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Nokia's new music store is open:

http://music.nokia.com.au/

Only don't bother if you are using firefox on windows, Nokia's site will only work in IE.

WTF is wrong with open standards? Seems like they are only important to Nokia if it means they can get the community to develop software for their phones...

My phone will run Doom 2

In fact, what the OP needs is a Symbian capable phone and a cheap data plan.

That will do everything a Psion will do and then some. The phone itself might even be free with the right plan.

I want a mobile phone with a camera, you know, to take pictures of my friends and put them in my address book. MP3 player is good too, and a loudspeaker for hands free and also so my awesome ringtone can be heard by everyone in the bus/train/plane that i'm on.

I want it to look nice, silvery or something, actually, I REALLY want covers I can pry off so I can buy covers with my favourite band on them and put them on instead. And I want the keys to light up in different colours. I want it to have something so I can check my email, and bluetooth so I can play games with my friends.

And I don't mind if it breaks in a year or two, because by then I'll want something else.

My Nokia 6600 could do all of that and more, and I've had it nearly two years now. The Bluetooth support isn't fantastic, but I get the impression it's better than the RAZR's. Not to mention it runs Symbian Series 6 OS, which gives me a massive variety of applications and/or games to download and run.

Sure, it's nowhere near as nice looking as the RAZR, but meh. It's hidden in my pocket most of the time. And besides, I'm not the sort of person that would flash it around in the expectation that others will be impressed (not suggesting anyone else here is either!).

I already do this. My phone is the Nokia 6600, which runs Symbian OS. About a year ago I purchased the SmartMovie software and XviD codecs from Handango plus a 1 gig MMC specifically so I could watch full-length movies on my phone, and let me tell you, it works a treat! The phone itself is now more than a year old, so it's processor isn't as quick as some of the newer models, but it manages to keep up for the most part. With a lot of compression, I've managed to get the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy onto my phone, at a watchable bitrate. Got ten minutes to kill? Whip out your phone and watch a bit of Eddie Murphy Delirious. Or something involving Paris Hilton! (not that I've ever done that..... it was my friend, honest)

The only downside is that the phone's audio hardware is mono, so no stereo MP3s or video :(

I've also used it to stream live TV to my phone - my provider (Optus) has pretty crappy GPRS bandwidth and pricing, but they offered the live TV service free for a couple of months, which rocked. They only streamed ABC (the Australian BC) and CNNi, but watching the news (or last night's Daily Show) on the train home from work is pretty cool!

And I hope someone here, who lives in the U.S. and has bought a few phones on plans and for full price, what is the deal with mobile carriers in the U.S.?

I live in Australia, for those don't already know, and if I have a mobile phone I want to use then all I have to do is put my SIM card in it.

I used to own a Nokia 8210 I bought on a plan two year from B - carrier is Optus.

It was stolen - right after a I bought a nice shell for it with a stylish white dragon on black background, buggrit - and while I was going through the motions of waiting for the insurance to process so I could get a new one, my Mum bought me a Nokia 7650 for my birthday.

All I did was stick my replacement SIM - sent very quickly by B - into the 7650 and started using it straight after it's first charge.

I didn't have to talk to the phone company about having a different phone, unless I wanted to turn on various services that the phone supports, and I still use the 7650 today.

From the various stories I've read here on /. I'm getting the impression that your mobile phone carriers are dictating what features customers can have on their own phones, regardless of whether or not the feature has anything to do with the mobile service.

How the hell does Verizon or Cingular dictate to Apple and Motorola that they can't let the owner of the phone directly transfer music onto the phone from their iPod or personal computer?

When did the telephone carriers suddenly become the judges of how phone companies construct their devices?

If you want to sell a mobile phone, or other comms device, don't you just build a device that conforms to the FCC specs and then sell it?

Why does Verizon have any say over how your phone works, other than asking you not to put a device on the network which might interfer with it?

And I hope someone here, who lives in the U.S. and has bought a few phones on plans and for full price, what is the deal with mobile carriers in the U.S.?

I live in Australia, for those don't already know, and if I have a mobile phone I want to use then all I have to do is put my SIM card in it.

I used to own a Nokia 8210 I bought on a plan two year from B - carrier is Optus.

It was stolen - right after a I bought a nice shell for it with a stylish white dragon on black background, buggrit - and while I was going through the motions of waiting for the insurance to process so I could get a new one, my Mum bought me a Nokia 7650 for my birthday.

All I did was stick my replacement SIM - sent very quickly by B - into the 7650 and started using it straight after it's first charge.

I didn't have to talk to the phone company about having a different phone, unless I wanted to turn on various services that the phone supports, and I still use the 7650 today.

From the various stories I've read here on /. I'm getting the impression that your mobile phone carriers are dictating what features customers can have on their own phones, regardless of whether or not the feature has anything to do with the mobile service.

How the hell does Verizon or Cingular dictate to Apple and Motorola that they can't let the owner of the phone directly transfer music onto the phone from their iPod or personal computer?

When did the telephone carriers suddenly become the judges of how phone companies construct their devices?

If you want to sell a mobile phone, or other comms device, don't you just build a device that conforms to the FCC specs and then sell it?

Why does Verizon have any say over how your phone works, other than asking you not to put a device on the network which might interfer with it?

The Nokia 6108 has a stylus that allows you to input Chinese characters simply by writing them. I suppose there should be a Chinese/Japanese capable version of this phone.

I actually own this phone, and it's pretty useful, although I never write messages in Chinese, it's still fun to play with.

I give it 10 minutes before the first phone Luditte who comes complaining that nobody makes good plain phones anymore gets modded up.

• Series 60 OS (and the associated higher resolution screen)
• 1.3 Megapixel or higher camera
• Expandable memory
• Better quality screen
• Faster UI

• Very average screen
• Poor quality camera
• UI could be faster
• Joystick could be better
• No MP3 ringtone support
• Not much memory (3.5MB)

The Nokia 6230 plays AAC files, supports MMC and has bluetooth, it would be the perfect companion to a TiBook. I could see this as a legitimate "fair use" PlayFair. Not that we can even buy iTMS songs here in Oz yet.

The real problem is that Apple wants you to buy an iPod, not a Nokia 6230. Damn loss leaders, it's the same with inkjet printers and cartridge refillers. Blame Gillette!

Amazon reviews that said the display fades in sunlight

This is actually a common problem with most of the new colour display mobile phones. I own the Nokia 6610 (no bluetooth) and do experience this problem when the phone is used outdoors. I have yet to see a colour screen mobile phone that does not have problems being used in full sun.

One thing you need to look out for is there are some phones that are shipping with data-only bluetooth. So if you are planning to use a headset be careful of that. I was looking at the Nokia 7650 at one point but decided not to get it for that reason. The specs list contains bluetooth but I found out later it was data-only.

Amazon reviews that said the display fades in sunlight

This is actually a common problem with most of the new colour display mobile phones. I own the Nokia 6610 (no bluetooth) and do experience this problem when the phone is used outdoors. I have yet to see a colour screen mobile phone that does not have problems being used in full sun.

One thing you need to look out for is there are some phones that are shipping with data-only bluetooth. So if you are planning to use a headset be careful of that. I was looking at the Nokia 7650 at one point but decided not to get it for that reason. The specs list contains bluetooth but I found out later it was data-only.

When I was looking for a phone a few months ago I was looking at some Nokia phones (7650 in particular) with Bluetooth support. The most annoying thing was that one of the phones I was looking at only supported Bluetooth for data usage. What the heck is the point of adding something like Bluetooth to a phone if you are going to totally kill its possible usages down to 1. There was no way you could connect wireless headsets or anything like that to the phone.

I ended up getting a phone without bluetooth support since there was no point getting it if it was cut down like that.

I still remember when I first got my 8210 a couple of years back and wanted a USB irDA for it. Quite a few places I went were like "irDA is dead, bluetooth is the way to go now. No point selling irDA."

I am still using irDA with my new phone, Nokia 6610. irDA dead? I think not. Bluetooth dead... I fear it may be.

It was a technology that was not marketed well, had little support by manufacturers and has been killed before it was even really born.

Who knows, but maybe it is a bit early to start claiming its dead... it might make a come back, but I think something has to seriously change for that to happen.