The time has come to get a new mobile phone. I’ve been reading plenty of articles on phones lately and must admit that I’m surprised at how far they have come over the last two years.

All of the top of the line phones accept flash memory cards up to 2GB. All of them play music and 3GP video. Some sync up with music subscription services. Most take pretty good photos and videos. All of them have some kind of access to the internet and email, usually at decent data speeds.

I’ve been a Nokia/Symbian user over the last two years with my Nokia 6620 and was leaning towards the new Nokia e62 for my upgrade. The lack of a camera and the data limitations (this model can’t access 3G mobile networks) put me off though. So I decided to go with the Samsung Blackjack which is classified as a Windows SmartPhone. Since this isn’t a mobile phone blog I’ll skip the excruciating details and move on to the point of the post.

The array of features available in the latest class of cell phones, combined with the availability of high speed 3G networks from cellular providers adds up to a more prominent role for mobile phones in the consumption of social media. Some new phones even have WiFi capability.

The fact is that these new phones have the storage space to hold a decent amount of media. They can play audio podcasts and even some video podcasts if they’re formatted correctly. An investment in a high speed data plan means that rich media can be accessed directly from the internet. Even without a high speed data plan users can simply transfer media from their computers with USB data cables or card readers.

Both phones mentioned above include RSS readers as part of their standard software package. The one on the BlackJack is pretty good and allows me to view feeds offline. The built in browser looks great when using my preferred option of Google Reader mobile version. These phones are definitely a boon to consumers of social media.

Publishers are getting closer to an all in one device as well. The camera on the BlackJack takes good pictures which can then be uploaded directly to my Flickr account. I can use the POP3 email capabilities to keep track of new comments posted to my blogs. The video capabilities are decent too with recording available at the podcast standard 320×240 resolution. MP3 Audio recording is available with certain 3rd party apps. Interesting indeed.

Now I don’t expect the production or consumption experience to approach the tools that people use today. These next gen phones tend to be the jack of all trades but a master of none. Sometimes the convenience of an all in one device is worth it though.

[tags]Social Media, Mobile, Samsung BlackJack, Windows Mobile[/tags]