The truth your parents never told you: E numbers can be good for you

Nokia has just launched a range of business orientated phones, the one that has been getting the most interest is the E61. Think of a RIM device, but with a bit of class and you have the right idea. The E61 runs the Symbian operating system and provides a credible alternative to Palm's Treo family of devices.

Palm is rumoured to have a Symbian based Treo at an advanced stage of development, but it may be too little too late. The Nokia has a clearly laid out control panel and a good sized screen. It has 75MB of onboard memory, provision for mini-SD memory cards and supports the latest networks technologies including VoIP over WiFi, and WCDMA as well as all the major frequency bands for GSM handsets.

The E61 loses a bit on talk time and internal memory in comparison to the 9X00 series devices, but provides instant messaging capability for always-on communication.

I look forward to seeing whether Apple gets off its backside and develops some decent support for serious Nokia devices like the E series and the 9X00 series smart phones into iSync.