Russell Beattie

Okay, even though I've bitched about Palm the company lately - they haven't innovated in years and are letting the borg walk all over them - their OS is still pretty damn great. As I'm now using the 7650 in place of the Palm for everything, it's easy to see some of the things that I'm missing.

Things I wish I had on my Nokia 7650 that I had on my Palm Vx:

• Outliner!! Top of the list
• A decent PC app like the Palm Desktop. Palm made synchronization super-simple. Nokia didn't learn from example.
• 8 megs of RAM. I'm already easily hitting the limit on 4 megs)
• A bigger screen. Palm's resolution is only 160x160 but it's size means that I can passibly use it as a book reader.
• Book reading software. Palm has an Adobe reader and it's own Palm eBook reader. What the hell am I going to do with my digital version of Prey that I haven't read yet? It'd be great to have that on my phone.
• Collins 100,000 word Spanish/English dictionary. It's better than any physical dictionary in the world and I used it constantly since I've come to Spain. I really miss it.
• Keyboard. Even though I never really used it, it was nice to know it was there.
• A bazillion apps out there on Handango to pick and choose from.
• Battery life - the Palm can last days with constant use. My Nokia barely made it through today.

Things that I love about my Nokia 7650 that blows the Palm away:

• Speed. The Nokia is super responsive in it's UI and 3D games shine.
• The Screen. Backlight and 4,000+ colors is damn nice. Though my wife's 515 shows me how nice a Palm with backlight and color is, it's still too low resolution. Maybe a Sony?
• Sound. 3D Games with polyphonic sounds are COOL AS HELL.
• 3D Games. For the reasons just mentioned.
• It's a phone. This is both obvious and very useful because I'm more likely to have the phone with me than my Palm. Especially here in Europe where mobile phones are almost surgically attached.
• Calendar. I like the Series 60 calendar a lot.
• J2ME - I installed a game OTA today. Neato!
• Wireless Data - Bluetooth, GPRS, etc. Rockin' and useful
• Camera and MMS - The image sucks, but it works. And sending it to your friends and fam is fun!
• Lack of Pen. I like the one-handed nature of the phone. Groping for the pen and struggling with grafiti has always sucked. If someone quickly tells you a phone number, you can get it into your phone sooo much faster than in a Palm. Driving directions wouldn't be as easy, but I'm more like to encounter the first one in my mind.

There are many things that are very similar also. My Nokia and Ana's 515 cost basically the same. They both weigh the same, though the Palm's form factor just some how makes it feel more svelt. Both installed "To Do" programs suck and make me want an outliner - which as I said above I can only get for the Palm right now. Something I want from both my Nokia and my Palm are in newer versions of both: MMC memory card support. Ana's new 515 has a slot for the card as well as the 3650, so tie there.

More as I think of them... ;-)

-Russ