In a sea of phones, two capture my interest
Ronn goes to the CTIA show in San Francisco.
Today I went to the San Francisco CTIA show, which makes the odd presumption that one show can be both an enterprise and entertainment showcase. I just went for the latest. Two cell phones immediately attracted my interest; Palm's Centro and Nokia's N95 8GB. I'll be testing them in the next week or two.
The Palm Centro from Sprint has gotten so-so ratings (CNET gave it a 7.0). The most ubiquitous complaint has been the tiny keyboard. Certainly that's true, but perhaps it's diminished expectations: my first impression is quite positive. It has a comfortable feel, a packed menu, fine call quality, and produces pictures better than I was led to believe. At a low $99 price (with contract), we may have something here.
The Nokia N95 8GB has had very good early reviews, and it's easy to see why. It's light, yet includes a 5-megapixel Zeiss optics camera, GPS, a large screen, is HSDPA and Wi-Fi ready, and of course has incredible memory capacity; that's why the phrase "8GB" is in its name. It ain't cheap at $699, but on first impression it has me liking it even more than I thought I would--even more than the iPhone. Could this be smartphone of the year? Both look to draw attention; watch this space for more specifics.