The Nokialist has posted a review of a pre-production Nokia N95. As posted on the blog, the initial review covers the general phone design, features and functionality of the phone. Detailed reviews on the camera and the S60 3rd edition Feature Pack 1 are to follow.

Read the review here.

Carnival of the Mobilists #54 is out and can be read at The Golden Swamp Blog. It’s filled with great articles as always and is a great read for all mobile enthusiasts. More on the articles as I finish reading them!

Cingular announced the availability of the Samsung SGH-i607 aka Blackjack. This Windows Mobile 5.0 based, HSDPA compatible device is Cingular’s answer to the Motorola Q and the T-Mobile Dash. The quad-band phone sports the usual 1.3MP camera and bluetooth (with A2DP support, I might add) and a microSD expansion slot. With dimensions of 113mm x 59mm x 12mm, the device is quite thin (2mm thinner than the Nokia E61). It does not possess wi-fi functionality, which is a big minus in my opinion, since I use wi-fi a lot.

The phone will be Cingular exclusive, and is expected to launch in mid-November for $199 with a 2yr contract and unlimited data plan.

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt stated that he foresees a future where cell phones will be given away free to the users, so long as the users don’t mind a little advertising. An interesting concept if you ask me. I was quite skeptical about this approach but as I gave it more thought, I realised that this might actually be the “next big thing”. Here are my thoughts on the ad-based model.

For example, let’s say that in the near future, I signed into google through my cell phone and searched for restaurants in Chinatown - D.C. Based on my search queries, I could then receive targeted advertisements about restaurants in the D.C. metro area. Or for example, I want to buy a bluetooth headset and I search for bluetooth headsets on google. Based on what I search, I could get advertisements on my cell phone from sellers or manufacturers of bluetooth headsets. You get the general idea here right?

Another way in which I think advertisements could be made is for movies, music etc. through online stores. Suppose you download and/or stream music from the music store that your service provider has set up (like the new cingular service). Based on what you have downloaded so far and the kind of music you listen to, the provider can send out small snippets of songs for you to sample and then if you like them, you can download them.

How will this feature will be incorporated into the phone. Would it be better to receive these ads via sms/mms or an in-built application that displays the advertisements on the standby screen. With streaming music and podcasts becoming popular, will advertisements be embedded between songs and podcasts?

There are so many ideas that race to my mind as I think about the ad-based model and I would love to hear about what everyone else thinks about it as well.

However, having said this, I do realize that an advertisement based model is not going to succeed solely based on this kind of advertising. There will always be those random advertisements which we would never like to see, but will have to put up with, if we are to get our cell phones for free.

CotM #53 is out and is being hosted this week at C. Enrique Ortiz’s Mobility Weblog.