The Android G1 was a cool phone, but you and I both knew that I wouldn’t stick with it very long. What can I say, I get bored easily. So, this week I’m going to be trying out the Nokia N85 smartphone. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a newer Symbian phone, so I’m excited to see if it will keep me interested enough to stick around after the week is done.

Day 0

This first post, otherwise known as Day 0, will provide a short tour of the physical features of this phone. The rest of the series will delve into more detailed usage of the these features.

Skype is developing a VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) software client for Nokia's top-of-the-range N97 smartphone, executives of both companies said Tuesday.

Nokia will load the application onto phones before they ship. It will be integrated into the phone's address book, making it as easy to place a call to a contact's Skype username as to their regular phone number, said Skype Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag.

The Skype application will allow users to make voice calls, send instant messages and also to select it as a widget so they can see which of their friends are online, all the time, said Jose-Luis Martinez, Nokia's Vice President for Nseries phones. It will use Wi-Fi or cellular connections, as available.

The N97 runs Nokia's S60 software platform, but the application under development is specific to the N97 and will not initially be available for other S60 phones, Durchslag said.

Skype is still just designing the user interface, and the application code hasn't been written, said Durchslag. He expects to have something ready to demonstrate by June, with the final application ready for release some time in the third quarter.

That makes it likely that Skype will be missing from the first batch of N97 phones. Those will be in stores in June, Nokia Executive Vice President Kai Öistämö said at a Nokia event on Monday.

Including an application for a service like Skype is a good fit with Nokia's design philosophy for the N97.

"What makes it our flagship is the tight integration with services," Öistämö said, pointing to the way the applications on the phone work with Nokia's online navigation, entertainment and e-mail tools.

Skype has already developed applications for other mobile phones. Two are distributed exclusively by 3G (third generation) mobile network operator Three, under the 3 Skypephone brand. A third, the INQ1, is also sold through Three but its developer Inq Mobile hopes to find other operators interested in selling it this year.

On Monday, Skype announced an update to its Windows Mobile application. Version 2.5 is now final, after months in beta, while a new beta version, 3.0, is available with two new features: file transfer, and the ability to send SMS (Short Message Service) text messages at Skype rates abroad or while roaming.

In addition to Windows Mobile version, the forthcoming N97 application and the dedicated Skype phones, mobile Skype is also available as a "lite" version for Android phones and about 100 other Java-enabled mobile phones from LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. The lite version, still in beta testing, offers only basic Skype features including voice calling, instant messaging and presence notification, and won't work over Wi-Fi connections, making a flat-rate data service indispensable.

For the full featured application on the N97, "We are starting at the high end," said Durchslag, "but you will see it in the mid-tier. Below that it's hard to deliver a good quality experience," he said.

Nevertheless, when it comes to extending Skype calling to low-end phones, "Time is on our side. Processing power will have to move down market," he said.

The world's largest mobile phone vendor and the biggest cellular chip developer said Tuesday they plan to make 3G (third-generation) mobile devices together for the North American market.

Nokia and Qualcomm, which ended a long running patent battle in the middle of last year, will co-develop advanced devices based on UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), which is designed to succeed the most common mobile phone airwave standard in the world, GSM (Global System for Mobile communications).

The partners will design mobile devices based on S60software, which uses the Symbian OS. The devices will also use advanced chipsets from Qualcomm.

The first devices from the two companies are expected to launch in the middle of next year. They will be compatible with the upcoming Symbian Foundation platform, the companies said in a statement.

Last July, Nokia agreed to pay Qualcomm a multi-billion dollar amount in back payments and future royalties after a long court battle over wireless patents. At the same time, the companies said they would work together in the future.

The company, which is owned by eBay, announced a partnership with Nokia, the largest cell phone maker in the world, to put the Skype Internet calling software onto its phones. Nokia will initially offer Skype on its high-end smartphones, the N-series. The N97, Nokia's flagship device that goes on sale in June, will be the first to have Skype embedded. The Skype feature will start shipping on the device in the third quarter of 2009.

Skype will be integrated into the N97 address book, enabling users to see when Skype contacts are online. It will also let people use Skype's instant-messaging client. Most importantly, N97 users will be able to make free and low-cost phone calls over the Internet whether they are on a 3G cellular network or a Wi-Fi network. The Skype-to-Skype voice calls are free. And the SkypeOut service, which allows calls from Skype to landlines and mobile devices, offers low rates.

Nokia's not the only handset maker to announce a deal with Skype at Mobile World Congress. On Monday, Sony Ericsson announced it would be offering a Skype "panel" on the Windows Mobile Xperia1 device.

Adding Skype to smartphones is a great benefit for consumers, especially people who travel internationally or have friends and family overseas. While pricing on domestic voice services has been dropping like a brick from a third-story window, international rates have remained high.

As a consumer who likes to travel and who happens to be traveling internationally right now for this trade show, I am annoyed and almost angered at the outrageous prices mobile operators charge when customers roam in other countries or make international calls from the U.S. They all try to sell "international" plans to help defray the cost, but the plans themselves cost consumers an extra fee every month regardless of whether they're traveling that month or not.

Skype and other VoIP services offer users a more cost-effective alternative. And Skype on a mobile phone, when accessed on a low-cost data network, could help people who travel frequently or make lots of international calls save tons of money.

Of course, the two smartphone makers Skype has announced as partners here are manufacturers that are already struggling to get their high-end devices on American mobile networks. And my guess is that adding Skype won't do much to convince these operators to offer these phones and subsidize them so that American consumers will buy them.

The reason is pretty simple. AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile USA know that a wide-scale deployment of Skype on their phones could cannibalize their international voice services and potentially hurt their domestic voice service.

So if by chance, Nokia or Sony Ericsson manages to win approval from a U.S. operator to get these phones on their networks, I wouldn't be surprised if the Skype feature is stripped from the device in the U.S. version.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Apple is going to get flattered at a record pace in the coming months. Today’s bit of corporate flattery comes from Nokia who is launching an App/Media store for Nokia users called Ovi. From reports there doesn’t seem to be anything special about the Ovi store.

Nokia isn’t the the only company planning to ape the App Store. Similar stores are in the works for Blackberry, LG Electronics, and France Telecom Orange. The allure of controlling the distribution channel is obvious, not only has Apple shown the model can be successful the market for such offerings is predicted to hit $67 billion in sales this year.

While DigiTimes tends to nail rumors focused on Taiwanese companies like Acer and ASUS, its component supplying sources can be hit or miss across other geographies. So take it with the usual lump of NaCl when talkative sources say that Nokia is increasing orders in March as it prepares to "launch several 3G and 3.5G products with multi-touch and multimedia functions in 2009" -- Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Synaptics being the chief beneficiaries. Of course, Nokia has been perfectly clear that its 5800 was the just the initial salvo in an onslaught of touchscreen devices to come and led by its flagship N97. Nevertheless, with profits down and the economy mired in the suck, it's nice to have confirmation (as tenuous as it is) that things are on track in Espoo.

Nokia has announced three new cell phones solidly in the tradition that made Nokia the world's top handset maker...but don't look for them in North America.

Finland's Nokia has announced three new cell phones build solidly on the features and traditions that have made Nokia the world's mobile handset maker, combining tough engineering, reasonable designs and capabilities, and competitive pricing. Just don't look for these handsets to hit North American markets: like so much of Nokia's business, the new handsets are aimed at international markets—in this case, primarily in Europe.

First up, the Nokia 6700 Classic is a "monoblock" phone that follows up on Nokia's very popular 6300 handset, and features a 5 megapixel camera, AGPS navigation with Nokia Maps, HSDPA data access, a 2.3-inch QVGA screen, microSD storage + 170 MB of internal memory, and some cool extras like a metal keypad and an ambient light sensor. Nokia expects to offer the 6700 Classic to retail for €235 before taxes and subsidies.

Next, the Nokia 6303 Classic aims at people happy with the current 6300 handset, with a 3.2 megapixel camera, a 2.2 QVGA display, and pre-loaded Nokia Maps. The 6303 runs on tri-band GMS+EDGE connectivity, and includes a speakerphone, microSD expansion, and integrated FM receiver; it'll run €135 before taxes and subsidies. Finally, the Nokia 2700 classic will run €65 before taxes and subsidies, and aims to be an affordable Internet-capable phone with music capabilities, a 2 megapixel camera, and connectivity with Nokia's Ovi online sharing and social services. All three phones should ship in the second quarter of 2009.