Here’s a start of things that bug me so far. Please feel free to tweet/comment and set me straight on any of these issues:

1. I miss the HTC “back” button.
2. I don’t like the keyboard. The blue arrow/alt key should be on the left.
3. The on-screen input has no qwerty options like the 5800 has.
4. The browser refuses to remember my cookies. Something must have fixed this but now appears to work.
5. There’s no threaded SMS. There’s a third party app that can do threaded SMS (with some extra effort to sign it etc)
6. I miss Gmail. There’s an app for Gmail.
7. I can’t figure out if I should be single tapping or double tapping things – ending up with lots of times where I have to hit back.
8. Scrolling is inconsistent. The whole phone should use kinetic scrolling.
9. The music player has less buttons than Android – specifically the ones I want to use without clicking through nested menus.
10. There’s no native YouTube app. Native YouTube app “coming soon”.
11. Nimbuzz, the IM client I was recommended does not automatically reconnect (it should by default).
12. The GUI elements around the active window are excessive. More so in widescreen mode. Notably: the browser and google maps.
13. The calendar should default to a month view, or make it easier to access. Clicking the date on the home screen opens month view. Clicking the calendar widget opens day view.
14. I miss the “Menu” key from the G1. Much more elegant than using up screen space.
15. I don’t like in-your-face dialogs all over the place telling me vital information such as “unplug your charger to save electricity”. Especially when the handset knows I just unplugged from Nokia suite, not a charger.
16. I don’t want to be harassed by countless network prompts. I just want the internet to work and switch behind the scenes when wifi is around.
17. I expect more default desktops, although I did like being able to switch to a black UI.
18. A recommended screenshot app took a vertical screenshot of a horizontal screen – missing out what I needed. Apparently I must start Best Screen Snap in the orientation I want to take screenshots in.
19. The phone crashed when I tried to enable a mysterious “offline mode”.
20. The video player could not play an MP4 I had downloaded from YouTube (via PC), which plays fine on G1.
21. Contacts with multiple numbers should allow one-click dialling, not yet another menu. Contacts can be given Defaults to speed up the process of calling and texting them.
22. I shouldn’t be constantly given the option to send a text message to someone’s house phone. See above
23. I don’t want to see a “Show open apps” menu item throughout the whole OS.
24. I really miss the (currently) much more standard mini USB port. Seems I need to stock up on micro USB leads/adapters.  At MWC 2009 in February a lot of operators all agreed micro USB was the way forward.
25. Error dialogs appear out of context. I just had an error on the home screen telling me to go to a non-existent Profiles menu.
26. When I get a text message, the screen turns on but gives me no indication that the screen is locked.
27. If I click a web link in a text message nothing happens. I have to use a menu to get to it.

All is not doom and gloom! I do really appreciate:

• The hardware build quality feels better than the G1.
• The camera is much better.
• The FM transmitter is my new best friend.

… but that’s all. Really nothing else about the N97 impresses me so far.

1. Nokia 5120 – My first handset. It worked. It made calls. It sent texts. It was enough.
2. Nokia 3310 – It was smaller, cooler, played games, and was my first contract phone.
3. HTC BlueAngel (MDA III) – Windows Mobile, music, camera, big colour touch screen, WiFi, bluetooth and infrared. Amazing.
4. HTC Elf (HTC Touch) – While the BlueAngel rocks, it’s a brick. This phone is half the speed but also much smaller. I accepted that compromise but always hated the slowness.
5. HTC Touch Diamond – Still HTC, still Windows Mobile, but this time the screen was beautifully clear, I had 3G, GPS, a reasonable camera, and a much faster processor.
6. HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) – Oh no, another brick! I debated with myself quite heavily about whether this was worth getting. The Android OS finally convinced me I wanted to switch. I’m a huge Google fan so this phone suits me really well.

In all I have 4 Windows Mobile devices. When upgrading between them I thought in terms of a PC: Processor speed, RAM, screen, etc. Sure they’re phones (except one), but they act very much like small PCs. The CPU and RAM were really important. I mention this because my ideal handset right now would be an Android phone that has a faster hardware and more memory. I don’t mind the size but I would prefer a better battery.

Now I’ve won a Nokia N97 and I don’t know how much I’ll like it.

Here’s the theory:

• it’s slower (434 MHz vs 528 MHz)
• it’s got less RAM (128 MB vs 192 MB)
• … but has a completely different OS
• a better camera (5MP carl zeiss lens vs 3MP)
• and a fairly kick-ass battery (1500 mAh compared to 1100 mAh)

The S60 operating system is going to be the deal breaker.

All you have to spin the phone pretty quickly in your hands, obviously keeping a firm grip on your expensive handset, but flipping it fairly agrressively in all sorts of directions. For example, rolling it over and over in your hands is how I usually do it. And that’s all you need to do to calibrate the T-Mobile G1/Android handset’s compass feature, and the fix only takes a few seconds!

Now I can show people the Eiffel Tower and scenes around New York whenever I like. I hope this works for everyone else too.

My first point of call is to find out if any social networking sites (e.g. Brightkite) are interested in using this to create a great mobile web interface for Windows Mobile devices.

This will be my third HTC handset. It has the speed advantage of the first (HTC BlueAngel) and the size / style advantage of the second (HTC Touch). Combined together it makes one awesome phone!

What to do with the old phones? The HTC BlueAngel functions as my bedside MP3 player. The Touch is still a great phone and a tech-savy relative might like to get hold of it. We’ll see.

Sure, it’s got 3G and basically everything about it is a generation up from what my phone does, but I’m happy with what I’ve got. In fact, I’m really loving the new world that has been opened to me from having internet access wherever I go.

So far I’ve appreciated being able to do the following:

• Managing my Google Calendar remotely
• Watching for phones on Ebay Mobile
• Checking cinema listings
• Keeping an eye on motorway traffic
• Direct uploads to Flickr (no 25p MMS charge)

I’m barely eating up 1Mb / day with what I consider to be quite a fair amount of usage on GPRS. This gives me quite a lot of room to play with other ideas like IM and similar. I’m sure I’ll find a way to eat up the rest of my monthly allowance.

I fairly despise the Orange website for a number of reasons: loading screens, endless “sorry, an error occurred but we’re aware of it” links, and now a fairly useless new feature: usage since your last bill.

With all the talk of “Unlimited” features (texts and now data too), what I really want is the website to tell me some real numbers that represent my months usage. Why give me 47 pages of junk when all I need is a count which says I’ve used 2000 of my 3000 texts.

I imagine this page will be equally useless at telling me how much of my 500Mb fair usage of data I’ve used for the month. Luckily, I’m already looking into some software that will let me keep track of that directly from my phone. I’ll post a review once the data plan is enabled.

Special thanks goes to Krystal at SMS Text News for letting people know that you can get this added to your existing account.

The actual terms and conditions state the following:

1. These Offers are available to new and existing customers connecting or upgrading to an Eligible Talkplan (as defined below) between 1 March 2007 and 31 July 2007 (an ‘Eligible Customer’) and are subject to the additional Our Customers First terms.
2. The Offers are subject at all times to a fair usage policy of 3000 minutes or texts (as appropriate) each month or 500MB data per month (See Mobile Internet Bundles). Usage above this amount will constitute abuse and Orange may monitor usage and withdraw the Offer from your account if the fair usage policy is abused.

I’ve not had a chance to look at all of the available data, but it’s an interesting competition.