The Nokia E75 features a sliding QWERTY keyboard along with a standard keypad, QVGA display, quadband GSM/EDGE and dual-band HSDPA, the new Nokia Messaging client along with the Work/Life toggle found on the E71/E63, Bluetooth with stereo audio support, Wi-Fi and FM radio, GPS with A-GPS support, 3.2 megapixel camera with video recorder and speakerphone.

The device is available in Black or Red for $529.99 and will be available soon directly from Nokia.

What’s probably the most shocking thing about our pick is, not only is it not iPhone 3G, but it wasn’t even released this year. Read more to see what phone it is, and why.

Many don’t know the HTC Titan by its original name. But most have at least heard of Sprint’s HTC Mogul, the Verizon Wireless XV6800, or Alltel’s HTC PPC-6800. The phone originally shipped on Sprint in late 2007, and had a couple of GSM siblings; the AT&T 8525 (Hermes) and T-Mobile Wing.

But unlike its GSM counterparts, the Titan has changed the wireless industry, in several key ways.

First, the device made quite clear that software updates can add major new features, across carriers. iPhone set a new benchmark last year, where we coined the phrase iPhone wants to be updated. Apple’s iTunes-updating solution told the industry that they were wrong to make people buy new hardware in order to get new software. Unfortunately, most of the wireless industry did what it usually does: bury its head in the sand.

The Titan was the exception to the rule. No device, aside from iPhone, has received more software updates. And, it arguably received more new features than iPhone. When the device shipped, it carried Windows Mobile 6.0, and the original version of EV-DO 3G speeds. No GPS, no other modern features.

First, Sprint added their Music Store. Then came EV-DO Rev A. Then came Sprint Navigation, complete with unlocked GPS. Around this time, hackers spun off the EV-DO Rev A fun for Verizon Wireless. Sprint then issued Sprint TV, making the Mogul their most powerful phone, and the first smartphone to carry all of their consumer advanced features.

Hackers then uped the ante over on Verizon, combining GPS and EV-DO Rev A, before Verizon even offered their first firmware update. Then came Verizon’s first firmware update… and after hackers had done all of Verizon’s “hard” work, Verizon managed to step in, neutering their GPS only to their VZ Navigator.

Then Verizon claimed that they weren’t hindering it.
Then hackers deleted the hindrance.
Then Verizon admitted that they were hindering their customers.
Then they claimed that they weren’t hindering their customers… again.
Now they’ve promised to fix the problem… if you buy a new phone, and probably sign a new contract.

Got all that? Good. Thanks Verizon, you make our jobs even more secure with every customer you tick off. Nobody else in the mobile media was able to keep track of this saga, except PhoneNews.com.

So why does all of this add up to making the HTC Titan the phone of the year? Unlike iPhone, the industry did actually change because of the HTC Titan. Customers have shown that they want to keep a high-end device which has all of today’s network technology. I see no reason to pay full price, or sign a new contract, to upgrade… did I mention the phone is over a year old?

In such a fast-paced wireless industry, for a phone to stay current for that long, at the top of the feature set game, is simply shocking.

The other reason, is the iPod touch 2G. Thanks to it, you can have your cake and eat it too. Slinging Wi-Fi from the Titan to an iPod touch 2G is not only easy, the FCC appears to have made it free, too. Some said that was notion was taboo, but our readers (and staff) have found it to be the best of both worlds. You get an unlocked device that can run any app, and you get the benefits of the iPod touch’s web browser, email, iPod, and App Store.

On top of all that, the HTC Titan delivers turn-by-turn GPS navigation with not one, but seven different solutions. From TeleNav to Garmin, it just works (well, unless you’re on Verizon, then you need one more thing).

Oh, and one more thing. A Titan and iPod touch 2G wind up being cheaper for most too. In a typical case, rather than paying $200 to $400 for an walled-garden iPhone 3G, an iPod touch costs around $200, and an Titan runs for about $100 to $200 on eBay.

But, wait a minute, you forgot the real cost of wireless… your service plan. Sprint and Verizon deliver better data add-ons that cost less money. And, unlike iPhone, you can even opt for a data-only plan. Heck, you can even re-program it to work on MetroPCS if you’re willing to work for it.

In short, we would have given the award of Phone of The Year to iPhone 3G. But the Titan’s ability to be paired with an iPod touch, for less money, and more utility… not to mention its ability to change the entire wireless industry… made this an easy choice for us.

I’ve made some good buys on Wall Street, but I’m no stock market analyst. Buying lots of Apple shares at $4/each seemed like a good idea at the time. Then again, that was when Gil Amelio was running the company. It took some guts, and some insanity to buy Apple back then. And, buying Sprint at the “bargain” of $20/share also seemed like a good idea.

So, you’ve seen the good, and you’ve seen the bad. That said, I’m quite bullish on telecom at the moment. While the credit crunch has devastated Wall Street… it hasn’t touched the technicals… and by that, I mean technology.

Sure, getting venture capital is going to be tough. I personally am feeling that right now. But, let’s not forget that technology in the market is far less affected by credit, than technology not yet made. WiMAX is here, now. Apple is forging laptops out of a single piece of aluminum. And, despite the tough times of this past year, 10 million iPhones were sold. Would those things have been estimated, had we been told the stock market would fall nearly 4,000 points this year?

I have no idea what will happen on Wall Street tomorrow. But, I do thing it will either surge or crash. I doubt tomorrow will be a mediocre day.

And, that brings me to the point of this article. You, the individual investor, needs to keep one thing in mind. Something that the media tends to forget. You can help decide what path this country takes, not just at the polls. If you think Sprint is worth more than $4 a share. If you think the company that is making the first mass-production consumer electric car, is worth more than $5 a share… it’s time to vote with your wallet.

Full disclosure: I also made a sizable purchase in GM today.

Now, I’m not saying spend money you don’t have. I’m not even saying spend money that you do have. But, if you would rather take a trip to Vegas this upcoming holiday season, if you plan on going on some expensive vacation, if you plan on buying a TV that you can barely afford… think about this; if you are willing to undervalue America, if you are willing to let the American economy be undersold, what do you think other countries will do?

I see the future hitting right home. If the economy dives into a deep recession… or even a depression, we probably won’t see 4G for years. Sure, it will be in the cities that it’s in right now. They’ll roll it out in areas where there’s little-to-no investment needed. Why? Because if T-Mobile buys Sprint next week, you can bet that they’ll match AT&T’s five-to-ten year “vision” for deploying 4G in America. It would be in their interest to do so.

If you want truly nationwide broadband internet for all… Sprint is $4 a share. I’d rather be bullish on America, than gamble it away in Vegas. And, that’s why I took my vacation dollars and just invested them.

Taking advantage of the amazing Sony Ericsson Z750a deal (which is still going on, albeit in pink… a $10 case can fix that easily), our office had a few new Z750a units sitting around.

Well, one of them decided to stop working. In particular, the center and end call keys simply quit responding. So, with a shudder, we called up Sony Ericsson warranty service. Why the fear? Because we’ve never had a single good experience with SE Warranty Services in the United States. From the wrong T68i replacement in 2000, to the six-week turnaround on fixing a W600i… we’ve been there first-hand.

Why is this such a problem? Because Sony Ericsson outsources warranty service in the United States. In Europe, they specially train technicians to work on these phones… but over here, they hire a company with no experience. And, it shows.

Important note: While AT&T will warranty phones directly, they will only do so for users under contract with AT&T. GoPhone prepaid customers are left to deal with the manufacturer directly…

Back to our example. Of course, we had no problem in sending in the Z750a… Sony Ericsson’s direct support quickly generated an RMA number, and our phone was in the mail. In fact, this time it even came back within the 10 business day window.

But, that’s when the trouble started. The report, wrapped around the phone, cited “corrosion” as the fault, and that the phone would not be fixed. Essentially, they voided the warranty. Obviously, this was not the case… the phone had never been outside. If there was corrosion, it was from the prior owner, and Sony Ericsson’s (outsourced) refurbishing facility didn’t do their job.

Wait, it gets worse. We powered on the phone, and… nothing worked. The entire keypad was off-center (improperly reinserted). As such, no key functions… you can’t even press it.

Wait, it gets even more worse. The phone won’t even recognize the AT&T SIM card for which it is supposed to be locked it. It’s as if someone plugged it in to a service terminal, flashed it with the wrong firmware, and dropped it back in the box. We’d sure like to know what they did to the software on the phone, but we can’t… because the keypad won’t function.

In short, this is par for the course at Sony Ericsson. We’d take the phone to one of AT&T’s Device Repair Centers at this point… but AT&T would probably laugh us out the door. The phone has been ruined by Sony Ericsson, and we’re now looking at an up-hill battle to get them to admit it.

Bottom line: When you buy a phone, you have to look at the company behind it. You have to see what support chain is there. Sony Ericsson’s support chain, in America, is downright broken. Don’t buy Sony Ericsson, unless you have a contract plan with a carrier that will warranty it for you. We’ve had enough of the years of frustration, lost time, and lost money.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy with the performance I’ve gotten from my original iPhone. And, my iPhone 3G served its purpose. But, several factors have come together that have brought me to the point, that it’s time to move on.

With the recent launch of the second-generation iPod touch, this really became a simple choice. With the iPod touch, I can use Wi-Fi to sling internet from any Symbian or Windows Mobile phone. And, that frees up my cell phone plan… to do anything I want with it. I can watch live TV from my Slingbox, share internet with my laptop, and download podcasts wirelessly.

Did I mention that I can play all my video games thanks to emulators, tune into radio (yes, while surfing the web), chat in the background, and still have enough bandwidth to place a VoIP phone call?

Now, unlike most… I’m not going to shout and demand that Apple completely rid the walled garden, and enable these applications on all iPhones. AT&T would throw a fit, and their already-bogged-down data network could crawl to a halt. But, as Om Malik put it simply “today’s power users, are tomorrow’s everyday users.” Apple needs to provide power users such access, while building a path for traditional users to benefit from these advances… someday.

And, that’s why Apple should offer an unlocked iPhone 3G. No, the ability to swap SIMs with international providers is nice, but breaking free from the walled garden will benefit even more users. AT&T will already unlock an $80 3G phone for no charge… the value-added benefit in an unlocked iPhone would be in its ability to be jailbroken from the get-go.

Now, you may be wondering why I don’t just jailbreak my iPhone 3G. And, I’ve done that. After all, it lets me stream recorded video via Qik, play my Sega Genesis and Sega CD games (long live Sonic CD, by the way), and share internet with PdaNet. But, the answer to that is simple… it’s the economy stupid.

Quite simply, innovation on iPhone is stifled right now. Slingbox can’t get in (except over Wi-Fi, which they’re still hashing out with Apple), Adobe Flash is in approval quagmire (which is still being hashed out by Apple), and Apple’s rational for prohibiting emulators has run out of excuses (while Apple comes up with new ones). See a repeating problem here? Apple is dragging their feet on innovation, in each of these areas.

But, dragging their feet on innovation is pretty typical. Apple held off on releasing Boot Camp for Macintosh, for nearly six months. But, when they did… their stock value shot up 10% on the news. Apple had 802.11n in hundreds of thousands of MacBooks, but was disabled until Apple could ship a complimenting router. And, every iPhone sold, as well as the current iPod touch, could do Stereo Bluetooth A2DP. See a trend here? Apple benefits from holding back on technology, it’s a powerful marketing tactic to help a company get its ducks in a row.

Sure, the impending kill-off of cheap iPhone 3G data loopholes is what ultimately did things in, but, I actually think I will pick up some utility. And, if Apple was actually engaging in “FairPlay” with apps, the GoPhone Pick Your Plan offering would be just fine.

For example, with a Touch Diamond on Sprint, you can get unlimited data for as low as $25/month (sans voice plan, thanks to the Sprint Developer Plan offering). That gives you all the benefits of Windows Mobile, while handing off web, email, and App Store duties to the iPod touch. Or, an XV6800 on Verizon Wireless can do the same, now for only $30/month, thanks to Verizon’s data rate cuts.

And yes, this has been possible all along (we were, after all, the first to cover that originally). But, again, the iPod touch 2G changed everything. Now, you can get a full-fledged PDA, and a full-fledged MID (Mobile Internet Device). No headphones for audio, actual volume controls… it’s exactly what I complained about in the first generation.

Hopefully Apple will get the message. An unlocked iPhone can actually sell for $699. AT&T doesn’t have a problem when HTC, Palm, Sony Ericsson, and Nokia do it. All Apple needs to do, is tear down this wall… somewhat. Even with just one iPhone OS device being open, developers will supply the innovation that will prove successful to Apple. What will it prove exactly? It will prove that these blocked apps are, in most cases, profitable to everyone… and that blocking them only hurts Apple.

If there’s one thing Sprint Nextel shouldn’t have gotten wrong, it was confusing consumers. Everyone agrees with that point, and it has cost Sprint dearly. But, how is someone going to tell the difference between an iDEN phone with Direct Connect, and a CDMA phone with Direct Connect?

Well, the official answer would be, that they should be identical. But, that’s a bad thing for both marketing, and for consumer relations.

Think about this. If someone wants to upgrade to a new QChat phone, they’re going to have to change from an iDEN plan to a CDMA plan. Keep in mind, 99.9% of the population does not know iDEN from CDMA. These are not acronyms that are in their lexicon. Being told that they have to change plans just to keep using the same Direct Connect, is frustrating. Frustration, leads to number ports… away from Sprint.

But, wait, it gets worse. “That old service is useless now.” That’s what Verizon is saying about Direct Connect, in nationwide advertising campaigns. And, thanks to Sprint’s horrible naming scheme… there’s no way for Sprint to differentiate between an iDEN phone, and a QChat phone on CDMA.

My advice to Sprint is rather simple: Brand QChat as Direct Connect 3G. First, it’s simple, and to the point. QChat is a 3G technology, iDEN is a 2G technology. Second, it adds instant name recognition… people are finally (five years after we started talking about it) embracing 3G… yes, even regular consumers.

And, more importantly, it adds consumer saliency. When you upgrade from an iDEN phone, you’re actually getting something in return. You’re getting a new Direct Connect. All Sprint has to do, is re-inforce that Direct Connect, and Direct Connect 3G, are completely compatible with one-another. And, that too adds value in and of itself. It tells Nextel customers that there is a future path… again, other than porting to another carrier.

Will Sprint take it up? Well, they have a good track record of listening to me, so I hope this will continue that. After all, unlike other carriers… I like Sprint because they actually do listen.

Another Update: I have sent emails to several Sprint PR reps asking for clarification. Hopefully they will respond…

Update: I spoke to the author of the article, he referenced the following quote:

“The restructuring involves dumping CDMA mobile phone production for the North American market and cutting 500 jobs.”

This isn’t the first time that Sony Ericsson & Sprint have confused phasing out “Research & Development” as originally stated with “Production” so I would still treat this information as unreliable.

A recent article on MobileTracker, wherein they reported Sony Ericsson’s recent quarterly losses and market share reports, stated that “It looks like the T608 will not be shipping”.

MobileTracker didn’t reference any source for this information, and I suspect that it is sheer speculation on MobileTracker’s part. I have contacted MobileTracker, hopefully they will clarify their statement.