It's no secret that the Nokia E61 is already one of the most popular phones Nokia has ever released. (Goes to show you how many geeks are out there.) When I first started looking at this phone, it could be had for about $385 unlocked from different vendors. Due to its popularity, prices have risen and right now $419 is the cheapest I have found. Incredible how even after 1 year of its release and the ulterior release of the E62 variant by Cingular not only has the price not dropped, but, in fact, it has climbed even higher than it was. (Not to say this phone wasn't a mobile bargain from the very beginning.)
And it is the release of the E62 that brings me to my point.
First, it was the rumor of an E61 variant for Cingular, many months ago. Then, specs started appearing all over the Internet. Back then, it was clear that the E61 was the real deal and that the E62 would be extra crippled, as it would be dual-band (as opposed to quad-band like the E61), lack UMTS, Wi-Fi, VoIP, have a 256K color screen (as opposed to the E61's 16M color screen) and other omissions typical of a U.S. carrier, Cingular in particular.
Upon the release of the final specs and eventually the actual device in Cingular stores, we have all realized these initial specs were wrong. Although the E62 does lack UMTS (which you don't get to use in the U.S., since it uses the 2100 MHz band and no U.S. carrier supports that band... yet), it does lack VoIP (which you can't use unless you're using Wi-Fi) and it does lack Wi-Fi (which is really the biggest drawback for us U.S. users, although we only get to use it in our home and/or office wireless networks and not when out and about), the phone is still quad-band and still has a 16M color screen. It also adds MiniUSB support for standardization (which replaces the usual and awkward Nokia pop-port and can be used quite often), a standard stereo headphone jack (which can be used as often as you use your phone to listen to music), vanity dialing (to make a 1-800-PROGRESSIVE type call), a better IM client (one that works as expected) and even a faster processor (which you use every day, every minute, every second)!
I don't know about the rest of the users, but I must say I feel like I was just screwed.
