Mobile Wuchtln

First of, sorry for not doing any Happy New Year Post – the reason is simple and very easy to understand, i almost completely took off from all the Internet Fuzz. I have spend a very nice evening with my half-sister in vienna, after that 4 straight days with my beloved girlfriend I enjoyed those days very very much and so did my girl! Still i wanna take a second and wish you the very best for 2010. i hope you had some great days and may all your wishes come true in this new year!

2 Days before the end of 2009, Friend of the Site, James Whatley has published a new Post over on the highly recommendable The Really Mobile Project-Blog called “My Phone of the Year“. The result of his thoughts were very interesting and surprised a lot of us, but at the same time, James’ points were very reasonable and actually gave the feeling he was right – if you wanna find out which Phone rocked James the most in 2009, head over to the Really Mobile Project and read on! Parts of this Post are taken from my Reply i did on TRMP, but i felt like doing a list on my own, and additionally tweaking it a bit. my list will be about Phones i have used in 2009, not judging by their actual Sales Dates! Ready? Let’s go..

Placed at No. 9 and no surprise: The Sony Ericsson Satio! I was really looking forward to trial the Satio. Pictures posted on the net looked promising, even the UI looked nice, i was happy to see that the S60 homescreen was finally appearing to be usable. Got it in my hands, and first impressions have been overall positive. a device, well-made with a kickass camera, finally micro-sd support and some more goodies. until the bugs came, and they came big time. the SE homescreen was very nice, giving several shortcuts, latest pictures and more – cool if you consider the fact that it was the ONLY working homescreen option. none of the nokia-ones was working. several restarts a day, that gotten more and more and a not exactly hyper-responsive touchscreen left this whole Satio Experience with a sour Taste in the Mouth. Don’t get this wrong, SE even confirmed that they were sleeping in the last years and have now finally woken up, and the Satio is a nice Step in a good direction, but this device didn’t get a proper testing from the SE Developers. I hope future SW Updates will fix those Problems, unfortunately i had to give the Device back to Sony Ericsson before i was able to find out.

Rank No. 8 goes to the Nokia 5800XM here on the left (Picture courtesy of www.fony.sk). After seeing this Handset in action, the spark for touchscreen phones was flame on in me. The Size of the Device felt just right, the 3 MP Camera seemed so-so but okay, all needed Features were inside – i was basically ready to go! I received this Device (as a gift from my friend teo bartulovic aka Apocalypso, founder of www.symbian-freak.com) and used it for almost 3 weeks until i realized that i was lucky enough to score one with a damaged Speaker – the volume while calls was dropping and increasing repeatedly, making it almost impossible to do normal calls. if that wasn’t all, i had huge problems with my screen as well. My 5800XM basically refused to come back of the standby mode, resulting in an unusable phone. This, combined with a very buggy S60 OS (that again is not made for Touchscreen Phones without giving it a huge overhaul first) and a useless Homescreen has made the Nokia 5800XM a Handset i love to hate – despite the absolute best Stereo Speakers i have ever heard.

The T-Mobile G1, which i had in early 2009. To be honest, i’m not sure why this is only on the 7th Rank on my personal Hitlist. There was nothing majorly wrong with this one. I fell in heavy love with the form factor and found that the G1 keyboard is still one of the best (if not the best) i have ever used, in terms of spacing and layout. its no secret that i dont like the Nokia 3-row keyboards at all and some people complained about the misplaced ..ermm.. trackball part that gets in your way, but i didnt have a problem with it and loved using it. The G1 also marked the beginning of Android and my love for it, with Android eventually replacing Symbian as my Main OS. I guess it’s the unspectacularness of the G1 that left it behind in my personal Ranks. There’s nothing mindblowing on this Device, some things like the Speaker, Camera, Battery were not exactly satisfying. The rather cheap Build quality did also not contribute to a memorable Experience. But still, it was nice to use and the Time with it was great

Ah yeah, the Nokia N97, No. 6 in my ranking. Another phone i had a Love/Hate Relationship with. I can remember a lot of Symbian Freak Users praising this Device as the holy Grail, the Savior of Nokia.. I have to admit, it does sound attractive. 32 GB in-built memory + microSD support for up to 16GB of additional Space, new Widget Homescreen, full-qwerty with a new angle-positioned Screen position if opened, 5 MP CZ Cam, 1500 mAh Battery… it sounds like the perfect Package, THE all in one Device. And it gave me a hard Time finding Mistakes. The whole Device was built like a Tank (except the plastic backplate), the slide-mechanism was picture perfect, with zero .. and i mean ZERO space in both, opened and closed positions. When closed, the N97 felt like a candybar Handset and i have never felt this before. But again, Nokia has effed up big time in the Software. Some Apps simply not opening from the Homescreen Widgets, multiple restarts and the same basic S60 OS hiding under the widgetized (is that a word by the way? lol) have destroyed this nice first Impressions. Hardwarewise, the Keyboard debuted this stupid 3-row Design, with some of the Buttons giving a very bad Feedback. I really felt split-minded about the Nokia N97. The form factor was all me, but in the course of 2009 i realized that the OS was/is not the way i wanna go any more. sure, the OS is always something that can be fixed or improved via Software Updates, but i’m afraid my Needs can be fullfilled with that..

… are you curious for the TOP 5? Check back tomorrow, when i return with Part 2 of my Phone of the Year 2009 Hitlist!