I�d read many reviews of the F700, all singing its praises, some claiming vociferously that it was the iPhone killer! I think not. I spent a week using an F700 and here�s a summary of what went wrong:

• Installed PCStudio and the drivers to sync up with contacts, calendar and all the things you�d want on your �Ultra Smart� device to do but no. It would recognise the phone 50% of the time.
• Once it did recognise the phone the options are to sync with Outlook or outlook express. No no no no no. It would fail every time. A little Googling and it turns out it just does not work. There is a strange phone editor that sort of allows you to import by hand but it would not import all numbers. All the names are there but some numbers are missing. Of course you only find this out the hard way.
• I thought it must be the software that shipped with the phone, it is new after all but looking at Samsung Mobile�s support site it tells me that there is (0) software available, (0) User Manuals, (0) software updates (0) FAQ�s and (0) Tutorials.
• There�s no voice dialling, this is pretty important to me and the Vodafone Web site tells me there is voice dialling. No there isn�t.
• Vodafone also claimed for some time up to launch there was to be a 5 mega pixel camera but it launched with 3. This wouldn�t bother me so much but from pressing the shutter button to it actually taking the photo is 4 seconds.
• I could almost live with all of the above but the UI is terrible and the use of the big screen is poor. It will only show a few lines of a list in portrait or landscape mode and the touch screen is just annoying. Sensitive scrolling may have helped but there is one scrolling speed. Fast. I found myself looking for a Blackberry style wheel.

Redeeming features:

• The fabulous slide out keyboard. I used to have two phones, a K750i, nice and small for general carrying around and a Blackberry for when there�s the need for QWERTY keyboard type things. The F700 is both a suitable trouser size and has a really usable keyboard.
• The screen is big, there�s no denying it.

So what�s the answer, did I get an iPhone instead? No. The iPhone�s the opposite of the F700, UI is superb but for me the hardware isn�t quite there. I compromised on the keyboard and went for a Nokia N82. Now I�m happy to say I am as pleased with that as I was displeased with the F700.

Of course all this does point to the need for something like Android�

So why the the Nokia E61i then?

The Wifi support is great. I would love to see better wifi hoping functionality, such as utilising the access point groups to define my preferred access points in order and better support across all the apps. I seem to spend a bit of time in each app switching between access points, but at least connection is pretty solid once set up. Wifi usage does help reduce my Vodafone data usage which is capped at a less than attractive 120Mb per month.

With the E61i, the synchronisation of email, contacts and calendaring is pretty seamless. I’ve got it hooked up to our Zimbra server using the Nokia’s Mail for Exchange client (which you can clearly use for Exchange if you have that). I went for syncing my contacts via my mac with iSync because (i) I was playing around with iSync at the time and (ii) it lets me sync my contacts without an internet connection (e.g. when I’m travelling abroad). You’ll need to download the iSync plugin for the E61i since it isn’t provided by default. With the E61i I really can have my email, contacts and calendaring kept in sync between my phone, mac and zimbra effortlessly.

The E61i has also thrown in a camera which is a nice addition over the E61. Don’t expect too much from the camera, but it’s enough for my purposes which are general taking photos of whiteboards and quick photos on business trips to send back to my wife.

The UI is intuitive and quick – the ability to configure the shortcut buttons allows me to get to what I want to quickly. The screen and keyboard are fantastic – I can easily read my inbox and write messages whilst in queues and on the move. Of course the mobile browsing can pretty much read anything out there and do a reasonable job on it, whether I’m using the default browser or opera mini.

So all in all a pretty handy device whilst I’m out and about (or even at home but don’t want to flip out my computer to read my mails). And with a bluetooth headset I don’t have to put the brick that it is to my ear.