I’ve been away for the last two weeks. I took two smartphones and a netbook with me which is a slightly different setup to my usual phone/umpc/netbook combo. Fortunately I wasn’t caught-out on my outings where all I took were my smartphones but I was conscious of having to do any sort of site support with just a touchscreen phone! I took my X10i and my N82 as phone companions and the N82 was about the only device I used as a camera although I did find myself doing a few shots with the X10 just because it was easier to tweet / send to Facebook and that’s one of the features I really love using on Android. The sharing ‘bus’ that allows any application to link into the ‘share’ menu and get a message from an application is just killer.

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I’ve just passed the 2.5 year mark with the N82 and I’m still looking for something that can replace it. As reported many times here, on Carrypad and on the XperiaX10 blog, my Xperia X10 isn’t up to the same standards. I’ve been looking at the Motorola  Droid XT720 and Nokia N8 as replacements but we’ll have to see about that soon. In the meantime, the N82 is doing a good job…

Click for full version. ISO 100, F2.8, 1/333s

Not quite mobile computing but interesting anyway is Google’s Buzz. Its an extension of their social circle features and integrates messaging, timeline, media into mail and other Google apps. I won’t go over it in detail because there’s a ton of information and discussion already out there but I do want to talk a little bit about the Buzz layer on Google Maps for Mobile because at the same time as releasing the new feature on Gmail, Google also updated their maps clients to include Buzz features. You could argue that Nokia’s Ovi Maps and Ovi Contacts already have these features and that there are other apps and services out there that let you do this but I’m seeing at least the potential for some major integration across Google products here that, given their user base, will blow away the competition.

I’ve made a video demo with the N82 and the Omnia Pro which you’ll see below and personally, I think it’s exciting to finally see location, search, public multi-media messaging and threaded public discussion being pulled together on a map with my pre-existing ‘social circle’ in this way. I always thought Google Latitude had good underpinnings in terms of privacy and  ‘friending’ but it never took off and although Buzz doesn’t seem 100% connected to Latitude’s idea of multi-tiered and friend-dependant privacy, it’s clear that Google could make the final connections very easily. Linking search, local friends, local events, photography in a live, localised way like this seems to have way more potential than the simple 140 character smart-bomb option.

There are still some things missing though. A client app would be nice but I assume that Tweetdeck and many of the other multi-protocol social messaging apps out there will link in soon and either Google Mail for Mobile or Gtalk will probably evolve along with Google Maps for Mobile. There’s also a lack of ability to embed the live maps and message stream in other places. The ability to ‘friend’ someone from the Maps Mobile app is also missing and of course, using GPS, 3G, maps, screen, GPU and GPU is going to KILL your smartphone battery life! Clearly a secondary device, something like the Dell Mini 5 with Buzz application is going to be better if you need to use this more than an hour a day.

It’s early days but I can see a lot of potential here. The ability to see local ‘buzz’ is just great and combined with local friend notification (already in Latitude) and event / threshold  alerting, this is going to be a great step forward for mobile communications capabilities. Whether people latch on to the idea i another matter but in a quick test with my wife this morning, she seemed happy to add ‘the Buzz’ to her familiar and often-used Google Maps application.  I can’t say the same introducing her to twitter and this could be the major advantage for Google; familiarity.

Although my Gmail hasnt been enhanced with Buzz yet (expected in the next few days here in Germany) I’ve been testing out the features from Maps Mobile. My ‘stream’ is here.

In my previous post I pondered over the idea that the Satio might be my next mobile phone. Don’t worry; I’m over it now!

It turns out that the Satio doesn’t run OVI maps (out of the box,) isn’t as fast as the Cortex A8 CPU might have you believe and with a waiting line of Sony Ericsson phones expected, I really don’t see it getting the long term attention it needs from it’s creators.

All that remains now is to wait for Mobile World Congress and if I don’t see anything there, the N82 will likely be my phone for the next year. It’s been good from day 1 and with Gravity, Opera Mobile and Ovi Maps to make it even better, why shouldn’t it be the perfect buddy for another 12 months?

Supplementing the N82 with a MID like the UMID BZ is working out pretty well and we’ve got the Viliv N5 and Dell Mini 5 to look forward to too!

Finally we’ve got a bit of sun here in Bonn so it’s time to get out with the devices for some mobile blogging. I’ll be jumping on my bike to find a suitable place to work. Not too crowded, not too sunny. I’m thinking that the Rhine, south of Bonn might be good.

First though, I need to decide on what device to take and to do that, I need to write down exactly what I want to achieve.

• Work. Full keyboard, 7” or greater screen. Bright.
• Location. Tracking, occasional or live gps location information? If live, Ipoki or lattitude?
• Connectivity. Built-in 3G or tethered?
• Microblogging. Pocketable
• Photography. Reasonable snapshot camera with easy export facilities.
• Audio. For some tunes/podcasts on the way
• Communications. Phone, instant messenger.

The first problem I have is that a true ‘work’ device doesn’t quite match up to the microblogging requirements because I would like a big keyboard. My phone, as with nearly all phones, isn’t up to what I want from a microblogging experience so we’ve immediately hit a choice between taking 3 different devices or making some compromises.

See full article for live tracking…

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