CHRISTMAS is still seven months away but today I feel like it’s come early. I finally have my Nokia N97!

Regular readers might remember me rabbiting on last year about how much easier having a phone/camera/everything at my disposal when I worked in North Wales, and how I felt slightly neutered when I had to hand my old N96 back to Trinity Mirror for them to pass onto my successor.

But now I’ve finally got its replacement, and it’s brilliant.

I’ve always been fan of using gizmos to make reporting on the job that little bit easier, and I felt particularly useless at the last general election, when the Liverpool Echo, Sky News and the BBC all opted for fancy phones to keep them updated and to file copy over the internet.

I relied on an ancient brick of a phone and a notebook, completely cut off from being able to update readers on The Champion twitter feed and website. That swung it for me; I had to get one.

I’m still getting to grips with having something with sat nav, the Internet, a camera, a camcorder, voice recorder and MP3 player all rolled into one (it even lets you call people on it) to hand once again but what I wasn’t expecting was to immediately get drawn into an ongoing debate over which smartarse phone used in our office is best for the job.

Naturally, I think the N series of Nokias is the best in the world when it comes to media work; if it’s good enough for Reuters, Trinity Mirror and the BBC, then it’s good enough for me. But, one of my fellow reporters has already reckoned, the BlackBerry is better. Oh, and someone else has just edged in praising the obvious appeal of the iPhone. Naturally, none of us can agree.

We could still be here in several editions’ time, poring over our phones, thinking up ever more ridiculous contests to see which one wins, so I’ll call it quits. I’ve used all three before and reckon the iPhones is ahead on apps, the Blackberry’s best for going online and the Nokia noses ahead when it comes to cameras and recording.

It’s Top Trumps, Champion style!

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