Those who know me well know that I am an avid S60 and Nokia fan, but this fanboy’ism (of fangirl’ism?!) is not unconditioned nor did it come without tests and trials. But let’s go back to the beginning of the story, shall we?
How I came to S60

Some 4 years ago, I was introduced to S60 through a friend of mine who had just bought a Nokia 6630 for over 500$ no less. I remember looking at the phone and telling her "it’s just a phone" and I clearly remember her answer "no, it’s a smartphone". At the time, I couldn’t care any less about smart or dumb, but she started installing applications on it, and it isn’t until I saw her running a dumbed-down version of Word and Excel that I understood the difference that a "smart"phone can bring. That’s when I decided that my next device will be running S60.
For many reasons, a year later, I went with the Nokia 3250 XpressMusic, the first S60 3rd Edition phone released by Nokia. I explored every single lighted and dark corner of that handset, I came up with tricks that very few people had discovered, I customized the hell out of it with applications, themes, games,… The 3250 was, and yes it’s funny to say that now, my powerstation. It was as robust as can be, internally by taking everything I threw at it, and externally by still functioning even after having kissed the ground more than I care to remember or admit.

One glitch in the picture
My passion about S60 3rd Edition at the time was met by one little issue: I wanted a touchscreen. I had always been fascinated by touchscreens and I had seen a lot of i-Mate users around. I wanted to overcome that click-click-click-ok to accomplish one thing on my device with a touch-and-it’s-done method. I yearned for that. It’s true that I wanted it on my 3250 but that wasn’t going to happen, so almost a year after I got the 3250, I also bought a Qtek 9100, a Windows Mobile 5 powered handset.

The issues with Windows Mobile
The Qtek 9100 reinforced my idea that touchscreens were cool, really cool, and easier to operate than anything else. I’m a girl, so I have nails, hence I didn’t have to use the stylus a lot to get things done on the handset. One more thing I loved about the Qtek 9100 was the customizable Today Screen. I remember installing tons of applications just to make this Today Screen as efficient as it can be, with shortcuts to applications, to settings, and many ways of getting things done faster than ever.
Unfortunately, this is where the honeymoon ended. No matter how much I loved the Qtek, I knew that there is NO WAY that I could put my Sim card in it. It was too buggy and too fragile. The first problem is that it took ages to boot. I knows it’s "Windows" but hey, that’s a phone and if it’s off and I turn it on, I want to be on in a minute or two, not a decade or two! The second problem was that it froze as fast and as often as a popsicle at -20degC. I’m not a casual user, I am a power user, and each time I’d run a few applications at the same time, the thing would stop responding, pushing me to take out the battery and restart it. The third problem was that it was as stable as a ball on a thread: there are many times when I wouldn’t touch it and I’d come and find it restarting itself, sometimes, it’d even have the leisure of freezing while restarting itself. Annoying. These 3 problems made me realize that while I love the touchscreen and the today screen options, there is NO WAY that I’d put my Sim card in it. Instead, my sim remained in the Nokia 3250 which, even though it had less RAM, less ROM and a less powerful processor, took everything I threw at it without coughing, sneezing or making me feel like I’m torturing it. The 3250 was ALWAYS on when I needed it, always ready, and this is how a device, which main purpose is to be a "phone", should behave.
I know that many of these issues where later fixed in Windows Mobile 6 and are probably going to be better with v6.5 and v7, but there is one more thing I noticed that made the whole difference. Windows Mobile was built from the ground up as a PDA platform and it looks as though the "phone" functionality was just thrown in for good measure. S60, on the other hand, was built based on the phone functionality and it seemed like the smartphone capability was added to it. HUGE difference. That’s why, as one example out of many, adding multiple contacts to an SMS is a torture on Windows Mobile and a breeze on S60.

Return of the "lost" child
After carrying the Nokia 3250 and the QTEK 9100 together with me for 10 months, came the time for me to consider an upgrade. It wasn’t an easy choice as I had been looking at Symbian UIQ3 as well, but I eventually sold both devices and got a Nokia N95. S60 won, despite the touchscreen, despite the Today Screen, despite everything that WinMo had to offer. Now this should make everyone understand better why I am excited as a little child on Christmas morning about the Nokia N97. It offers S60 5th Edition as well as a touchscreen and a customizable standby screen with widgets and all. It also combines the QWERTY that I’ve been loving on my Nokia E71 with the great camera and accelerometer features of my Nokia N82. Truly the best of all worlds, in every way you look at it.

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