I took hold of a new nokia e71 last week, nokia’s latest smartphone, billed as their answer to the blackberry and the iphone. It was £32 a month on 3, with 1Gb of data transfer.

I’ve used smartphone’s for many years, starting with an early windows mobile device. To date, my experience has been mixed. If it worked, it was irregular, and always expensive, with per Mb and other insane walled garden internet access restrictions.

Last week, that all changed. The technology and network finally just work. For  less than £10 a month I get a Gb of internet, more than enough for emails, browsing and file transfer. The schedule below could probably be just as easy on a palm or iphone, what’s important is that it works, and you can now really be productive when you’re on the move.

Here’s todays commute:

Got train to London

Downloaded (via 3g) and listened to podcast

Answered emails on computer using phone as a bluetooth modem

Looked up diary (which automatically synchronises via bluetooth with my laptop),

used website to check tomorrow trains, and then email a new meeting based on the times.

Advise client by phone’s email train running 10 Minutes late.

Check route by gps, get walking directions to meeting.

Then wrote the draft of this whilst on the bus en route to another meeting.

And it all worked perfectly. At one stage the phone was doing no less than: email (Profimail), calendar, gps maps, opera mini web browser & listening to podcast, all at the same time.

No crashes, no lockups, just working as you would expect, and it actually looks nice  - unlike all my previous qwerty keyboard bricks.

I may leave the laptop behind next time I travel.