Nokia E61

Thin is still in, but those of us who wanted a sleek and slim design in a smartphone, especially one with a QWERTY keyboard were out of luck until the Motorola Q came out on Verizon a few months back. What if Windows Mobile isn't to your liking, or you prefer a GSM world phone to Verizon's US-only offering? You were out of luck until Nokia surprised us with the sexy and capable E61 this summer. The E61 has it all: brilliant and roomy QVGA display, solid smartphone OS, WiFi, Bluetooth, a full QWERTY thumb keyboard and push email support including BlackBerry Connect, GoodLink, Seven and Visto. WiFi is particularly yummy since BlackBerries, Palm Treos and the Motorola Q all lack WiFi.

The E61 runs Nokia's S60 3rd Edition on Symbian OS 9.1 and comes with full PIM applications, email client, a superb web browser and applications to read, edit and create MS Office documents. Not only that, it looks really, really good and measures only .55" thin. In the US, the Nokia E61 is offered by CompUSA, Tiger Direct, some independent T-Mobile dealers (such as Skylight Wireless in the Dallas Metroplex area who supplied our review unit) and importers. Importers generally sell it for a truly affordable $350 unlocked with no contract while CompUSA sells it for considerably more. The E61 is a quad band world phone with EDGE and Euro-3G (not compatible with US 3G). You can use the phone with any GSM provider, which means Cingular and T-Mobile in the US. Since the E61 is a business phone, it does not have a camera, but the newer E61i adds a camera. The E61 is available in several localized versions for different countries and languages. All have full support for English but the QWERTY keyboard on the Middle Eastern one is bilingual with both English and Arabic in the case of our Middle Eastern review unit (which came with both English and Arabic manuals). The Spanish version adds a few non-English characters (this is the one that's generally cheapest and easiest to find on eBay as of this writing). So if you're buying sight unseen, check with the seller to see which version they're selling. Cingular is rumored to release the Nokia E62 later this year, which is the same as the E61 but it deletes WiFi and 3G.

Display: 16 million color 320 x 240 (QVGA) display. Screen size diagonally: 2.8 ", landscape orientation.

Battery: Nokia BP-5L Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1500 mA. Claimed talk time on GSM networks: 4.3-9.5 hours. Claimed standby: 13-17 days.

Performance: Texas Instruments OMAP 235 MHz CPU. 64 megs of flash memory for storage and typically 22.5 megs RAM available for running programs after boot.

Size: 4.6 x 2.74 x .55 inches (117 mm x 69.7 mm x 14 mm). Weight: 5.08 ounces (144 g).

Phone: GSM quad band world phone supporting the 850/900/1800/1900MHz bands with GPRS, EDGE and UMTS on the 2100MHz band for Europe.

Camera: None.

Audio: Built in speaker, mic and Pop-Port jack. Mono headset included but will output stereo to Nokia's optional stereo Pop-Port headsets. Voice Recorder, Music Player (MP3) and RealPlayer included.

Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b /g and Bluetooth 1.2.

Software: Contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, Office suite (read and write Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents), PDF viewer, Navigator GPS application (requires optional Bluetooth GPS), Pro Golf Contest 2, memory card manager, Java VM, Messaging client (SMS, MMS, POP3 and IMAP email), Nokia PTT (Push To Talk), web and WAP browsers, voice recorder, Gallery, Converter, Calculator, File Manager, RealPlayer, Flash Lite, Zip Manager, theme manager, application manager, Transfer (transfer contacts, calendar and some phone settings to or from another S40 or S60 phone), music player, clock, printer managment app.

Expansion: 1 miniSD slot. 64 meg card included.

Five new features for the 2010 iPod Touch 4G

Apple announced its new iPhone 4 today (which many got a peek at months ago on Gizmodo). The new iPhone is faster, has a longer battery life and lots of new features like a front-facing camera.

All of which got me wondering what we can expect from the fourth-generation iPod Touch when it comes out soon. Apple has unveiled a new iPod Touch each September for the past three years so I think it's reasonable to assume they'll come out with the fourth-generation version this fall.

My first-generation 8GB iPod Touch has seemed sluggish for awhile now and its processor is so slow that the latest iPhone 0S 4.0 -- with neat new features like multitasking -- won't even run on it.

There are some features the existing iPod Touch has that I envy, like a built-in speaker (so I can hear music when I forget my earphones) and a mic (so I can use Skype). But those features have never seemed to quite justify spending $300 for an upgrade, since my existing model still does almost everything I want it to.

All of which got me wondering what it would take for me to upgrade to a new model when the new iPod Touch comes out this September. Interestingly, while some have complained the iPad is nothing more than a big iPod Touch, a lot of my wish list is based on making the Touch more like a smaller iPad. Here's my full wish list:

1. A camera. The iPod Touch's lack of a camera has been one of its most obvious drawbacks compared to the iPhone since Day 1. If the new Touch came out with a camera on the back and the front (for video chats) like the iPhone 4 that would be ideal, but I'd settle for just a single camera on the back so I can take a quick picture or video when I feel like it.

2. Longer battery life. One of the few things that really impressed me about the iPad (and there isn't much) is its crazy-long battery life -- 10 hours of video watching compared to six hours on the Touch. If Apple has figured out a way to power the huge iPad for 10 hours, I don't see why they can't apply the same technology to the Touch.

3. Automatic syncing. Given the iPod Touch has WiFi, I don't see why you still have to plug it into your PC to sync it with iTunes. Even the Zune has wireless syncing, for goodness sakes. I'd also like to see the ability to automatically download all podcasts you subscribe to directly to the Touch instead of having to do them one by one like you do now. I can see why this is limited on the iPhone -- all those downloads could clog the cellular data networks. But I see no reason why it's not available on WiFi.

4. 3G. This is probably the least likely to materialize but I wish the iPod Touch -- like the iPad -- had the ability to access the Internet through 3G cellular networks. I have no interest in buying an iPhone -- the voice and data plans are prohibitive. But every now and then I wish I could access the Internet on my iPod Touch while out of a WiFi zone -- like when I get lost driving and need directions back to the highway, for example. A pricing scheme like the iPad, where you pay by the month without a contract, would be ideal. If you go on a big road trip and want to be able to use the Touch for driving directions, you just sign-up for 3G that month and you're good to go.

5. A price drop. I know, how greedy can I get? I ask for four new features then want to pay less, too? But almost every new version of the iPod Touch or iPhone has come with -- at the very least -- a price drop on some models. It may not be realistic, but this is my wishlist. What would really convince me to upgrade my iPod Touch would be all these new features -- plus at least 16GB of storage -- for $199.