Storm ---> nokia e72 questions

[l.a.rossmann]

I've been considering the E72 because of the lack of IMAP folder functionality on my storm. It's also time to leave verizon soon.

To see if this is the right phone for me:

a) notification profiles. Can I make it so different email accounts make different noises when I receive a new mail? Can I do a different sound for SMS than for regular email as well?

b) Are there any themes like for the storm where you can see calendar entries, new SMS, and new messages on the front of the phone as they show up? A short preview, not the entire thing. I like that on a recent storm theme I found.

c) Does it take longer than 2 minutes to turn on from battery insertion to composing an email?

d) Does it work consistently or does it lag like crazy sometimes for no apparent reason?

having to move sent mail out of my inbox in outlook to my sent box after it gets to the BB is retarded, as is the inability to sync mail without BES. At $25 for mobile exchange account and an extra $20 from verizon, it'd cost me $45/mo to get IMAP folder functionality on one account, much less all six, and this isn't going to work.

[l.a.rossmann]

..................

[trueleech]

Oh, you ARE going to want to kill yourself. The E72 is a pain in the *** in every possible way and does not compare to a Bold 2 in any way.

[l.a.rossmann]

Could you give me some insight on the little details that cause it to drive you crazy? I'm interested.

[dwaynewilliams]

Originally Posted by trueleech

Oh, you ARE going to want to kill yourself. The E72 is a pain in the *** in every possible way and does not compare to a Bold 2 in any way.

I am also interested.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[F0nage]

Originally Posted by l.a.rossmann

I've been considering the E72 because of the lack of IMAP folder functionality on my storm. It's also time to leave verizon soon.

The E72 is buggy right, now I would recommend the E71 if you need your phone to just work. You might get lucky and get a good one, or you might get one with the dreaded space-bar bug that leaves you without a space bar until you soft-reset, which is a huge PITA.

Originally Posted by l.a.rossmann

a) notification profiles. Can I make it so different email accounts make different noises when I receive a new mail?

I'm pretty sure you cannot. I have an S60 3rd phone but I don't have it with me at the moment. The profiles and notifications are not nearly like what BlackBerry provides. Also your layout is not unique to various themes.

Originally Posted by l.a.rossmann

Can I do a different sound for SMS than for regular email as well?

I believe so.

Originally Posted by l.a.rossmann

b) Are there any themes like for the storm where you can see calendar entries, new SMS, and new messages on the front of the phone as they show up? A short preview, not the entire thing. I like that on a recent storm theme I found.

I don't think so, but a lot can be accomplished through free or cheap apps. ComingNext shows you calendar appts. on the home screen and tons of SMS preview apps can be customized to show incoming SMS in popups, etc.

Originally Posted by l.a.rossmann

c) Does it take longer than 2 minutes to turn on from battery insertion to composing an email?

Nokias are painfully slow to startup, but so is almost anything compared to a BlackBerry. I don't think it would take 2 minutes though. The E71 has pretty good battery life. Do you have some reason to swap batteries? If not just keep it on the charger when you can and you probably won't have to swap.

Originally Posted by l.a.rossmann

d) Does it work consistently or does it lag like crazy sometimes for no apparent reason?

S60 3rd is a pretty stable OS and it runs well, no lagging or odd behavior that I noticed. It's probably the best OS Nokia has right now in terms of being mature, and as usual for Nokia/Symbian a big community and tons of free apps, hacks and mods.

Here are a few important links:

Nokia Mobile Talk lots of E72 stuff
Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – First Impressions | Symbian-Guru.com
Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – 7 Things I Love | Symbian-Guru.com
Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – 7 Things I Hate | Symbian-Guru.com

[Elisha82]

You will be able to display a bunch of stuff on the main screen by choosing the plug-ins. Calendar, Email are the major ones and SMS with indication of new message but not a preview of the content. That's how it was on my E71 anyway. My E51 however had the ability to change the default inbox for the main screen to either the SMS inbox or Email inbox.
I've owned the E50, E51, E61, E70 and E71. As well as the N90 and N95.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Elisha82]

Also build quality on any of the E-Series beats and Berry.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[dwaynewilliams]

Originally Posted by F0nage

The E72 is buggy right, now I would recommend the E71 if you need your phone to just work. You might get lucky and get a good one, or you might get one with the dreaded space-bar bug that leaves you without a space bar until you soft-reset, which is a huge PITA.



I'm pretty sure you cannot. I have an S60 3rd phone but I don't have it with me at the moment. The profiles and notifications are not nearly like what BlackBerry provides. Also your layout is not unique to various themes.



I believe so.



I don't think so, but a lot can be accomplished through free or cheap apps. ComingNext shows you calendar appts. on the home screen and tons of SMS preview apps can be customized to show incoming SMS in popups, etc.



Nokias are painfully slow to startup, but so is almost anything compared to a BlackBerry. I don't think it would take 2 minutes though. The E71 has pretty good battery life. Do you have some reason to swap batteries? If not just keep it on the charger when you can and you probably won't have to swap.



S60 3rd is a pretty stable OS and it runs well, no lagging or odd behavior that I noticed. It's probably the best OS Nokia has right now in terms of being mature, and as usual for Nokia/Symbian a big community and tons of free apps, hacks and mods.

Here are a few important links:

Nokia Mobile Talk lots of E72 stuff
Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – First Impressions | Symbian-Guru.com
Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – 7 Things I Love | Symbian-Guru.com
Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – 7 Things I Hate | Symbian-Guru.com

That's a pretty convincing argument. I wonder why anyone would want an E72.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[F0nage]

The E72 is a lot better than the E71...on paper. It's only when you read between the lines you find out the real story. I suspect a lot of people just compare specs, figuring it's the same phone since that's normally a reasonable thing to do. Unfortunately, the E72 doesn't seem ready for prime time. I would like to see it get there.

[cliftonprince]

E-72 useful for at least one thing:

synch via "real" internet rather than via only USB, bluetooth, BES or BIS.



I just purchased an E-72. I may not keep it -- intend to compare and then either cancel the purchase, or use it and sell my unlocked BB as a used piece of hardware at an internet auction site.

The reason I got the E-72 is that I'm interested in over-the-air and/or via-the-internet synchronization. Blackberry ONLY allows synchronization (a) through a direct link to your laptop (meaning, you have to be in the same room with both laptop and BB) via USB cable or via Bluetooth; or, (b) through the Blackberry server.

But I don't have access to a BB server. I use my smartphone as a "personal" phone, and I pay for all of it, rather than it being supported by my workplace. I am a student, and my school has excellent "free" (I paid for it with tuition fees, I'm sure) wi-fi and internet access, but the school doesn't give me a BIS or a BES or whatever they call it.

So, if I want to link up the "tasks" function from smartphone to laptop (whether or not that function is in MS Outlook or some other sync-able app), have to have the laptop and the phone in the same room.

Thus defeating the purpose of having a smartphone.

[cliftonprince]

Love the E-72. It does everything I wanted, so it's my new "main" phone and on-the-go Personal Data Assistant and map-navigation thingie and camera. I don't really have "complaints" about the BB (I was using a Bold 9000) because it did exactly what it claimed it would do, and it did it well. But the E-72 has some enhanced functionality that I'm happier with.

1. Better synch with Microsoft Outlook. It doesn't require a RIM contract or license, for over-the-air synchronization. I use Outlook to coordinate contacts, tasks, notes to myself, and appointments. All this data ends up on my school's Outlook server. I can access it via any computer that has a connected internet web browser, and I use "main" Outlook (the stand-alone client) from my home laptop to access it, and back it up. The only possible connection between a smart-phone and that database at the school would be one of two ways: either, through the internet "for real," or through a data-link directly to the laptop (USB or Bluetooth). With a Blackberry, I cannot use the "for real" internet connection (because my school refuses to give me that functionality for free, but instead charges me $200 for it), so I could only update changes to tasks, contacts, appointments, notes, when I physically had the Blackberry connected (by USB or Bluetooth) to the laptop. With my new Nokia E-72, I have the "for real" internet connection automatically. Consequently, things like contacts, tasks, appointments, any sub-folders in my email directory, etc., all get coordinated from server, to laptop, to smartphone, much more seamlessly. (By the way, many Blackberry users who wish to coordinate with Outlook may not have my problem. They may be using an Outlook server in a manner that allows them greater access. So, the improvement from Blackberry to Nokia may be rather idiosyncratic to me, and you shouldn't use this characteristic as a major criterion in any comparison or decision, since it may not apply to you at all, depending on what your server set-up for the Blackberry is.)

2. Better choice and management of incoming data. For every data feed on the Nokia, I choose whether I want internet or over-the-air (paid-for) data transfer from my data provider. I very much need this kind of functionality because I travel overseas to areas where my AT&T data service would be prohibitively expensive. So, by letting the phone only access "full" internet if I'm at a Wi-Fi hot-spot, while also letting it have voice-cal and incoming SMS text-message functionality, I'm able to micro-manage some of the data cost better. With AT&T on a Blackberry, I would have had to manage not the settings for each data retrieval system, but instead the retrieval system itself. In other words, with the Nokia I set up SMS messages to be allowed on the AT&T "in the sky" data but web browsing to require a hot-spot and to be disallowed on AT&T data; with the Blackberry I would have had to block all web browsing and then, when I'm at a hot-spot, turn it back on again but watch carefully that I not use AT&T data. It's a minor difference -- turning off certain data access levels program by program (Nokia) as opposed to turning off certain data access levels for the whole phone at any given time (Blackberry), but it adds much better functionality for me. It's essentially a greater micro-management opportunity on the Nokia E-72, since the Blackberry operates with the assumption that I would establish one set of settings and then just sit on them.

3. Better hardware on the inside. The battery (so they claim) can last 9 hours of talk-time, and I haven't ever gotten the indicator below 6 out of 7 little bars even after a full day of use. The camera on the Nokia E-72 is 5 mega-pixels, with much better response and optics, than on the Blackberry Bold 9000. There is a built-in FM radio receiver in the Nokia E-72 (or, it can listen to over-the-air radio from the AT&T data-feed, too). For the GSM global satellite positioning thing, the antenna (or receiver or whatever you call it) in the Nokia E-72 works MUCH more reliably than the one in the Bold -- whenever I turned on Google Maps on my Bold, I wondered if I'd EVER get a response that identified where I was, whereas with the Nokia it's instant. The E-72 has an "optical" trackpad which I don't think is necessarily better or worse than the Bold's trackball, but some people might prefer it. It works fine, but isn't necessarily superior. The E-72's keyboard is smaller, but I find it a bit easier to use than the Bold's, and Nokia has chosen the option keys and symbols a bit better for my regular use. Plus there are, in addition to the phone-up and phone-down buttons, and the volume-up and volume-down buttons, a further EIGHT dedicated function keys (1. power-switch on top, through which you can also swap modes or tone profiles; 2. mute-button, through which you can also turn on voice-activated commands and similar programs; 3. a "home" key; 4., 5., & 6., dedicated ((but re-programmable)) keys for calendar, contacts, and email; 7. & 8. two other "main" dedicated menu keys, left and right). There's a good accelerometer (shake the phone to make it shut up), polyphonic playback (and a neat app called "3-D ring-tones"), better vibration. And the usual connections: Edge, 3G, 802.11 WLAN, etc.

4. Better "sub-categorization" opportunities for many many of the settings. The Symbian op-sys allows a variety of categorizations, or "modes" and "themes," that make swapping from one type of use ("play") to any another ("work" or "social" or "outdoor" or "camping or ... user-defined) much easier. No fiddling with a variety of settings at the start of your vacation. Just swap modes from Work to Vacation, done.

5. Better "office worker" software: full PDF and MS Office integration comes with the phone. And ... actually works on it, unlike on any Blackberry I've ever seen.

6. No more tethering to RIM! Hoorah! Whenever I went to a third-party website on the BB Bold, I could certainly access it; but it would assume I was accessing it from Southern Ontario. That's because RIM routes all internet access through Southern Ontario. "McDonald's in your area" would come up with hits in St. Catherine's, Niagara Falls, and Welland. But I'm in New Orleans. Sure, I could re-set my location (if the website LET me) but how annoying, to be treated like I would rather be thought of as "where I am not" rather than be treated as "where I am." And of course, this RIM-mandatory tether meant a variety of other big-brother-is-controlling-you type choices that RIM made for me. Silly RIM, let the end user choose.

---

There are some things that are worse. I liked the Blackberry Bold 9000 for some of these reasons:

1. Text keystroke integration to menus. Though the Symbian op-sys on the Nokia does allow that certain keystrokes on the QWERTY keyboard will perform certain functions, I dearly miss the capacity too jump around a Blackberry menu by clicking a key. For example, when you hit the BB "menu" button and you are presented with the choices for Options, Save, Close, if you hit "C" on the keyboard, the cursor immediately jumps down the menu to the first thing that begins with "C." Not so, on the Nokia. You must scroll manually through the whole menu to get to your choice.

2. Predictive text entering. The program for figuring out and correcting your typing mistakes in Blackberry works much better than in Nokia. The system that you get with Symbian doesn't get the concept, doesn't use words the way I use them, and is hard to navigate for a variety of reasons. I've turned it off. So, when I'm typing a quick email or SMS, I have to fix all the typos myself (and I miss plenty) whereas on the BB I had gotten to where I was pretty much able to "let" it figure out and correct a lot of them.

3. Accessories. I had about six cases, clips, and other toys that went with the Blackberry Bold. There is literally NO after-market case for a Nokia E-72 that I can find, other than an Otterbox. That's fine, and I'll get it, but variety and choices would have been nice. And a belt clip.

4. Desktop software. Nokia has this silly thing called "OVI" that just isn't up to snuff yet. It's basically a type of Outlook server like Google Docs, where you can have your contacts and maps and stuff all coordinated and ready to access by phone wherever you can get internet or data-feed; but it doesn't work particularly well, has a load of glitches still, and essentially isn't compatible with ANYONE or ANYBODY. If OVI gets up to standard, I'll use it for some things; but mostly, I'm glad I have an Outlook server "in the sky" already, since the changing data that I use and update on the go, and therefore would need to access from a variety of locations with a variety of devices, is all Outlook-based in the first place. Further, the Windows desktop "backup" of my Nokia's on-phone data is literally a 150-megabyte file! My Blackberry weekly backups were roughly 1 MB each. So, it's uploading the WHOLE FREAKIN' PHONE.

5. SD-chip usage. The Blackberry is rather transparent about when you do, or don't, store something on the insertable-removable SD chip (note: an SD chip is removable, read-write-able storage, like what goes into a digital camera; not to be confused with the SIM card, which you usually get from your phone carrier). Nokia and Symbian kind of fudge the settings and make you acquiesce to their preferences, using up some SD-chip space when you don't want to, and thereby preventing intelligent swapping between friends of one SD chip for another. However, Nokia did provide a 4-GB SD chip with the phone, which is more than I can say for AT&T, which gave me literally zero SD storage space with my BB Bold. :P

6. Third-party apps. I'm not missing much for my Nokia, now that I've gotten it up and running with the basics. Maps, a register for my cash accounts, tasks, memos, email, SMS, MMS, telephoning by voice (or video!), web browsing, stock quotes, 'net radio ... I got what I need. But if it comes to pass, that I have a new and perhaps odd need for some weird novel function, I know that there's probably a Blackberry app (and an I-phone app) for it, whereas there's only a slim chance that there's a Nokia app. Many of my old Blackberry favorites that were dedicated apps, are only web-links that point the browser to an "http://m.xxx.com/" page, on the Nokia (Facebook and Scoremobile, for example).

7. Google integration. Because Nokia wants to be your server in the sky, they resist integrating software with similar services, so things like Google Maps don't coordinate as neatly. The Nokia built-in mapping system is really superior to Google's, but the street-plan and satellite images are resident on your phone: that means the Nokia would allow less data transfer if you want to go to Azerbaijan, for example; but more use of storage-space and you have to plan ahead better.

---

In all, the Blackberry is about corporate or similar employees getting a "service" that's reliable and standardized. I don't think that this choice was right for me. I'm a student, a solo user without any tech department to back me up; but I'm also a bit of a techno-geek and I'm comfortable maximizing my personal technological choices, setting by setting, so the Nokia really serves my ends much better. In the long run, Nokia invented the smartphone concept anyway, and because what I'm doing is totally exactly the smartphone thang (1) telephoning, (2) PDA type stuff with tasks, contacts, appointments, and (3) map travel, the Nokia E-72 beats the Blackberry Bold, for me.

I got my E-72 new for just under $300 from Dell small-business with an internet coupon (and, no surprise, after I gave Dell my order there were some problems, AS THERE ALWAYS ARE WITH THE IDIOTS AT DELL!). That was a steal -- it lists at $450-ish.

Alack alas, it's only G3. I'll have to upgrade from the E-72 when G4 gets going. But the web browsing and wi-fi usage are so user-friendly on the E-72, that I'm now shopping for a phone-carrier that will let me turn off the data package so that I can save $40 a month and use the phone's internet capabilities only when I'm at a wi-fi hot-spot. Nokia's E-72 with Symbian op-sys is superior to Blackberry Bold 9000, for me; and I'd recommend that any individual user look into the Nokia smartphones for all the reasons listed above.

For now, I'm probably keeping the 9000, though I may sell it here or at an internet auction site, depending on how I feel about it. But I'm definitely using the E-72 as my phone.

[dwaynewilliams]

Originally Posted by cliftonprince

Love the E-72. It does everything I wanted, so it's my new "main" phone and on-the-go Personal Data Assistant and map-navigation thingie and camera. I don't really have "complaints" about the BB (I was using a Bold 9000) because it did exactly what it claimed it would do, and it did it well. But the E-72 has some enhanced functionality that I'm happier with.

1. Better synch with Microsoft Outlook. It doesn't require a RIM contract or license, for over-the-air synchronization. I use Outlook to coordinate contacts, tasks, notes to myself, and appointments. All this data ends up on my school's Outlook server. I can access it via any computer that has a connected internet web browser, and I use "main" Outlook (the stand-alone client) from my home laptop to access it, and back it up. The only possible connection between a smart-phone and that database at the school would be one of two ways: either, through the internet "for real," or through a data-link directly to the laptop (USB or Bluetooth). With a Blackberry, I cannot use the "for real" internet connection (because my school refuses to give me that functionality for free, but instead charges me $200 for it), so I could only update changes to tasks, contacts, appointments, notes, when I physically had the Blackberry connected (by USB or Bluetooth) to the laptop. With my new Nokia E-72, I have the "for real" internet connection automatically. Consequently, things like contacts, tasks, appointments, any sub-folders in my email directory, etc., all get coordinated from server, to laptop, to smartphone, much more seamlessly. (By the way, many Blackberry users who wish to coordinate with Outlook may not have my problem. They may be using an Outlook server in a manner that allows them greater access. So, the improvement from Blackberry to Nokia may be rather idiosyncratic to me, and you shouldn't use this characteristic as a major criterion in any comparison or decision, since it may not apply to you at all, depending on what your server set-up for the Blackberry is.)

2. Better choice and management of incoming data. For every data feed on the Nokia, I choose whether I want internet or over-the-air (paid-for) data transfer from my data provider. I very much need this kind of functionality because I travel overseas to areas where my AT&T data service would be prohibitively expensive. So, by letting the phone only access "full" internet if I'm at a Wi-Fi hot-spot, while also letting it have voice-cal and incoming SMS text-message functionality, I'm able to micro-manage some of the data cost better. With AT&T on a Blackberry, I would have had to manage not the settings for each data retrieval system, but instead the retrieval system itself. In other words, with the Nokia I set up SMS messages to be allowed on the AT&T "in the sky" data but web browsing to require a hot-spot and to be disallowed on AT&T data; with the Blackberry I would have had to block all web browsing and then, when I'm at a hot-spot, turn it back on again but watch carefully that I not use AT&T data. It's a minor difference -- turning off certain data access levels program by program (Nokia) as opposed to turning off certain data access levels for the whole phone at any given time (Blackberry), but it adds much better functionality for me. It's essentially a greater micro-management opportunity on the Nokia E-72, since the Blackberry operates with the assumption that I would establish one set of settings and then just sit on them.

3. Better hardware on the inside. The battery (so they claim) can last 9 hours of talk-time, and I haven't ever gotten the indicator below 6 out of 7 little bars even after a full day of use. The camera on the Nokia E-72 is 5 mega-pixels, with much better response and optics, than on the Blackberry Bold 9000. There is a built-in FM radio receiver in the Nokia E-72 (or, it can listen to over-the-air radio from the AT&T data-feed, too). For the GSM global satellite positioning thing, the antenna (or receiver or whatever you call it) in the Nokia E-72 works MUCH more reliably than the one in the Bold -- whenever I turned on Google Maps on my Bold, I wondered if I'd EVER get a response that identified where I was, whereas with the Nokia it's instant. The E-72 has an "optical" trackpad which I don't think is necessarily better or worse than the Bold's trackball, but some people might prefer it. It works fine, but isn't necessarily superior. The E-72's keyboard is smaller, but I find it a bit easier to use than the Bold's, and Nokia has chosen the option keys and symbols a bit better for my regular use. Plus there are, in addition to the phone-up and phone-down buttons, and the volume-up and volume-down buttons, a further EIGHT dedicated function keys (1. power-switch on top, through which you can also swap modes or tone profiles; 2. mute-button, through which you can also turn on voice-activated commands and similar programs; 3. a "home" key; 4., 5., & 6., dedicated ((but re-programmable)) keys for calendar, contacts, and email; 7. & 8. two other "main" dedicated menu keys, left and right). There's a good accelerometer (shake the phone to make it shut up), polyphonic playback (and a neat app called "3-D ring-tones"), better vibration. And the usual connections: Edge, 3G, 802.11 WLAN, etc.

4. Better "sub-categorization" opportunities for many many of the settings. The Symbian op-sys allows a variety of categorizations, or "modes" and "themes," that make swapping from one type of use ("play") to any another ("work" or "social" or "outdoor" or "camping or ... user-defined) much easier. No fiddling with a variety of settings at the start of your vacation. Just swap modes from Work to Vacation, done.

5. Better "office worker" software: full PDF and MS Office integration comes with the phone. And ... actually works on it, unlike on any Blackberry I've ever seen.

6. No more tethering to RIM! Hoorah! Whenever I went to a third-party website on the BB Bold, I could certainly access it; but it would assume I was accessing it from Southern Ontario. That's because RIM routes all internet access through Southern Ontario. "McDonald's in your area" would come up with hits in St. Catherine's, Niagara Falls, and Welland. But I'm in New Orleans. Sure, I could re-set my location (if the website LET me) but how annoying, to be treated like I would rather be thought of as "where I am not" rather than be treated as "where I am." And of course, this RIM-mandatory tether meant a variety of other big-brother-is-controlling-you type choices that RIM made for me. Silly RIM, let the end user choose.

---

There are some things that are worse. I liked the Blackberry Bold 9000 for some of these reasons:

1. Text keystroke integration to menus. Though the Symbian op-sys on the Nokia does allow that certain keystrokes on the QWERTY keyboard will perform certain functions, I dearly miss the capacity too jump around a Blackberry menu by clicking a key. For example, when you hit the BB "menu" button and you are presented with the choices for Options, Save, Close, if you hit "C" on the keyboard, the cursor immediately jumps down the menu to the first thing that begins with "C." Not so, on the Nokia. You must scroll manually through the whole menu to get to your choice.

2. Predictive text entering. The program for figuring out and correcting your typing mistakes in Blackberry works much better than in Nokia. The system that you get with Symbian doesn't get the concept, doesn't use words the way I use them, and is hard to navigate for a variety of reasons. I've turned it off. So, when I'm typing a quick email or SMS, I have to fix all the typos myself (and I miss plenty) whereas on the BB I had gotten to where I was pretty much able to "let" it figure out and correct a lot of them.

3. Accessories. I had about six cases, clips, and other toys that went with the Blackberry Bold. There is literally NO after-market case for a Nokia E-72 that I can find, other than an Otterbox. That's fine, and I'll get it, but variety and choices would have been nice. And a belt clip.

4. Desktop software. Nokia has this silly thing called "OVI" that just isn't up to snuff yet. It's basically a type of Outlook server like Google Docs, where you can have your contacts and maps and stuff all coordinated and ready to access by phone wherever you can get internet or data-feed; but it doesn't work particularly well, has a load of glitches still, and essentially isn't compatible with ANYONE or ANYBODY. If OVI gets up to standard, I'll use it for some things; but mostly, I'm glad I have an Outlook server "in the sky" already, since the changing data that I use and update on the go, and therefore would need to access from a variety of locations with a variety of devices, is all Outlook-based in the first place. Further, the Windows desktop "backup" of my Nokia's on-phone data is literally a 150-megabyte file! My Blackberry weekly backups were roughly 1 MB each. So, it's uploading the WHOLE FREAKIN' PHONE.

5. SD-chip usage. The Blackberry is rather transparent about when you do, or don't, store something on the insertable-removable SD chip (note: an SD chip is removable, read-write-able storage, like what goes into a digital camera; not to be confused with the SIM card, which you usually get from your phone carrier). Nokia and Symbian kind of fudge the settings and make you acquiesce to their preferences, using up some SD-chip space when you don't want to, and thereby preventing intelligent swapping between friends of one SD chip for another. However, Nokia did provide a 4-GB SD chip with the phone, which is more than I can say for AT&T, which gave me literally zero SD storage space with my BB Bold. :P

6. Third-party apps. I'm not missing much for my Nokia, now that I've gotten it up and running with the basics. Maps, a register for my cash accounts, tasks, memos, email, SMS, MMS, telephoning by voice (or video!), web browsing, stock quotes, 'net radio ... I got what I need. But if it comes to pass, that I have a new and perhaps odd need for some weird novel function, I know that there's probably a Blackberry app (and an I-phone app) for it, whereas there's only a slim chance that there's a Nokia app. Many of my old Blackberry favorites that were dedicated apps, are only web-links that point the browser to an "http://m.xxx.com/" page, on the Nokia (Facebook and Scoremobile, for example).

7. Google integration. Because Nokia wants to be your server in the sky, they resist integrating software with similar services, so things like Google Maps don't coordinate as neatly. The Nokia built-in mapping system is really superior to Google's, but the street-plan and satellite images are resident on your phone: that means the Nokia would allow less data transfer if you want to go to Azerbaijan, for example; but more use of storage-space and you have to plan ahead better.

---

In all, the Blackberry is about corporate or similar employees getting a "service" that's reliable and standardized. I don't think that this choice was right for me. I'm a student, a solo user without any tech department to back me up; but I'm also a bit of a techno-geek and I'm comfortable maximizing my personal technological choices, setting by setting, so the Nokia really serves my ends much better. In the long run, Nokia invented the smartphone concept anyway, and because what I'm doing is totally exactly the smartphone thang (1) telephoning, (2) PDA type stuff with tasks, contacts, appointments, and (3) map travel, the Nokia E-72 beats the Blackberry Bold, for me.

I got my E-72 new for just under $300 from Dell small-business with an internet coupon (and, no surprise, after I gave Dell my order there were some problems, AS THERE ALWAYS ARE WITH THE IDIOTS AT DELL!). That was a steal -- it lists at $450-ish.

Alack alas, it's only G3. I'll have to upgrade from the E-72 when G4 gets going. But the web browsing and wi-fi usage are so user-friendly on the E-72, that I'm now shopping for a phone-carrier that will let me turn off the data package so that I can save $40 a month and use the phone's internet capabilities only when I'm at a wi-fi hot-spot. Nokia's E-72 with Symbian op-sys is superior to Blackberry Bold 9000, for me; and I'd recommend that any individual user look into the Nokia smartphones for all the reasons listed above.

For now, I'm probably keeping the 9000, though I may sell it here or at an internet auction site, depending on how I feel about it. But I'm definitely using the E-72 as my phone.

That's a really in-depth comparison of the Nokia E72 and the Bold 9000. I do have a question about software upgrades for the Nokia E72. Are they OTA? How frequent are the software upgrades?

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[rogo22]

Dwaynewilliams: Unfortunately, for the US model, updates are always behind the Euro models. You can change your product code and receive those updates. They aren't as frequent as the leaks for BB, but for the most part, Nokia updates are more frequent than Official blackberry updates. Updates for your region are OTA, but if you change your product code, you can only update through the desktop updater.

I saw in the other thread you mentioned ATT. You can always go with tmobile. I got on their EM+ plan and get everything I did with sprint (except for unlimited minutes) for way less. The only 'plus' with ATT is that you will get 3G with your E72.

On another note, if you do go with tmobile, wait for the upcoming E73 'mode' you can google search it, but its basically a carrier supported E72. It will offer UMA and 3G. So that's a plus over the current E72 on ATT which you don't get wifi calling.

ATT ruined the E71 I had the unbranded version and then used the E71x and it is absolutely not the same experience. They took out the front camera, fm radio, and then put in all their forced software. Tmobiles E73 looks to stay true to Nokias factory output. Tmobile did a very good job with leaving the Nuron untouched and I'm willing to bet they will do just as good a job with the E73

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