The Nokia N95 8GB trial that wasn't meant to be

UPDATE: Nokia came through and I am now in possession of my trial N95 8GB! w00t!

Two days ago I got a welcome surprise in my inbox. Someone from Nokia had sent me an email via Flickr asking if I'd like to trial their flagship smartphone, the N95. Would I? I felt like I had just won the social media geek lottery! A friend of mine had actually been offered this same trial a few weeks back, so I knew this offer was for real. I e-mailed them back saying I would love to participate in the 3-week trial. About a day later I got a response saying great, please e-mail us at this address and we'll send you an agreement. It also cautioned that their time window was tight and since the team was about to depart the U.S. the next day, I needed to get the agreement back to them by next afternoon. No problemo, I responded right away with my e-mail and awaited a response.

The next day, I got up early and began earnestly checking my e-mail, awaiting the agreement. The morning hours ticked away, and I postponed planned errands just so I could be near a computer and fax. I even sent followup e-mails in case the previous one didn't make it. Nothing. Morning became afternoon and I eventually decided to leave the house, forwarding all my e-mails to my phone so that I could take action as soon as that e-mail arrived. Still nothing.

I'm so bummed because not only did it screw up my plans for today, but up until today I was the biggest Nokia fan. I've been saving and planning to purchase one of their phones, either the N95 or the N810 Internet tablet as the replacement for my trusty Sidekick. I'd seen many social media mavens like Scoble and Jeff Pulver use the N95 to do real-time video broadcasting from all sorts of neat places. I had been looking to test its built-in browser, GPS, and wi-fi capabilities. It seemed like the perfect multimedia phone. Until today.

I guess I wouldn't have minded so much if I had just gotten a simple e-mail saying something like sorry we ran out of time / we'll put you first on the list for the next time / yadda yadda. But getting no response is the worst response in my mind.

I'd be lying if I said I'd never consider buying another Nokia product ever again. But now I'm going to give their competitors an honest opportunity and maybe go with something less sexy, and definitely cheaper, because just this one time, a small slip like this may have created a small opening of doubt where before there would have been none.

I guess if I were an A-list blogger, this post might ruffle the right feathers and rectify things. But I'm not, so I'll just have to be satisfied with getting this off my chest.