Until this Monday, April 28^th, if you wanted a light weight 3G slider with video call and true colour screen there was only one handset, the Benq Siemens SL91. 

That was until Nokia released the 6600 Slide.  For the last year and a half, the 1000 or so owners of the SL91 prototypes could say that we had the most able handset of its type.  None of the other manufacturers had that combination of design, function and weight that the SL91 possesses. 

Although Nokia has taken over a year to catch up technically, the SL91 still wins on elegance.

During the 90’s it was a nightmare to demonstrate mobile phones and applications to an audience of more than two people.  In the end I settled on an early low resolution camera attached to the laptop screen.  It worked, kind of.

With the introduction of Symbian devices came the answer to my prayers, Remote S60/S80/UIQ from www.mobileways.de . Presentations became a breeze, and especially effective when using the handset images.

Unfortunately Mobileways failed to update their software for Symbian 9.x and it faded away.

Now after two years they’re back with Symbian 9 compatibility.  A great piece of presentation software.

The other day whilst downing a pint of beer with an ex Nokia colleague we turned, inevitably, to what was happening with the industry, in particular the vast range of qwerty keyboard devices coming on the market.

Everywhere you look new handsets with slide out, thumb board, flip out and virtual keyboards have scattered themselves in the consumer market with the future epiphany of the type fated as Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1. 

Yet for the business users the single most important element, the keyboard, is always a let down.  Thinking back to the latter half of the 90’s the Nokia 9000, so big the police could describe this as an offensive weapon, gave us the first practical office in a mobile; but for my drinking buddy and I the Psion 5mx/Ericsson MC218 were the best with their perfect tactile keyboard and svelte shape.

Since then Nokia have given us the 9110, 9210, 9500, 7710 and the E90, the latter feeling like a backward step with a kludged S60 UI seemingly not meriting the time or effort that this form factor deserves.

So what would make the best Nokia mobile office?  Practically this would derive from their experience with the Internet Tablet.   From the Nokia 770 to the future N810 WiMAX edition, this Linux based range has the best chance to meet my hopes. 

Blend the superior ergonomics of Psion’s 5mx with a decade’s worth of development within the N810 WiMax (with its large high resolution screen, memory, VoIP/Skype, GPS and Linux OS) then add tri-band HSDPA, HDMI out or micro projector (2009?), plus a quality suite of office applications and push email, and you have for me the perfect mobile office solution.

Though Nokia could just buy OQO instead, it’s the patented Psion keyboard and design that would make a best seller; shame it’ll never happen.

In the early days of GSM the 900MHz band was the frequency of choice for many networks.  Then came the upstart entrants, Orange and One 2 One (T-Mobile) using the weaker 1800MHz band ensuring considerably more base stations were needed to provide equivalent coverage.

Flip to Australia and Telstra have recently deployed their HSPA network using the 850MHz operating over much longer distances, just as well, and so are closing their old CDMA service.  But now we have NMT crying foul that no one wants their CDMA 450MHz service.  Unsurprising result as whilst technically better over longer distances, CDMA lacks the GSM handset pizzazz.   

The idea of a disposable mobile has been around for a few years now, and one of the major proponents, Hop-On are introducing it to Europe and the Middle East.  Over the last two weeks they have already received orders for 150,000 phones. 

In some ways the opportunity is obvious, especially if travellers leave their mobile at home, or lose one, and need a temporary replacement.

However the waste of precious resources in producing these phones troubles me, and the potential use by criminals and terrorists, if bought from back street dealers, may be too high a price.

O2 have recently been lambasted for profiling customers’ 3G access.  Many users have been capped at 128Kbps, less than the EDGE data rates for Apple, and woefully short of Vodafone’s potential 7.2Mbps data speed in London.  For this desolate service O2 were charging top rates.

Now they say that this was just a glitch and users should get up to 384kbps, hardly impressive. 

This week O2 launched their USB based mobile broadband offering, but at £20 for 3GB on an 18 month contract, flaky national coverage, and data rates still a fraction of Vodafone’s, O2’s offering seems to have little merit. 

QR codes (2 dimensional bar codes) have been around for over a decade now.  Whilst useful for inventory control, they have found particular favour in Asia for consumer marketing. 

Japanese camera phones enable time pressed salarymen (and women) to snap the QR code of a product or billboard, taking them directly to a mobile advert without the hassle of typing an interminable URL. 

According to the Times, Harrods will use the codes in adverts to engage the attention of customers.  The lack of compatible handset software will cause problems, but this is such a useful service I hope it catches on.

The last few years has seen a resurgence of individuals putting their mobile ideas on on the commercial rack.

Many heavily invested their own money and time buoyed up by optimism and favourable initial reactions.  Unfortunately the credit crunch, and especially an inability to raise new cash against property, has made many investment angels reticent to take risks.

Allaboutsymbian reports the demise of Mowser, developed by Russell Beatie, a potentially elegant solution to mobile content adaptation but which needed nurturing.  

Angels are an important part of bringing on young inexperience businesses, but with their disappearance many great products may wither.

Common sense within the world of mobile, a rare commodity these days, will significantly ease the launch of 4G.  The developers of the key LTE technologies have come to licensing deals that should forestall costly litigation.

This is important as 3G has been a costly disappointment, though HSPA is now making amends.  With LTE, consumers could in fact have a faster, mobile and all IP service that surpasses their existing home ADSL and cable connections. 

That’s the theory.  In practice there will be many technical problems, and of course Qualcomm, who haven’t signed up to the deal, will probably sue everyone anyway.

From a niche, but vocal, provider of cheap calls over WiFi & 3G, Truphone is developing into a proper virtual mobile operator.  It’s recent purchase of SIM4Travel complements Truphone’s original dependence on WiFi enabled S60 smartphones. Now it can offer cheap calls irrespective of the handset capability or whether it’s within reach of a WiFi signal.

Last year T-Mobile tried to block VoIP ports in a crude attempt to preserve voice revenues.  Now though Truphone has a platform to negotiate the keenest rates for data roaming, and offer inexpensive flat rate VoIP calls over 3.5G and future 4G networks.    Good move.

Mobile broadcast TV was a business failure for Virgin & BT.  It used a single, less than glamorous, handset using a technology that Nokia was never going to support.

Now according to Reuters, Nokia suggests that all is not well with their favoured EU supported broadcast standard.  Now there is a cynical belief that few users will watch live TV on their handset.

An earlier attempt in the 80’s to create micro mobile TV’s, think Sinclair, also failed.  But could it be a success if there were affordable handsets, snack size shows and a concerted European wide release of bandwidth?

Visto must have thought it was on easy street when it won contracts to power Vodafone and AT&T email offerings.  Yet even a great product can’t insulate it from the whims of the market, especially in a credit crunch.

The Register revealed that over a third of Visto’s London employees are being made redundant.  Worryingly for a tech company, they are laying off development staff, the very people that created the product in the first place.  This is a risky strategy as product evolution will be critical to meet the threats from BlackBerry and Microsoft.

Will Visto’s clients stay faithful?

Many millions of people love the convenience an Oyster swipe card gives them for buying stuff.  According to a Harris Interactive survey the same effect has, after many years, taken hold with mobile phone ecommerce.

Reverse bill SMS was for many their first experience of buying a service using their mobile.  Now this is accelerating with, for example, Westminster council replacing their pay and display parking with pay by mobile.

25% of mobile subscribers use their mobiles for purchases and 16% use them for banking.  With NFC/Oyster trials progressing with Nokia & O2, cash may go the same way as cheques.

The launch of the N-Gage platform is to be welcomed, especially as the technologies to bring it to life have taken over 10 years to develop.

3G/HSPA, large colour screens, graphic accelerators, storage and many other handset and server technologies have had to be nurtured and tested before N-Gage could be achieved.

Take up will be slow considering the limited handset support, but it will be Nokia’s long term goal to develop its brand as the number one provider of paid for mobile applications, services and content.  The networks will again worry about Nokia’s intentions.  Rightly so.

Industry reports speak of rising returns of Nokia N95’s, HTC TyTN II and Apple iPhone’s with cracked or inoperable screens.  This is causing consternation amongst owners as repair centres don’t have enough replacement parts to meet demand. 

Unhappy at waiting weeks for their mobiles punters are looking elsewhere.  This could have opened the market up to Sony Ericsson, but they are having their own troubles with failing keyboards and defective software.

It comes down to buying a case and wearing it on your hip to be nicked, or let your keys do the talking and smash the handset in your pocket/handbag.

Last week Vodafone announced what their users talk about to their friends in public. 

Seems that over a third of 16-24 years old will discuss their sex life in public, and even more talk about their friends’ conquests.  

More worryingly, but less embarrassingly, over 70% discuss business matters, some of which others filch ideas from (26%).  

Don’t we know this already?  Well yes, but, as Clive James points out, Ofcom will magnanimously allow the use of mobile phones in aircraft.  The last bastion of peace will be replaced by hours of torturous drivel, but will the secrets be worth it?  Nope.

Having nearly doubled revenue to $6.01 billion for their financial year ending 1^st of March 08, and adding more than 2 million new subscribers in their last quarter, RIM seem unstoppable.

The BlackBerry is certainly an aspirational tool with senior people, with many organisations, and governments, viewing the BlackBerry as the status symbol of choice.

However with a subscriber base of 14million there does seem a long way to go before RIM can claim total dominance. 

Having shipped 14 million devices last year, a very high turnover, my fear for RIM is that Apple’s iPhone 2 will target their replacement market.

Many handset web browsers are frankly unusable.  They are clunky to operate, counter intuitive and render web pages in unfathomable ways.

Opera Mobile and Opera Mini for Java handsets especially, have consistently been the best of breed.  Now Opera have announced a new Beta version of Opera Mini 4.1 http://www.operamini.com/beta/ . 

Using it today it offers faster browsing, which was already quick, but more importantly allows users to download files without having to use the handset’s own browser.  This is a significant improvement and I would recommend anyone using Opera Mini to try out 4.1 as soon as you can.

What is mobile’s major malfunction this year?

The triumvirate of MWC, CeBIT and CTIA has shown us nothing of any real excitement.  Not a thing.

Sure there have been feature upgrades, and some notionally interesting handsets if they had been announced last year, but so far this year there is nothing to invigorate the market.

Everyone, including myself, are still talking about what Apple are going to launch, but why?  It’s been 15 months since Apple launched the iPhone.  It’s now only three months from iPhone V2 and yet CTIA delivers us Microsoft Mobile 6.1, a cure for insomnia.  ZZZzzzzz.