• iPhone 3Gs
• Palm Pre
• Nokia N97

Just to name a few marquee devices. Looking at the above list I needed to make a decision on my next phone here’s how I arrived at the N97.

I currently own and have been using an iPhone 3G, I owned an original iPhone prior and overall the platform has been fulfilling experience. Looking at the iPhone 3Gs I see no major upgrades worth eating the upgrade fee from AT&T. Sure a better camera is cool, but still no flash and while better speed is great most of the slowness I hate on the iPhone is coming from AT&T’s lousy network. Most of the software improvements are available to me in the 3.0 upgrade anyway so for me this became reason enough to say see you next year Apple with hopefully a more revolutionary approach (say multitasking?) iPhone 3Gs

Next up we have the little engine that could: the Palm Pre. WebOS looks fantastic! Looks like it stays out of your way as a user and has a great mobile browsing experience. Honestly the most impressive OS release since I first laid eyes on iPhone OS 1.0. Now the bad part(s). Sprint exclusive. It’s a huge hassle with a family plan to port 3 lines, pay ETFs find phones that work for everyone (not to mention breaking the news to the wife that iPhone she loves would be no more). Just way too much of a hassle. Even more disconcerting than moving is the lousy build quality on the Pre. Having seen a demo unit I was left surprised that they even let this out of the QC process. Honestly the thing felt like it was falling apart. The screen was loose and it also had strange banding issues at the bottom, all around no good. I have the distinct feeling Palm spent as little as possible due to the fact they are out of money, and it shows. I honestly hope Palm makes some good dough off the initial Pre sales so the next WebOS device is the one to get. I am pulling for you Palm. Palm Pre

This brings us to the N97. Back in 2007 I had a brief tryst with the Nokia N95. That phone was such an anomaly to me. Here you had a great camera which at the time easily bested anything out there, but the rest of the device felt disjointed, no consistency, and even worse it screamed for a touch screen. I found myself constantly tapping the screen with nothing obviously responding to my sad wanton taps. When the N97 was announced it seemed to address the issues I had with the N95 and even deal with some I didn’t know I had.

First up the camera. Still great, in some regards it’s better than the N95 and I will go on a limb and say it’s better than the 3Gs based upon the Carl Zeiss lens and the dual LED flash. There’s nothing like taking a picture with your phone knowing later it will actually be a passable photo. What’s more the N97 has come bundled with Qik, which opens up a whole new world of media sharing live and on the go. Hands down the media capturing potential with the N97 trumps anything Apple or Palm has to offer at this point.

One of the issues I that I had with the N95 was the issue of text entry. T9 sucks. Seriously. Sure if you have no other text entry method it’s better than tapping “5″ three times to to type the letter “L” but there’s no substitute for a qwerty keyboard virtual or other. This is where things become subjective. I have no major qualms about the iPhone virtual keyboard, save for the fact I can’t really type without looking, or at least with not upping the errors substantially. There’s something to be said for having a real keyboard and that the N97 does have. Is it the best keyboard ever? No. I would like to have had the function key elsewhere, and I hope they offer a way to get functions by long key presses or some other means soon. Also the lack of dedicated “@” and “,” keys are annoying.  That said it’s still a physical keyboard  and still is much easier to type on than a sheet of glass.

Last but certainly not least is the ability to customize my phone. As a long time Windows Mobile  and Palm OS user I quickly relinquished the ability to have a home screen, install any and all apps made by anyone under the sun, remove programs and generally tweak my phone as I saw fit. Like a cool breeze on a summer day the memories have flowed back about the power of  control over phone. I love the fact that I can have widgets (heck even ones I select!) on my home screen to quickly get information without switching between 2 or 3 apps to get a status on my mail, Facebook, or the weather. While Apple’s walled garden approach does have it’s advantages (no hassle syncing is a huge one), I can’t help but think that my actual enjoyment has increased as I can actually leverage the deep level at which apps can tap into the S60 platform. Want to sync your calendar only with your desktop? You can do that. Want to sync it with Exchange? You can do that. Want to Sync it with Google calendar? You can do that too. It’s that flexibility along with quick and immediate access at a glance at my most viewed data which is making me a solid believer in the N97 and S60 touch platform. Is it perfect no. Is there room for improvement absolutely. I honestly have enjoyed the last several days with my N97 more than the last 6 months with my iPhone and really that’s the beauty of technology isn’t it? As iron sharpens iron so one mobile device maker sharpens another.