After three weeks with the 9300, one major deficiency has been WiFi, made all the more needful by my city's WiFi cloud-building plans, accelerated due to maniacal public-spirited donors. Well, the 9300i will surely solve THAT issue.

The keyboard is a little odd to my liking, compared to the Tungsten W, and I surely wish reaching the MMC card slot to change the card didn't require stripping the phone to get at it.

I wish it had the backlit keys of the Treo 650 (but, compare if you please, the Treo battery, 1.8AH when compared to the 0.97AH of the Nokia BP-6M, and battery life becomes an issue to consider if you're backlighting keys, I suppose). My workaround at night has been to swing the lid in from the normal 105-180 degrees, to around 75 dgrees, so the screen shines across the keys; an elegant, if imperfect, solution.

The nagging problems which remain, however, are threefold: 1 PopPort, 2 Speed, and 3 Capability.

Primus: Engineering is an incestuous discipline; I can spot a Toyota interior part in a second even when separated from the ride. Nokia's engineering shop has an irrational fixation on the Pop-Port, which adds a easy-to-loose cheesy plastic wart on the bottom of the phone, where I'd rather put my hand. Wake up and smell the Salmiakki, guys, and add a four-pole 2.5mm mini-phone jack, so you can sell decent stereophones which also serve as a telephone headset. Make your users happy and Just Do It.

Secundus: The 150MHz TI OMAP brain is the Mini-Me of PDAphone processors, and just does not have adequate oomph to push data quickly through the OS into the applications. I don't know about Yurp, the land of 35-hour workweeks, but Stateside, this is the age of the Hemi, and if I have to water-cool my PDA to get it to run faster than my decrepit Kaypro Ten, well, by gum, I'll do that, even if I have to look like Locutus of Borg to do so.

Tertius: And, then, there's applications. Dang it, if you want to climb out of the primordial ooze of wireless telephony and transcend the feature phone and smartphone, and Ascend into PDAphone-ness, it's got to DO stuff. Even PPC/WinCE/WindowsWhatever has more apps than Symbian.... and Symbian is a house divided. Do System 90 apps run on the System 80/OS 7.0 of the 9500/9300/9300i ? Do Series 60 apps run? What runs on the Series 40 of the exterior display? You just can't count Symbian apps, you have to count Symbian apps that work, which narrows things down quite a bit.

It just does not have the richness, the diversity available to PalmPhone users... so I won't be trashing my beloved Tungsten W dino-phone any time soon, nor will I 86 my Treo 650 as I surely would like to (although Cingular STILL does not have a decent fix for their version, despite the version 1.17 patch which rectifies some of the glitches).

I want to like this sweetie, I surely do, but it's.... retarded. Sweet, sexy, superb looks, but retarded.

John,

Thanks for the informative review!

I have been using an i500 (work travel/play) for over 2 years and have been thinking about switching to a GSM phone in the future. I believe CDMA will go away in the future in the US and I could use GSM while traveling overseas. I am intrigued by the Nokia 9300 & 9500. I understand Cingular will carry the 9300 but only through their business accounts.

Your review raises some valid concerns.....

Regards,
Karl

It seems like non of the larger devices want to support North America Both HTC Universal and this phone are missing the 850 band. I won't invest this kind of money for a marginal USA capable phone.

hello am really interested in this item, can you pls tell me the mode of payment either by bid pay, wired transfer or credit card, pls get back to me and calculate the shipping fee to west africa.
kindly reply Alex Tramo email Radayuma101@yahoo.com

No, not true. The World version shipping now is missing 850, but the US version, the 9300/b, to be sold through Cingular, has 850 and works very well on 850 in Portland OR, as well as on 1950 on T-Mobile here.

Please see the Nokia Africa site and click on Authorized Distributors to find your local dealer.

Oh, and BTW, I do not suggest any reader of this board engage in international commerce by money order, Western Union, or other vulnerable methods..

Don't hold your breath. I suspect CDMA as we know it will be in service for at least another decade. Why? Because it is in the best interests of both Sprint and Verizon to lock you into their system, and if they migrated to GSM, you could unlock your phone and go to any other carrier.

Money talks.

[b][quote] and I could use GSM while traveling overseas. I am intrigued by the Nokia 9300 & 9500. I understand Cingular will carry the 9300

It's still on hold, as per this quick check of Nokia's web page of phones today.

Quote:

but only through their business accounts. Your review raises some valid concerns.....

Ah, but the 9300i, also in the works, will have a bigger battery, which solves Problem Number One.

I also suspect part of the remaining problems are solvable by replacing the standard apps with faster and better 3rd party apps, and I'm finding they do exist.

I just received an answer from Nokia about the vibrate mode on the 9300, 9300i and the 9500.

None of these will have vibrate feature.

I have been searching online everywhere to get this information because I have seen a few places show the 9500 as having this feature but the 9300 not having it.

Nokia says neither will have vibrate.

This make this otherwise great phone unusable.

What were they thinking.

If anyone can get other information to the contrary I would very much be interested.

Which, of course, totally ignores the fact that every upgrade path for GSM involves migrating to CDMA technology.

CDMA isn't going away. Not in favor of GSM, at least.