Nokia 5230 Nuron Improvements

Question

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this or not.
I have been using a n95-3 and an n95-8gb for a while now, but then got spoiled by instlling the SPB Mobile Shell interface on a Samsung Omnia.  I got the Nuron sort of as a test, to see what it was like.  To me, it was nice, but too simplified.  I didn't like the way T-Mobile seemed to limit the use of the phone.  I guess I've been spoiled by some other phones.
After a bit of help, I got OVI going, along with Maps.  That was a good start, and it worked very nicely, especially with the T-Mobile internet access.  There were still way too many limitations though.
I wish Nokia (or is it T-Mobile?) had installed a "real" browser, and went searching for one I could add later.  I found the latest version of Opera, which told me it couldn't install on my phone.  Then I found the latest experimental version, which installed perfectly, and moved the phone out of the "not good enough" category into something I felt might be useful to me. 
The next day, my internet at home went out for a day.  I hooked up my old n95 8gb and found it still worked perfectly as a modem for my laptop.  Amazingly, I then tried this with the Nuron, and it worked just as well (even while using Bluetooth). 
A few days ago, I found that SPB Mobile Shell installs and runs perfectly on the Nuron.  Wow, what a difference.  In fifteen minutes the phone changed from an "interesting toy" to my main phone - it's so much better now, that I'm seriously thinking of switching from AT&T to T-Mobile.  Actually, this has also got me back to feeling excited about maybe getting one of the new N8 phones that are just becoming available.  A website that shows all this better than I can describe it is http://spb.com/symbian-software/mobileshell/.
I'm curious - are there any other products being developed, or completed and now available for download, that work well with the Nuron?  Or, better yet, do any of you know of websites that discuss these things?  I'm pleasantly surprised at how well the Nuron is working out, especially considering the low cost.  I used to think of Nokia phones as "the best", and at some point I'll be looking into the n900 or n8....   but that's several months down the road.

Answer 1

The Nuron is a version of hte 5230 made especially for T-Mobile, so it is difficult to say how many or the issues you experience are down to Nokia and how many down to T-Mobile's customised software, but the browser is definitely somethign that Nokia needs to improve in all of its phones.
You will find the N8's Symbian^3 operating system an improvement over the S60 5th Edition that you have in the 5230, the jury is still out on how good it is next to some of the main rivals but I was impressed with what I saw when I had the opportunity to test an N8 recently.
It's nice to hear a happy user, sometimes it gets a bit lonely being the happy voice amongst a lot of complainers!