on the 6230′s calendar to keep my schedule. Now I just need for Nokia to cooperate and start selling this. Who would have guessed I would have a hard time giving a company my money.

I know it was just a few days ago when I voiced my skepticism about a touch screen phone, but Nokia has got me excited about cell phones again. They have released photos of a concept phone named (officially or unofficially, I’m not sure) Aeon. It has a full surface touch screen.

A lot of people will say this is just a ripoff to compete with Apple’s iPhone, but for a prototype to exist there has to be months or even years of work behind it. Besides BenQ Siemens came out with the Black Box concept phone in Q3 last year, and a tiny company called MyOrigo produced the first touch screen phone in 2003! So really this is a direction mobile phone manufacturers have been moving towards anyway.

I think this design has the potential to make the iPhone irrelevant. The Aeon’s body is all delicate curves. The iPhone looks dowdy in comparison. It’s this big chunky block that fills up your entire palm, while the Aeon is sleek, elegant and looks like you can use it with just one hand. If Nokia gives this a mini hard drive it could completely replace the need for an iPod. Of course a lot of it depends on the user interface. Neither phone is available to play with so I can’t say anything about that. I don’t even know if the Aeon is a smartphone, although I would be surprised if such a cutting edge phone wasn’t.

Here are Nokia’s pictures to salivate over. Oh please Nokia, if you can hear me, get this phone into the stores!

I’m probably the last blogger to comment on Apple’s iPhone. I guess I avoided posting earlier because I have such an ingrained bias against Apple. I just hate that smug company so much. It’s the embodiment of an irritating hipster. I can’t avoid griping about a story this big though.

The iPhone’s whiz-bang factor is entirely in its touchscreen. I must give Apple credit for eye catching design. A phone without buttons looks impressive, but looks aren’t everything. As much as Steve Jobs assures us everything will work flawlessly, I don’t trust a touchscreen to correctly read and translate all my motions. Remember this isn’t just for button clicks. You’ll be dragging and dropping files on the touchscreen too. I’m also positive there will be noticeable lag and imprecision when scrolling.

As cool as the no buttons look is, it’s not practical. A touchscreen for dialing a phone number is tolerable, but no one wants to do a lot of typing on that. People need proper tactile feedback. It’s that need that causes people to complain about keyboards when they’re “too mushy” or the buttons are spaced incorrectly. It’s not something you think about. You just know it once you start typing. You can forget any text messaging or business applications. No one wants to type on a sheet of glass.

What’s even sadder is that this wouldn’t be a killer phone even if it had buttons. If you’re a Blackberry addict you’ll be happy to know push email is available, but I know you’ll hate the touchscreen. People were wetting themselves because the iPhone itself runs a version of OSX, but I say so what. All smartphones run some kind of operating system. OSX won’t give this phone anything better than what you get with Palm or Windows. You’re not going to notice a performance difference between this iPhone and a Treo.

This thing doesn’t even have EDGE. That’s excusable on mass market consumer phone because average people never bother using the Internet on their phone. Business users should shun any phone that lacks EDGE. What galls me is that this isn’t even a new technology. EDGE capable phones have been for sale for more than a year. I don’t see why Apple left this feature out. I suppose WiFi is supposed to make up for this, but that really leaves a lot of holes.

This phone only has a two megapixel camera too. That is incredibly sad. There’s no flash and the lens is nothing special. I would bet good money a SonyEricsson K790A would embarrass the iPhone’s pictures. Nokia’s N-series probably would too.

What the iPhone really has going for it is that large screen. I would love to have a phone with that much screen space. I have little interest in watching movies on it, or listening to music for that matter, both of which are supposed to be selling points. I would like it just for reading.

There are too many drawbacks for me to want this phone, and I would say the price is too high to recommend it for anyone else. Average people won’t want to spend $500-$600 on a phone. The business users who would spend that much money are not getting value for that price. Like everything Apple produces the iPhone is all flash, no substance. Apple fanboys will jump at the phone of course and denounce people like me who point to any flaws. Then of course there are the trendwhores; people without any allegiance to Apple but because the phone looks pretty they will throw their money at it. I can’t wait to see if there are enough trendwhores to make this phone a success.

I thought occurred to me today. In December I went a bit nuts with my spending. I now have that awesome LCD TV. I also bought more parts for my computer. I even went ahead and bought that camera I’ve been itching to get. Costco had a sale and I couldn’t resist. Even with all this spending, I never entertained the idea of buying that cell phone I had planned on getting.

That Samsung D900 is still a very good phone. It’s quad-band so you can use it with any GSM service in the world. The screen is a large 240×320 pixels with 262K colors. That’s the best you’re gonna get in America. The camera is 3 megapixels! I can’t think of another phone for sale in the US with that many megapixels. Most are still 1.1, while I’ve seen a smattering of 2 megapixel cameras around. Plus it’s tiny, thin and light. What more could you ask for in a phone?

For some reason though I’m no longer jazzed about buying it. I’ve become content with my current phone and I just don’t see myself buying a new one any time soon. Perhaps in a few months another one will catch my eye but there’s nothing on the horizon I want. So very weird.

Somehow walking and talking on a cell phone is difficult to accomplish. At least it’s difficult if you want to avoid being injured. For whatever reason, people have a hard time paying attention to the world around them when they’re on the phone. So pedestrians on cell phones open themselves up to world of hurt.

It seems pretty obvious especially now that people know driving on a cell phone is also distracting. I wish some researcher would explain why though. It can’t be because of talking. People drive and walk while talking all the time without much effect on their abilities to do either. Is it a matter of having something blasting sound into your ear? We should see a similar problem with people who use iPods while walking then. I would sure like to know what the deal is.

The good news is that even though you may fall into an open manhole and die while talking on your cell phone, at least it won’t give you cancer. Another study has shown there is no link.

There isn’t a problem that Europeans wouldn’t like to get government involved in. As if roaming charges are some new invention, the European Commission feels the need to tell the mobile phone industry how to charge people.

This is just insanity. I think it’s actually worse than when the European Court of Justice ruled Parma ham could only be called “Parma ham” if it’s sliced and packed in Parma, Italy. Never mind that the meat is exactly the same. Anyway, now the commission is actually going to dictate how much these mobile carriers can charge. They claim it’s to lower exorbitant charges but I don’t see why that’s any of their business. Why is government dictating market prices? Last month I thought the price of cherries at the grocery store was too high. If I lived in Europe does that mean I could complain to the EU and have them force the supermarket to lower their prices?

Silly me and here I thought if something was too expensive I should just not buy it.

Lets start off with the hottest phone of the bunch. Actually, why this is so hot isn’t very obvious. It has some great specs – 4 GB memory, a 2/6 inch QVGA screen, touch screen, and of course bluetooth. Lookswise though, it’s pretty plain. Take a good look at that picture. Can’t you just feel that rough texture? Can’t you feel the plastic? Yet somehow I am drawn to it. I bet it’s heavy too. It looks like it. That phone should be named Big Chunk. Maybe it’s that big screen that has me lusting after it.
Samsung has announced it’s own “RAZRBerry”. You know what the RAZRBerry is don’t you? I’ll explain later. This phone here is supposed to compete with it.
It’s narrower and lighter than Moto’s offering. The keypad is innovative. I’m not so sure it will catch on, but at least Samsung’s engineers were thinking. Each letter gets an individual key, but you can press multiple keys to dial a phone number. The keys themselves are tiny but have a raised center, to make it easier to type.
The RAZRBerry is Motorola’s new PDA/phone. Technically named the “Q”, cell phone enthusiasts have dubbed it the RAZRBerry because it’s super thin like a RAZR but with a full keyboard like a Blackberry.
The CDMA version will debut with Verizon in the near future. A GSM version will be made eventually, probably sometime in the second half of the year.
Nokia is really embracing clamshell phones. Honestly I could care less. I hate clamshells. The only clamshells that have tempted me are the RAZR and the Nokia 6170. Otherwise, I find them to be too chunky.
The two clamshells in Nokia’s latest announcement seem to be European affairs. The 6136 will go to Orange first with no word on an American version. The 6131 will eventually make it to the US but much later this year.
The 6070 has got my attention. It’s not a very sexy phone. The few specs announced make me think it’s a 6230 with a bigger screen. There’s nothing wrong with that. The 6230 is a workhorse. A bigger screen would give it new life.
I am curious to know how the 6070 relates to the just released 6030. The 6030 is the bargain basement candybar phone, replacing the 6010. Is the 6070 supposed to be a 6230 replacement for the Americas? I rather doubt it because it wouldn’t quite fit in with their naming convention. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be a low end phone because the 6030 is brand new. So confusing.
Sony Ericsson is keeping their candybar line alive with two new handsets. The K610i is feature packed for a mid-level phone. It has a 2 Megapixel camera, a second VGA camera to use with video calls, a media player, a web browser with RSS support (I’ve never seen that in a phone), bluetooth (of course), USB storage and a Memory Stick Micro slot. Naturally, any phone this good is only available in Europe and Asia.
The J100 goes all out for cheapness. It has the tinest screen I’ve seen in years, and lacks a web browser and even a speakerphone. Basically, this is a phone to make calls and nothing else. Well okay, you can make text messages too. But nothing else!