This post is only useful to UK users.

I nearly bought the E51. It's nice, but expensive, because it's a computer.

The cheapest 3G / Bluetooth *phone* I could find is a contract-manufactured GSM Skype handset from Three (3), a UK GSM service provider.

It's built for Three by Amoi (I thought they made soy sauce). It uses a closed Qualcomm platform called Brew. The model I have is the WP-S1. There's no HSDPA, as far as I can make out - it feels like about 1.7G to me - but read the next paragraph.

You can get it on pre-pay for about £50 ($100), which includes £10 of GSM credit. With a £5 monthly bundle, IP traffic is free.

I'm using it with an N770. It works.

Update to that last post - the 3 skypephone is available in Australia Austria
Denmark Hong Kong Ireland Italy Sweden UK United Kingdom. 3 may be called Hutchison Telecom in your neighborhood.

I was just thinking over the last few days about getting a cheap E62 to use with T-Mobile-USA until the E71 comes out (or maybe the E61, but I think I'd prefer the E62 over the E61... the E61i would be a little to expensive to use as an "interim phone" though).

But then I today I also started looking at the 9300i, 9500, E70, and the E70's predecessors (the 6200's I think?). For a brief moment I considered the E90, but it's way too expensive for a phone whose 3G I'll never be able to use.

Anyone have thoughts about using those with the N8x0? I know it'd just be EDGE here, but I am ok with that. Just trying to figure out which one to go with.

(I also wonder why the E71 is going to be the E71, and not an E63 ... since that sort of implies the E70 wont have a new model... which is kind of sad, since I like it's form factor... having a T-Mobile-USA UMTS version of the E70, with wifi (maybe UMA), and microSD card, would be kinda cool)

Just saw that the new E66 has gine thru the FCC cllearance.
and the FCC docs states it has US 1900 HSDPA support.
plus it has wifi (which i didnt really need as I already have the N810).

only hope its not going to be too expensive for me to be able to affordit. only got to wait till the official US release now. I really likedc the form factor of the phone.

too bad there so little to choose from Nokia HSDPA supported phones in US.

Frankly, it really depends on what you need. Any bluetooth enabled phone should work with the N8x0. The N8x0 brings a wealth of functions of its own. Personally, I think that the only important criterias for a phone are size and HSDPA, since I use the N810 for the rest. This was the main reasons for my change from the N80 to the E51.

This being said, I found that in practice HSDPA is not that much faster than plain UMTS on most web pages (it is on download) and that I use some of the functions in my phone a lot more than I expected. But all symbian phones have practically the same functions anyway: pim, a quite usable minimap browser, they all play music, the all have nokia maps, etc... So in the end, it comes down to size (and for me thinner is better, the N80 was not big but certainly to thick to carry in a pocket). Camera capabilites are actually similar, whatever the pixel count says (from 2 Mpix and up).

3G kills your battery in one or two hours when you are connected (depending on signal level). This is a limitation of the technology used (the output amplifiers must be broadband, very linear and as a consequence are not efficient). Don't count on leaving you N8x0 connected all day long or use EDGE.

You're making a very generic question out of what was a very specific question.

How well do those phones work with the N8x0s?
Do they pair?
Do they connect on DUN?
Do they have any unexpected quirks when acting as DUN gateways for the N8x0s? (such as delivering lower than expected speeds?)

You'd think that would be true.. but it's not. For two reasons:

1) not all bluetooth phones have DUN (ex: several blackberries don't, and sidekicks don't).

2) Not all Bluetooth DUN phones work with the N8x0's. I have a Samsung SCH-R410 ... and it doesn't work with my N810. They pair, but they don't connect. When I had a nokia phone on the exact same account, it worked fine (slow, but fine); so it's not the carrier nor the service, nor even the location. It's the phone.

I expect that nokia phone's with DUN will work with the N8x0, but you never know what quirks are out there. Thus my question about THOSE phones specifically. (my question wasn't general, it was about those exact phones)

You might notice that none of the phones I listed has HSPA for US bands. Until the US versions of the E71 come out, I'm expecting to be running at EDGE speed. And, really, while I don't expect EDGE to be fast, I don't expect EDGE to be unusably/unbearably slow, either. The other nokia I mentioned was a CDMA phone on MetroPCS... and it was a 1xRTT phone, not EVDO. It wasn't a speed I wanted to run at while doing a ton of work, but it was fast enough for what I expect to need to do when I'm doing things via tether instead of wifi. So, if 1xRTT is fast enough, I'm sure EDGE will be as well.

The other thing is, I care much more about the phone being comfortable for TXT'ing than about its size/shape. And, this isn't something I expect to do via my N810 ... as far as I know, even that one app based around libgnoki doesn't let you fully deal with SMS and MMS messages. I'm not a huge fan of T9, either -- I want some form of qwerty keyboard. Thus the specific phones I asked about.

That'd be the plan: use EDGE.

please note that one can get PAN support now via third party...

A easy to use and install third party support, or something where you have to get your hands dirty (becoming root, mucking with the CLI, etc.)?

The former is something to use as a general "the NIT can support it!" bullet item. While I am a unix sysadmin, I don't think the latter qualifies for that kind of bullet item.

a single deb iirc. been a while since i installed it.

answering on the edge plan, a better and faster 2nd option would be using UMTS where HSDPA is notnavailable.

every Nokia phoone supports DUN and thus the Nokia IT built in connectivity option works flawlessly.
on mt Blackjack (MS Windows mobile) I had to install the BT-PAN software.

but using my wife's Nokia phone (edje) it worked right off the bat. In fact the nokia phone with edge seemed better and more stable connection than my 3G blackjack with PAN.

I have since bought a N75 whcihc supports US 3G bands but only has UMTS and no HSDPA. while not the fastest, it is definitely better than edje speeds. In fact I can also do VoIP over the UMTS connection, though its not the most stable. This is where HSDPA should come into play as a advantage.