After a lot of procrastination, and a review of the decision criteria ( https://flyerkit.com/2010/12/20/mobile-phone-factors-in-decision/ ) I went into Carphonewarehouse and walked out with a Nexus S – http://www.google.co.uk/nexus/ – as a free upgrade on Vodafone (My Vodafone bill is about £2,500/yr so upgrades are normally available “on demand”!).

The prime reasons for my change from my cronky old Nokia N97 were:

• – fast and responsive web browsing
• – New Google maps (3d and cacheing of routes) now seem better than OVI maps
• – Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) now seems to be getting reasonably good.

As with any phone there are disappointments.  Here they are:

• – no bluetooth file transfer or sync with laptop (hope to fix this with suitable Apps if i can find them)
• – bluetooth interface to my car kits (Mercedes in-built and the Nokia 616) is missing.  Android 2.3 does not support the standard bluetooth protocols like Remote SIM etc.
• – USB access to storage is very flaky. Coupled with no ability to mount the Android filesystem through bluetooth makse the use of the phone for data storage (images, music, videos) a bit clunky.
• – Exchange “sync” does not sync Notes.

What I love:

• – Angry Birds
• – Really good email client
• – Longish battery life – and fast microUSB charge
• – Feeling that many people share my pain and that innovators are out there adding software to solve the problem (like the good old days of Nokia back in 2002 when 3rd parties were encouraged to add value).

This is now my standard phone – and is added to the KIT LIST