It should come as no surprise, but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated - There's nothing better than the Nseries. Now, to qualify that.
A while back, as I posted about occasionally, I've been trying to look at other handsets, to see if there is anything else that can offer what I want from a phone. I've looked at Eseries devices, I've used phones from other manufacturers, I've probably changed handsets more in the last few months than I have in the last few years.
Most recently, I've used the Samsung Tocco, the LG Renoir. I've got a Motorola Z10, I've had the Sony Ericsson C905, a Nokia E51, E66, E71, a Nokia 5800, an N85, an N95 8GB, and the N82. They are all in their own right good handsets, but there's not one there that is better than the NSeries, for all round power, features, usability and durability.
The Tocco has to be the worst device I've ever used for web browsing, the Renoir is just a mess. The Z10 is a good imaging device, with some nice editing features (Something the Nseries lack, strangely) but isn't the most user friendly device, and there is little in the way of additional software available. The C905 has a great camera, but is slow, buggy, and has real hardware issues; The E51 is a great device, if I had to be ultra picky, the screen is too small which really effects web browsing and the camera shouldn't even be included, it's not worth having. The E66 and E71 are great devices, with excellent build quality, I really like them. The E66 is let down with a really poor battery, and I found I didn't get on with the keys on the E71. Moving on to the 5800, it's a nice enough device for what it is, but a lesson I still need to heed is I don't like touchscreen. I battled with it, to try and get on with the phone, but when I want to scroll down a page, I just want it to happen. Sometimes trying to get a response from a touchscreen phone is just a major pain in the ass, it really is. Web browsing generally is difficult, as not all sites are optimised, and this means selecting links isn't always easy. At least with a keypad phone, I can navigate the browser simple and easy, and highlight any link I want, quickly and easy.
As for the three Nseries phones, the N85 is nice enough, and would replace an N95 8GB for most people, but there are some points that I didn't like. Like having to turn all warning sounds off just to not have to listen to that awful noise every time I selected something in the menu! How could anyone ever think that was acceptable? The slightly different menu layout was a bit cumbersome, too, making extra button pushes for some features that became annoying. I did like the new way to customise the Homescreen though, at least I was able to get rid of all the ugly writing that is otherwise on the screen when calendar appointments are saved. It would have been nice to be able to choose my own icons on the screen when lining the screen up with a side view active standby though, I couldn't find how to do that.
So, after much cash spent, and many handsets come and gone, I have (eventually) come to the conclusion, there is nothing better than Nseries, and to top that, there is nothing better than the N95 8GB or the N82. Both look great, packed with features, stable OS, excellent all round imaging, web browsing, music playback, video capture, and so on. The GPS is probably quicker on the N82, the keypad on the N95 8GB is better though.
Until the speaker went, I was using an N95 8GB, now using an N82. I hope I've learnt my lesson; when it comes to phones, there is nothing better than these.
