I think I found my next cell phone

For those of you who have phoned me, you all know that my Motorola RAZR has crappy reception. It also has a bad battery life and a sucky interface. In other words it is not my favourite cell phone that I have ever owned.

This means I am always on the look out for a new one. But the trick is that I have certain requirements. First I need Bluetooth. Being able to wirelessly sync with my laptop at any time without needing a cable is really handy (which means I need to be able to use iSync with it somehow). Plus it is great to have a cordless headset. Next I want decent battery life, but it doesn't need to be amazing. As long as I can use my phone heavily in a day and not have its battery give out before I get home I am okay (especially if I can turn the low batter indicator to silent). And I do like to use my camera on occasion. And it must be unlocked so that I can swap between my Canadian and US SIM cards.

And that is pretty much it. I don't need mp3 playback (got my iPod for that). I don't need multiphonic ringtones. I don't need FM radio. I don't need a crazy calendar app.

I would like to consider having a web connection for the phone (for things like Google Mobile search, the Gmail for Mobile application, Google Maps for Mobile application, Froogle Mobile, JAJAH Mobile, et.c) which means I would like to have 3G support. And finally having UMA or SIP support for VoIP calls through my cell phone would be neat.

It turns out I found a phone that has all of this and some other perks but falls short in one area. The Nokia E60 has Bluetooth, can sync with a Mac, is 3G, and supports SIP (looks like Gizmo can be used for the SIP account). It also has a great screen along with being a series 60 phone (meaning I can run Python on it!). It has received some good reviews. And it is not totally ridiculous in terms of price from a well-reviewed online seller.

But it does lack a camera. Now I have used my camera on my phone in the past but I do not use it constantly; the last photo I took was on Sept. 29th. Plus I have a nice, compact 7 MP camera that I should use more. If the camera was really that big of a deal I could consider the more expensive E70 which would give me the camera and a foldout keyboard, but at that price I could get a Timbuk2 market tote and just solve all possible issues with carrying my camera around with me when I don't have a jacket with pockets or my backpack (assuming I can get into the habit of carrying my camera around with me which I am going to start today).

I do wish that a UMA phone was available that made me happy, but the Nokia 6136 is rather bland and the Samsung T709 is not out yet (plus Samsung phones do not sync well with Macs). Plus T-Mobile just started offering their service and who knows how long it will be before anyone else offers the service. Plus if the SIP support in the Nokia E series phones is good enough I really shouldn't need it. The only perk of UMA over SIP would be that I got to use T-Mobile hotspots for calls, but with SIP I might be able to use any open WiFi spot (not sure, though, if the phone supports hopping around like that). Plus the expense of calls can go down if I move to using JAJAH Mobile (once they support these phones) since I get incoming calls for free and thus then just take my money that I spend on US minutes and put it into Internet access and JAJAH minutes.

Anyway, that's enough out of me on this subject. I realize my social blog audience might not care very much about this, but since you people have to suffer with my phone choices more I figure you might care. =)