The Nokia E71x is one of my favorite all-time Nokia devices and even though I have been spending a lot of time with the N97 lately, the E71x still has a special place in my collection and I may soon be going back to it.

In case you missed it, each site in the Smartphone Experts Network posted our Smartphone Experts Roundtable podcast, where we discussed the biggest smartphones announced and released this month: BlackBerry Tour Review, Nokia N97 Review, iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre Review, and the HTC Hero Announcment. Here’s the rest of the big Smartphone news of the week! HTC Hero HTC Sense Qik streaming Video available for Android AT&T’s BlackBerry Curve 8900 gets reviewed.

I woke up early Saturday to play basketball and saw one of my buddies set up a pocket HD camcorder to get some video from the games. This reminded me that I can take videos on the spot and share with my friends (almost) live from my Nokia phone with Qik.

When people ask me about the Nokia N97, I tell them I love it! It meets my needs better than any other devices currently out there including other Nokia phones or competitors like the Apple iPhone. That said, nothing is perfect.

One of the benefits of writing about all of these phones is getting the opportunity to try out all of the latest and greatest devices for a few weeks before deciding if they are worth purchasing or not. Nokia sent me an eval unit of the Nokia N86 8 megapixel in a European configuration. This means it works with the EDGE data networks on T-Mobile and AT&T, but not on the faster 3.5G networks of either carrier.

I posted my thoughts on having the Nokia N97 for a week last Wednesday and pointed out a couple of areas where Nokia needs to work on the device.

I’ve been using Flickr Twitter beta for a week, and Flickr just announced on their blog it’s out of beta. They even gave out 3 extra months of Pro account for testers. Flickr2Twitter allows me to send photos from my Nokia phone to Flickr and Twitter.

One of my online buddies, Dietrich, sent me a link to this Nokia Beta Labs post where they announced the release of Java Runtime 2.0 for S60 devices. According to the Beta Labs post the JRT 2.0 update gives you: One-click application installation Improved application launch user experience Improved execution performance This updated version is also compatible with S60 5th Edition devices, the 5800 and N97.

I receive lots of questions from readers, keep them coming folks, and one of the more common questions is in regards to CDMA support here in the US.

We’ve made it a habit to wake up early Saturday mornings to play basketball and I’ve been using the Nokia N97 to take photos. I just found out now that the N97 can take photos at 1/1000th of a second. This is great for freezing actions