They all do visit if the product is not functioning properly, repeat problems or in certain cases they are negative towards the company itself.

When you look at things in this way (specially the last point), then it becomes very important for companies to curate a top class Care/ Service Center experience to tackle the aggressions and disappointments of consumers.

As customer experience and customer service increasingly become a strategic priority for companies looking to differentiate themselves, most of them are realizing that some of their consumer interactions (face to face or contact centers) represent more than just costs; they’re moments of truth for customers, points in time that significantly impact customer loyalty.

If we sit back and recall our last Service Center experiences, then I am sure that we can sure remember one of those worse ones a few years back and we can sure remember that how we talked about those experiences with our friends. It clearly shows that much important Customer Care is. Are companies really doing something about it now in recent years?

Luckily, I got a chance to visit and see the process followed by Nokia Care Centers in general and would like to share the same with you so that you can understand that why Nokia remains consumer’s favourite.

Nokia Care: the process

As about the looks and process inside a Service Center, it changes as per the user base and type of handsets change city by city, area by area, time by time, so its not exactly possible to keep each Service Center in the same way as a metropolitan city would have. Yes! there might be alterations in minute details in comparison but more or less, Nokia Care Centres catch the consumer eye. They are easy to locate & give a comfortable feeling once you enter. The basic amenities like seating space, air-conditioning, cleanliness, decent branding are common to all Nokia Care Canters.

Let me now share the different elements of a Nokia Care Center:

1. The reception:

   The reception in a traditional Nokia Care Center has been replaced by a Token System that generates token on the basis of task category & also sends this information to Care Center manager. You get a touch based, ATM like looking token machine with different task categories from which customer can select the relevant option.

   

   As you can see, this system removes the middle man carrying up your tokens and subsequent order no. The new system is very transparent in its functions. While the centralized reporting helps Nokia in further improvements, but it also improves the turnaround time with per call. Along with token, you also needed to fill Customer Information Slip for record purpose, so that Nokia may contact you about your experience if required.

2. Waiting area: Comfortable seating at the Waiting area makes it relaxing. An LCD TV is showing the latest Nokia promotions about products as well as valuable Consumer Information like (Do’s & Don’ts, Consumer Awareness initiatives like Recycle etc.). Another LCD displays token allotment and also the average waiting time.
   
3. Monitoring and tracking the tokens: It sounds too good to be true but gone are those days when you were needed to sit for long in Nokia Care Centers to get your number. While efforts are made to attend to customer at the earliest, in case any customer is waiting for long, the Center manager would attend to the customer himself. The company monitors the Average Waiting Time centrally to take corrective actions.
   .
4. Product & Accessory Display: One thing that has always been part of a Nokia Care Center and that is Accessory Display. It’s still the same though Nokia Care Centers in certain cities might have the latest products on display too.

   

5. Service Desks: The number of service desks depends on the location & number of customers visiting the Care Center and the one that I visited was at Delhi, it had larger number of desks.

   The Service desks are not only equipped with common accessories like covers, headphones etc. but also keep catalogue of protection plans as well.

   

   Like the one, you see here, Nokia Care Protect plans extends your warranty for 12 months more (Obviously after inspecting your device once and if found perfectly fine), which will be exactly same as the normal warranty. Unfortunately, only those users that are covered in warranty can enjoy this benefit, not the one who are left with expired warranty.

6. Technical Desks: Not all the issues are as simple that one expert can solve without doing dirty things like opening your device or opening screws within mins, so all the cases that require further work beyond just an expert inspection, will go into technical section.

   Obviously consumers are not allowed to enter into technical section as it requires some form of Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protection, though all such technical desks  will always have a transparent glass front. Logic behind the transparent glasses is, people out there can have a view if the technical desk want to show them the exact problem with their handsets.

    
7. Feedback Section: I am not sure if I would have come across a cute feedback section like this in some Service Center. It was pleasing to see the openness & transparency at Nokia Care Centers to collect customer feedback.

   

   And more better is, this is not just namesake. Put a negative feedback and you can be assured that someone will personally meet you or call you about that feedback.

8. Collection Counter: Obviously not all issues can be resolved within mins or even in hours, many a times, you need to come to Care Center on a later date, just for the collection purpose. Obviously, it doesn’t make sense to put a customer coming for collection into the same queue as of people with complaint. Obviously, a separate desk for collection.
9. Accessory Replacement: Nokia Care Centers maintains a stock of commonly used accessories batteries, headphones etc. Let me remind you, you will never get a repair of headphones and batteries in case of Nokia as such items get instantly replaced with a new one rather than doing some ad-hoc solution (obviously when in warranty).. 

   Nokia ensures adequate stock in all Care Centers to avoid disappointed customers coming for service. The stock in Nokia Care Center varies as per patterns of consumers visited there.

10. Internal Training & skill enhancements: We were very excited to know if those technical desk people were given chance of having hands on over latest upcoming gadgets before the marketNokia keeps on training each one of them about handsets throughout the year.
11. Outcall to customers about their experiences: This is another feat that Nokia seems to have adopted from the best practices of service industry. Random calls to Customer to know if they have been satisfied with their experience with Nokia Care Center. Also if they have any suggestion in mind for further improvements. All of such calls get well documented and forwarded to concerned authorities for further decisions if required.

So, this pretty much sums up what a Nokia Care look like and functions like. When I was asked, for me it was actually hard to come up with a suggestion to bring further improvement.

Do you find the process good enough or do you have some of your own suggestions? Do you have any good or bad experiences with Nokia Care recently? Please share them with me, I hope you will be listened by right ears.

Do you know what was the last time when Gravity got its last update? It was March 08, 2012 means exactly two and half a month before. Not exactly the longest period between two successive Gravity updates but still it was quite a long gap and people like me who been following Gravity updates since long, knew that longer period between successive updates always been leading to some great new features. So let’s see what new features are on card this time?

Before starting to talk anything about it, let me warn you, this time this update is a real Alpha means a premature build and you must be ready for some bugs while trying it (though like always, I didn’t found many of show-stopping kind of bugs).

So, are you ready for a walkthrough of new features? Here we go.

The changes that I might have noticed till now are as given below:

1. All New Notification Bar and removal of Full Screen Mode: Many of us liked Gravity in the full screen mode always but this was a big dilemma for people since the Belle update came in with drop down System notification bar. Being in Gravity timeline with full screen mode was meant to miss the status bar altogether.

@Janole decided in favour of removing the full screen mode (as was in earlier version, showing in extreme right screenshot) and introducing an all new notification bar with three sections.

• An either blank or Home icon that will take you back to all accounts screen.
• The middle part of status bar will take you to the top or to Dashboard of particular account.
• The brand new notifications section that will take you to notifications + last visited history section.

For me, the issues in this approach is, Gravity has an option to tap on top to move to top of the timeline and with two status bars (One of system and one of Gravity), it becomes a lot confusing. You have to hit the status bar precisely to get to top because if you hit top most system bar then it might be lead to system drop down that might annoy you. Moreover, the pixel size of the new Status bar is almost doubled means loss of screen space on already low resolution Symbian screens. I think @Janole also agree on it.

All I can say that this approach might be good for many but may annoy many as well. In my opinion, there should be a full screen mode option present and in that mode, the pixel size of the status bar might be lowered as well. Though I wont push more for the pixel part because status bar needs to be in the same size as the search bar to cover it up in other parts of UI.

One of the workaround might be an Auto-Hide search bar along with half the pixel status bar in full screen mode. But let’s see how @Janole will deal with it.

But the better side of this exercise is, you now have access to drop down toolbar, signal, battery, time and system notifications etc.

* Thanks to @HardikLive for some of the screenshots.

2. New Add Account section with a minor change: Not a big change but one may spot a little change in Add Accounts section, where we find two options for Twitter account.

The “Can’t add a Twitter Account?” section is to bring back the old OAuth part for adding a twitter account without going to Twitter website because many a people faced issues via web route. Obviously for getting DMs, you will be needed to authorize via web only if you choose this choice.

3. The Search bar on the top of Twitter/ Facebook section: This is one of the experiments that even @Janole wasn’t sure and delayed it since January even after early implementation because it certainly takes its sweet time to get used to of it.

Only issue might be the screen real estate taken by it, but over the time, people will sure start getting used to it. Thing is, we are so accommodated to traditional UI elements of Gravity that any such change feels awkward in the start.

4. The notifications + History Section: The introduction of brand new Notifications section brings you a single place where you can keep track of notifications and history of the last visited places inside the app.

Not only that but @Janole has planned to make it even bigger in next updates.

5. Anna-Belle type rounded icons across the UI: I am not sure that why it wasn’t here already in last update but finally the native looking icons are here to make the experience consistent throughout the OS.

6. Facelift for Groups and Lists Section for Twitter: Groups and Lists section which was just a list earlier now gets the much needed grouping/

Isn’t it look good enough now.

7. User profile shows if the user following you: The new user profile section in twitter now shows that if the user is following you. So no more, tapping on profile and check if Direct Message option is appearing or not.

8. Image save option in Facebook section as well: It was already there in twitter section via tap on the picture or tap on the button in the middle bottom and it was about time, when it makes to Facebook section and its here now.

One difference here is the absence of the bottom middle button for saving the image but as the place was already taken by Edit button, @janole left it to tap on the picture to save it.

9. Facelift in Foursquare section, comments notifications: Not much significant, but the foursquare section also have got some minor changes in the way a check-in looks or in the way you search for a place.

The left most screenshot is from old Gravity while the middle one is from new one. You can spot the changes. Also the search bar in top is a new introduction. Also now you will get notifications when someone comments on your check in.

Though still we don’t have emphasis on marking system as in Foursquare and it doesn’t notify you that how much last checkin earned for you or where you stand in leader board.

10. New share menu in Gravity: Though as of now, it works only for the links in Browser, Facebook and Google reader section, but finally we have a share menu in Gravity that serves the purpose of saving articles/web pages from one social network to another.

Also now you can edit the title before sharing it in Google Reader menu (share function was there earlier). Though with this share menu, @Janole hasn’t integrated the is.gd or any other url shortener, but may be its for good, because who wants his/her URL getting shrink three times while posting? Twitter already has t.co while Facebook treats URLs other way.

As expected, introduction of Share option means no Tweet it button in Google Reader section anymore.

11. Gravity Browser gets attention again: Since the implementation, Gravity browser seen very less visible changes, but the big update this time decided not to leave it.

The first change is change of share icon that comes back to Symbian style iOS style as earlier and also Readability support for formatting the webpages for mobile screens.

While its a good step in right direction, it has its own share of glitches.

First, its rather annoying to get it back from Full screen mode which it choose automatically once open, then if you tap and hold you finger for 2-3 seconds, then bars appear but they get away once you remove the finger. It should stay for long so that one may come out from browser easily.

Second, Readability support is only for formatting the page, not for using you Readability account as Gravity browser still doesn’t support cookies means no kind of logins can be supported.

Actually this was a feature suggested to @janole long back in 2009 itself which finally got delivered by this new version.

12. Last but not least, option to share status on multiple networks finally: Yeah! finally you can share the same status on multiple social network accounts at once (facebook\Twitter}. All you need to do is to swipe your finger from left to right or right to left on Add Account section and you will get the screen given below:

This was a much needed and heavily requested feature since long. Thanks to @jryap28 for bringing this into my notice

13. Picture size shown while uploading photo to Twitter: As told by @janole, this was actually a debugging feature, but he found it rather useful for public as well and released it with this version.

Though its available for Twitter section only and not available in Facebook section as of now. But should come shortly with new version.

Bug: As of now, Gravity has two of the known bugs with this new version.

1. Push Notifications or User Streams broken Fixed with 7153
2. UI issues with Swype split screen mode Fixed with 7153

Hope that it would be sorted by the upcoming version in next 2-3 days. Already out as build 7153.

So, this was all that I spotted about the new Gravity and now its your turn to tell me if I would have missed anything. Also this time, @Janole has made some important comments about the future of Gravity that you must not miss.

It says the long awaited Picasa (May be even Flickr Integration) might not be too far and may be a complete makeover of Images section may arrive with our long awaited Symbian Imaging Flagship Nokia Pureview 808.

And then the biggest announcement that might bring back many a hopes and smile on faces of people who have left Symbian and missing Gravity very much though @janole has cleared further than no work on Android\iOS right now. Schedule for second half or late of this year.

So this was what I had to say, now its your turn. Download it from here http://bit.ly/7152ALL and comment here if you find any more changes in it or wanna suggest something. Also keep a note of the fact that its a preview version so many a things might get changed in the version that will come shortly.

I am not sure that I ever would have reviewed a product and would have rated it as “An Essential Accessory” but there is always a first and for me, it happened to be Proporta USB Turbocharger.

Smartphones and their battery life, something most of the users talk about, bitch about many a times because of the simple fact of life, if your phone is out of battery, then there is no difference between a 7mm thick phone and a 17mm thick one. But still the temptation of owning a slim phone is something that neither manufacturers nor users are giving up.

Its not that manufacturers and users are not trying for the solutions/workarounds and its definitely not the case that you can’t do anything about it.There are two ways to deal with it; spare batteries and portable chargers. Lets discuss both a little.

Issues with spare batteries

The regular readers here would not have missed my review about Mugen Batteries in past and the friends on Twitter and real life would have seen that how those batteries remained an integral part of my daily routines (and some of the regular issues). As time passes by, you learn about some of the limitations around these extra-power/replacement batteries, like the ones given below:

1. NO HOT SWAPPING: If you are running out of battery then you need to remove that battery and use the spare battery. Obviously, this involves switching off your phone for once even if for half a min only.

2. Battery Calibration: With the spare battery solution, you get two types of spare batteries; either of same power (mAH) or of extra power (more juice). The issue is, most of the time, the underlying OS is not that smart to handle this and you need to calibrate the batteries (many a times, its 2-3 cycles means 2-3 days long process) otherwise you wont be able to take full advantage of the juice that these batteries can provide to you. Obviously a cumbersome thing for the n00bs and for even geeks.

3. The size & shape: Love it or hate it, most of the Smartphone manufacturers nowadays feel like flaunting the slimness of their phones rather than caring for the fact that how much long the “slim” battery lasts for the user. For overcoming the issue, the user either has to use his device less or have to carry a charger with him all the time or have to opt for a thick battery for him that obviously negates the first cause that was slimness. Truth is, people don’t prefer to show their phones as thick stabs.

4. No separate charging: A spare battery can not be charged in separate, it has to be in device for getting charged. Means if you are preparing for some trip, then you first charge your first battery, then you pull out the battery and then charge the other one. Obviously a big amount of time required and when you put it on a scale of daily routine, then it becomes a mess.

5. Multi-usability: The issue with spare batteries, is their being specific for one handset. The smart users who need such things are actually carrying more than one devices with them and not only that but also changing the devices by each year. Is it wise to keep on purchasing spare batteries for each of the device?

6. Price: As of now, if you buy a separate same capacity spare battery then the price remains reasonable but due to the type of tech involved in high capacity batteries, the price remains an issue in the later case. It might be as worse as 4-5 times higher than the stock battery price.

How I got introduced to Proporta?

After going through the first solution in detail, I decided to give the second option a try; the portable chargers like the one I seen in hands of @SamDLaw first (that was a Nokia DC-11 1500 mAh). 1500 mAh was not enough for me, so I was to look for other solutions and the biggest name I heard of in twitterverse was of Proporta; An expert in field of mobile phone accessories, cases and portable chargers.

As it was mostly an online store and there was no way to get it from some nearby store in India, I wrote back to Proporta about my interest in Proporta Turbocharger 7000 and for my surprise, after a few days later, a sweet conversation with Jitender @ Proporta led to a review unit of Proporta Turbocharger 5000 for me (as Turbocharger 7000 was out of stock for the moment).

Proporta TurboCharger 5000: The Unboxing

The wait didn’t took long and within days, I got a call from security of my office that “Sir! you got an Air Mail” and the well packaged accessory was in my hands.

I actually liked the cute gesture of putting a small tea-bag along with package.

And this was how the package looked like from the front with emphasis on the terms: Powerful, Rechargable & Portable. Also notice the fact that it may provide charging for Apple products, Digital cameras and other USB powered devices as well.

While the device itself has a nice rubberised metal texture and looks, we are in for a nice little bag as well.

This is the complete content of the package. One interesting folding wire and six different connectors to serve most of the current mobile devices (except the odd ones or older fat pin Nokia devices).

There is only one button on the device and then you find three blue LEDs denoting the level of charge left in it.

While the idea of three blue LED strips is quite great in concept, in real it appeared as just rough idea of it. It provides rough idea of charging a device or idea of getting charged itself. But many a times, I found it inaccurate though. Also there is no Auto off, once you pull out a device from it and you have press the button manually.

There are three ports in it, two are the USB ports and one is input port. One of USB port is labelled as High and one as Low due to difference in power output they provide.

Apple devices like iPad etc will get charged by High port only though there is literally no issue in charging other devices from the high charging itself.

One of the other thing to notice is the retractable cable supplied (USB to female generic, with a bundle of device-specific tips – microUSB, miniUSB, Apple iPod, Sony Ericsson, Nintendo DS Lite, Nokia 2mm) is quite thin and besides the long time handling part itself, some forums say that it might be an issue for 1A current that is provided by High Charging port.

I actually didn’t use the provided cable for charging my devices and relied on their original USB cables, so it should not be a problem.

The biggest profit of Proporta for me, was the liberty from almost all the issues that I mentioned in first section. This was almost exactly the thing that I or many others might be wishing for. The perfect companion for heavy smartphone users or even those who are preparing for some long outing.

I can start charging a device while I am still on call (Hot Swapping), I don’t need any kind of calibration as I am literally using the same battery in device, the shape of the device will be unchanged, I can charge almost all of the mobile devices I own and last but not the least is the price.

Proporta USB Turbocharger 5000 costs just 34.95 Euro or $50.3 or around 2.5k INR that is also inclusive of shipping charges as Proporta ships it free of cost.

I still want to appeal Proporta for getting into a tie up with local Indian Retailers like Flikpart etc to sell their units directly into Indian market so that people might have more payment options than just credit card because I actually know many out there in my circle who would gladly buy this product if comes with an option to pay by NetBanking or option to Pay on Delivery. That would be really like some dream come true.

Now, where are the cons?

1. The speed at which it charges, which is definitely lesser than those of AC charger but that’s a technology limitation with almost all portable chargers, so it shouldn’t count.
2. The quality of the retractable cable provided with it that is thin and doesn’t provide the same sense of safety as the device itself does. But if you are using mobile device cables then it shouldn’t be an issue already.
3. The option to charge the charger via PC USB only, no AC charging option out of box. Though on researching further, I found that Proporta actually ships a World version as well with an optional AC charger as well. They didn’t put on in box due to the fact that it goes against the concept of a truly mobile charger.
4. The charging capacity is though mentioned as 5000 mAH, but it stands as some 4000 mAh actually and it drains quite a bit if you left the device switched on (no automatic off if no device in charge). Though 4000 mAh still enough.

Conclusion:

As I said in first paragraph, even if it might not be perfect in every sense, I would rate this device as an “Essential” Accessory to have (A first on Layman’s Take for any device I would have reviewed in past) and wont mind putting my money on it. This smart piece of tech not only look good, but comes with a very decent price and because of its versatile nature, is future proof as well. Its not a thing that only you might be using, but it will be useful for your friends/family while travelling and trust me, they will ask you that from where you bought one.

Rest I leave on readers. Do you think I did it right by calling it “An Essential Accessory to have”?

While in the last review, I talked about Nokia Asha 300, now it is the time to talk about the real leader of the pack, Nokia Asha 303: One of the phones, over which Nokia thought to pull it back with low end handsets in Indian market. Let’s see how it is….

Nokia Asha 303 is finally the one to showcase a capacitive screen on S40 Touch and Type genre along with the honour of being a Nokia Touch-n-Type QWERTY at such low price point. In many ways, this seems to be the Nokia Asha handset which should have started the Asha Touch-n-Type Series in first place.

Nokia Asha 303: The content inside the box – the unboxing:

After reviewing Nokia Asha 300 recently, I was aware of the fact that what I should expect to come out from the box of Nokia Asha 303 and it happened to be exactly similar. Neither USB OTG cable nor any traditional microUSB cable. All we got from Nokia Asha 303 box was ..

One Nokia Asha 303 (RM-763)

1. One Nokia WH-102 Stereo Headset

2. One Nokia AC-11N Smart and lightweight 2mm Battery Charger

3. One 2Gb Memory card

As you can see, there are almost no changes in the content, then why the higher price?

The answer lies in its premium looks and big additions like capacitive screen, Wi-fi capability & well built QWERTY keypad. Let’s explore it more in next section covering the exterior of the device.

Nokia Asha 303: The Exteriors:

The unit that I got was Chrome unit and you can yourself see that how different it looks in comparison of the last Asha 300 that we seen lately. The metallic back was a kind of assurance for the durability of the device in the long run.

If you ask me about negatives then somehow the shape of the screen itself didn’t suit the looks otherwise rest of the shape and built quality may rival some of the biggies.

The front of the device showcases 2.4” Capacitive screen with a considerably thick bezel, four buttons under the screen and then an actually nice QWERTY keyboard in the bottom.

A large space button and almost same kind of key layout as its always been with E-Series handsets. Same back-lit keys with right amount of tactile feedback.

The top of the device makes the place for 2mm charging point, 3.5mm Audio jack and a micro USB port (Good to see that there is no creepy cap either).

The right side of the device has the volume keys and one lock key.

Turning the device towards back reveals the fact that we have got a 3.2 mp camera here that too without flash. Though on the positive note, we see a metallic battery cover matching the chrome finish as rest of the body and quite a sized one speakers.

So if I compare it from Nokia Asha 300, then lack of flash in camera continues, though we receive some big updates like a metallic premium finish, a much better speaker and obviously a much better QWERTY.

Nokia Asha 303 – The Interiors

It would be a repeat for people who might have read the specs part in my last post about Nokia Asha 300, but let’s see what this new device has in its sleeves.

The first thing that gets the eyes is 2.6” LCD Transmissive capacitive single touch screen with a colour depth of 18 bits and a resolution of 240×320 pixels. Obviously no Gorilla glass here, neither you should expect some great visuals under the sun. An OK OK performance if we compare from high end though outstanding and accurate, if we go by the standard of feature phones or the phones in the similar price range.

In next, we have 1GHz Processor, 128 MB RAM and user storage up to 100 mb though it can be extended up to 32gb via MicroSD card (it ships with a 2Gb MicroSD card already).

The device also has Pentaband frequency (in comparison of Quad Band of Asha 300) though that part would be immaterial if the target market is Asia alone.

In comparison to Asha 300, Nokia Asha 303 steps back on Camera front and we are provided only 3.2 Mp camera while Asha 300 had a 5MP shooter. Video recordings remains same VGA @15 fps.

We have a BP – 3L 1300 mAH battery and options to charge it via 2mm charger and USB both.

Other additions into specs sheet include USB OTG 1.3, OTA and Dial up networking etc (you can use your phone as a modem for your desktop).

Nokia Asha 303 – The Software experience

With a capacitive screen, Nokia Asha 303 brings a lot of comfort for users when it comes to gaming etc. I made a short video demonstrating that what kind of titles you can expect to be there on S40 Touch-n-Type at a cost of Rs. 5/- (one tenth of a dollar).

Obviously, I was not playing the games in full spirit (just one hand used while other was busy shooting the video), but still I hope you can guess that the dumbphone is not dumb any more.

You can download free music via Nokia Music for an year and if I know right then this music is DRM free as well means you can play the same over your other devices as well. I downloaded two latest of tracks (Rowdy Rathaur & Ishqzade myself.

Notice the loudness of speakers.

Then there are these third party clients like Whatsapp, which doesn’t let you feel that you are on some low end device. S40 Touch-n-Type devices got a client for Whatsapp that is also capable of sending pictures\videos\audios etc and has emocons as well.

Also there are other interesting apps like Facebook Chat, The Hindu, Zyanga etc. Zyanga in particular is a very interesting app that allows you to watch TV channels live on your Asha 303 phone. If you wanna see Zyanga in action, then here goes the video…

As you can see, the video quality seems terrible though Audio quality is top notch and I wont blame the app first as it might be my Wi-fi issue as well.

On the negative side of experience,

I felt Wi-fi management on a weaker side as many of the apps going for GSM connection by default. Also like other Nokia devices, you can not buy or update the apps if the SIM is not inside even if device is Wi-fi capable (though that is by design). Also the Nokia Maps been unable to lock my position all the time even in presence of Wi-Fi and GSM connection both.

But on the other side I think, if I am asking too much of perfection from a feature phone?

Nokia Asha 303 – The conclusion

For a smartphone user, it would not be an easy job to perceive that what value the Asha Series is bringing to this particular feature phone segment and in my view, the same people who are judging Galaxy Series or iPhones should not judge Asha series on same parameters.

With Nokia Asha 303 for a price of Rs. 7000/-, one gets a capacitive screen, wifi, USB OTG, Dial Up Networking, Pentaband capability, a premium build and many other things. Furthermore, the next update will possibly bring Exchange support to this device and will put it into one other league as well.

So decision is yours, if you are looking for it.

The review coming a bit late as after launch of Nokia Asha 302, I was a little confused if people wanna know about its older cousin Nokia Asha 300 or not, but after receiving a few queries on it, I thought to post it finally. 

There was a time, when for India, a low end mobile phone was meant to be Nokia only and then with the arrival of cheap dual SIM phones things kept on changing. Nokia was needed to spice up the things on the loyalty of their buyers, built in years based on legendary signal/ battery performance of their buyers and that’s where Asha Series phones stepped in.

With Nokia Asha Series, the first big decision was the inclusion of 1GHz processor for the handsets which were supposed to be sold at 100$ -150$ and the second was revamp of their S40 operating system to support the bigger processor and also to include the support for Touch-n-Type segment. With customizable home screen and a much richer application store, Nokia wants to keep their loyal low end user base content with them, let’s see how it goes.

Nokia Asha 300: The content inside the box

I knew that Nokia Asha 300 has USB OTG feature, but obviously considering the price tag, I wasn’t expecting that Nokia will manage to include one USB OTG cable inside, but for my surprise, they didn’t even include a MicroUSB cable too this time. Yes! we are in for a very very minimal content inside the box without the traditional MicroUSB cable even.

This is all what you will find inside the box:

1. One Nokia Asha 300 (RM-781)
2. One Nokia WH-102 Stereo Headset
3. One Nokia AC-11N Smart and lightweight 2mm Battery Charger
4. One 2Gb Memory card

This was really strange to see that Nokia chosen to remove the MicroUSB cable though included one of the best in class charger (Zero Power loss while charging) and an equally good stereo headset though on the other hand. May be people switching for some ultra low end phone wont mind it, but considering the fact that it has HSDPA up to 10.2mbps and has the option of dial up networking, an out of box MicroUSB cable should a reasonable liability.

Nokia Asha 300: The exteriors

The unit that I got was a red one and holding the same in hands was kind of exactly same feeling of as it been with holding Nokia 500. Looks slightly bulky with dimensions of 112.8 x 49.5 x 12.7 mm but feels very light in weight with just 85g and even though plastic but kind of pleasant build quality. Though do not expect it to break the floor if you dropped it by mistake.

You can spot the strange position of microphone on the “7” key and also metallic coloured yet plastic Call, Call END key and Message key.

The unit I received was painted in red and looked quite girlish, but honestly speaking, I felt that the design could have been more polished than this.

We have four rows of well spaced traditional backlit T9 keys along with green Call & red Call End key (Backlit in colour). Moreover, a dedicated Message key finds its place in middle of Call and Call End keys.

You have a well illuminated 2.4” resistive touch screen to go along with the traditional T9 qwerty, which offers an interesting face of S40 to you, but at the same time, neither the colour resolution nor colour depth nor the angular visibility nor the outdoor visibility is something to get excited about. But hey!! we are talking about an ultra cheap range of device here not some premium one, right?

The surprising part of the small screen would be its haptics which ensure great tactile feedback and adds into experience.

The back of the device is smooth without any cuts/ highs on it and there is trick to open it from sideways lock rather than usual slide to upside. The back also contains a 5MP camera (fixed focus and without flash) and speaker.

The camera results may surprise you, as you are already not expecting much from them. No chance on night shots due to lack of flash, but daylight shots came out pretty decent for the price range. Also the speaker even if not the loudest, should stack well against others where only Asha 303 like do better than it.

Now when coming toward the negative side of the device, then bringing a Touch-n-Type device with equally capable 3G speed is quite a feet in itself and I wasn’t expecting much from the device, but somehow lower colour depth of screen was kind of sport spoiler to me. Obviously, I was coming from the high res screen, but still even after lowering my expectations to the grounds, S30 like icons wasn’t a nice welcome to me.

Apart from lack of flash and lower resolution, some might complaint on lack of Wifi too but I would say first check the price and then decide what to ask for.

Nokia Asha 300 – The Interiors

When it comes to list out of specific details on low price range phones, then it always been a shady business as no company flaunts the low specs, but Asha series and recent low price Nokia handsets been an exception. Nokia been continuously flaunting their 1GHz ARM processors in recent cheap handsets and I am sure others not gonna challenge them very soon with some dual core processor in cheap phones segment

It might be a counter attack on other manufacturers for talking on specs, but honestly speaking, it felt like just a number only here being a non-multitasking and in general Java based apps with S40 OS. Though I will admit that I never felt a lag in opening anything pre-installed with Asha 300.

Also we are in for 128 mb RAM and looking back at RAM size of handsets like Nokia N82 in past, its definitely a very decent specs for a low price handset like we see in Asha Series.

Not Pentaband, but its a Quad Band GSM handset anyway and you get 3G with HSDPA Cat9 10.2 Mbps/ HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps with this handset. On memory side, you get 140 mb user storage and a 2Gb card shipped with the phone (the maximum possible size is 32Gb and card is hot swappable).

The disappointing part (at least for me) been the 2.4” LCD Transmissive screen with resolution of 240×320 though I was needed to remind myself every time that we are not talking about some 10k handset here. With 16 bit colors (65k) and resistive single-touch, this is not gonna your prime time hooby dooby Touch Phone with some kinetic scroll or pinch to zoom like fancy things.

The fancy part of the phone been the 5MP Full Focus camera. Fancy because anyone buying the phone, must not be expecting big things from the camera of this one and it definitely gonna surprise you with its f/2.4 camera that also does VGA recording at 30fps.

The handset also got FM Radio with RDS as well that is obviously capable of running in background with other primary tasks as messaging etc.

One of the major omission from the specs sheet is accelerometer that will pain you in Auto Rotation etc, where you need to set things manually.

Check a sample of video (taken by someone else)

Nokia Series 40 OS redefined for Touch n Type:

Its not that I never used S40 before, I had a Nokia 5310 XpressMusic and enjoyed it quite a lot, specially the messaging part where it allows you to choose the recipients from the favourites or from the calls logs as well apart from the conventional Contacts. But the S40 that I see on Nokia Asha 300 had quite a different flavour.

Before I start talking about the OS itself, let’s watch the official video giving you some bits about the device itself.

Now coming to device, I was surprised to see slide to unlock on Nokia Asha 300 and got reminded of a few patents in the same regards by Apple and Motorola I guess.

Once you unlock the device, you find a pretty customizable OS underneath that might not rival those high end handsets, but feels rock solid when it comes to get the job done.

Fonts and icons seem same or somewhat refreshed as they been in earlier S40 devices while in place of D Pad on keys, Touch Buttons have taken place on the screen real estate.

As you can see, the screen is divided in six parts: Status bar on top, Four customizable Widgets (including clock) and Back/Options buttons. You have a kind of Pull Down menu as well for quicker access to the things. One more Interesting part was the mention of Swipe Gesture.

Basically two of the Swipe gestures are available here, left to right or right to left, which can be configured to change the profile or launch any particular app. By default, it right to left swipe opens app collection while left to right swipe opens java/game apps folder (not sure that how to configure it to open any particular folder like photos etc).

Whatever you expect from a decent phone offering, you will find that here and for my surprise, it was good to see native call recording option available via menu.

You get a very decent Email app here that supports POP3/SMTP/IMAP4 etc with SSL though no luck with Exchange ActiveSync here that is on offer with a little higher end Asha Series only. It also got traditional Nokia Chat as well like we seen on S60v3 devices.

The interesting part with Nokia Asha 300 is the Social Network part that is being taken care by Nokia Communities app here. We can add one Facebook, One twitter and Multiple Orkut/Flickr Accounts here. Nothing fancy to expect from here but it has got most of the basic options that one might be needing on the go.

The another interesting part is the presence of App Store for S40 and availability of actually many apps inside it. Last time, when I been through it then it certainly didn’t had these many apps inside as it has nowadays after Nokia Pushing big for S40. Sure a welcome thing for an enabler device like Nokia Asha 300.

Then it comes toward the gaming. With its 1GHz processor, the second thing that Nokia been flaunting about Asha Series was presence of exclusive Angry Birds for Series 40. Let’s see how it works

Sorry for the shaky/shady video, but as you can see, the resistive screen has its own disadvantages even then the experience of Angry Birds on Nokia Asha 300 is nowhere a let down. Same for the other game titles I been through. Sure, Nokia getting the nerves rights with ultra low price handsets this time.

Though on the negative side, I found the connectivity settings a mess. Nothing like that they changed anything badly about it, but when you are giving the device more and more services which are Internet based, you should have given more flexible APN settings etc rather than relying on Operators only. I struggled a lot to set MTNL APN with this particular otherwise Vodafone etc with their default settings worked like a charm.

Conclusion:

When I seen Nokia Asha 300 for the first time, then it was one of the better option around in the same price band but once Nokia Asha 303 etc hit the market with a nominal price difference, then this one likely to loose some charm, but still not a lot of low end phones (<5000/- INR) offer you a touch screen, 5MP camera and a decent 3G capability with loyalty of Nokia behind it.

Choice is yours.

Yeah! It would be one of the rarest occasions when I might be posting about just a hands on, but a hands on over a Smart phone having 41mp camera in it, is rare of rarest in itself. it was hard to keep the excitement within and I know you wanted to listen from me about it…

It started from an invite from Aditya (@adityavnathan) about a Nokia Reviewers workshop in Hotel Oberai, New Delhi for April 10, 2012, with Vesa Jutila, Head of Symbian Smartphones Product Marketing, Smart Devices at Nokia.

While the name of Vesa Jutila was a hint in itself, I was already hinted that it’s about Nokia Pureview 808.

I knew that Tuesday will be a weekday and it wont be easy to bunk the newly joined office in middle, but when it’s about Nokia Pureview 808, it was hard to stop someone who been proud owner of Nokia N82 and Nokia N8-00 and there I was and some other blogger friends….

Apparently its not the first event related to Nokia Pureview 808 in India as Dolby event in Mumbai (mid March) happens to showcase it first, though this should be the first official event related to Nokia Pureview 808 in India from Nokia itself. Delhi took the first spot, Mumbai will be next for Wednesday event.

Apart from our own Vipul Mehrotra, we were greeted by two gentlemen from Finland, Vesa Jutila and Ari Partinen, who started the event by telling us that for Nokia, how instrumental Symbian still is and how innovations like Pureview are a sign that how Nokia still cares for Symbian.

Also a mention of Nokia PureView technologies as a collective should shutup the tech blogs popping each day with rumor that if a Pureview Lumia coming … ofcourse its coming, not just one but many. Its obvious.

Vesa explained that PureView tech means 1) High-performance sensors 2) Image processing algorithms and 3) Precision Carl Zeiss optics. A Symbian device is just the first one and the branding will continue for long from here in many a products, specially Windows Phones (though he refused to comment on a MeeGo Pureview in conversation with me later on).

He emphasized over the size of sensor itself and while we would have seen those pictures of lens component, seeing it in hands was believing in it.

Vesa Jutila also answered one of my question that if there is a possibility of licensing the PureView tech to other players as well and the answer was straight NO. Pureview will remain propriety to Nokia only.

We seen some of the breath taking shots, never seen before imaging details via a mobile camera and some amazing time lapse videos.

It was also demonstrated that how much difference the PureView tech brings about the Audio Quality as well. 

Not only this, but PureView is collection of many other striking features as well via the camera app on Nokia 808. Like inbuilt time-lapse mode that allows you to take up to 1500 photos at intervals of 5-60 seconds, the bracketing mode and ISO variations up to ISO 1600.

You can take a short walkthrough of camera interface via this official demonstration by the man himself.

We all have heard and read enough the camera part, so I would start from talking about the phone itself. How it looks like, how it feels like, how the new Symbian is? How the hardware (top of any Symbian device ever would have received) feels?

Apart from 41mp camera, 4” CBD AMOLED Screen, 1.3 GHz ARM Single Core Processor inside, a Separate GPU to handle image operations and 512 MB RAM, this is definitely the best specs Symbian might have ever got till date.

How does it looks? A premium feel like Nokia N8 or something like Nokia C7?

Well! Looking at pictures, it certainly does not look like Nokia N8 neither does it feel like Nokia C7 or Nokia Oro that I have. From the front the design looked something like that of Nokia 603. The three buttons in bottom in the same way as we would have seen with very old Nokia 5800 or Nokia 5233 likes. But feeing it in own hands is what makes you understand that its a lot different.

Having my hands on Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800, it was not hard to notice that this is not the plastic but the polycarbonate material as we seen in recent Nokia phones. This time it has a ceramic like finish, which suits Nokia 808 with slightly curved Gorilla glass and stainless steal as other building blocks.

I had my own doubts about the camera positioning on the back and yes the position of the speaker on the backside, so it was one of the first point that I checked about the build. The camera module has a stainless steal bezel and open camera like Nokia N8, so the next point to check was if the glass over camera is Gorilla or not. Relaxed that it is Gorilla Glass means not that much prone to scratches.

Positioning of speakers still prone to be muffled if kept on some bed or something.

What’s the fuss about the new Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1? Any differences?

All we heard about Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1 was inclusion of Dolby Digital Plus, 20+ new widgets, a new browser with better HTML5 support (a moderate score of 210+ though), a better notification bars, a better multi-tasking view and most importantly over clocking of processor to the speed 1.3 GHz. (sigh! a no go for Nokia N8 likes), so it was the time to check it out.

While the whole interface feels snappy with 1.3GHz processor, Nokia Belle Feature pack 1 throws a lot of new animations in. One of the noticeable one was zoom out of whole screen on rotating the device by say 15% and then zooming back in. Also nice animations inside camera app after taking the snap. Moreover, in general interface, check out the flattened home screen context menu. Things have started looking glossy on Symbian now.

The camera app itself has totally revamped and in first look, seemed to have taken a lot of cues from Nokia N9 camera app (no non-destructive image editing for Symbian though, though it would have been epic) though as much I dived into it, it felt like some other level. Sad that Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1 not coming to our Nokia N8.

It was a fun evening, where we bloggers had a lot of fun together. Me and @SamDLaw specially spent a lot of time with Vesa Jutila himself. Only sad part was the comment from Vesa Jutila in answer of the question that if its gonna have a price like some 40k INR in India? He said “Nokia 808 is a premium product and they are not looking to sell it in masses but to set a niche”.

There were mentions for some Pureview accessories as well, that will be sold separately like Tripod like this universional Tripod  and a hard cover for Nokia 808 including the lens cap.

Note: As pointed out by @lunaticpsyche, the picture shown above is of a Joby Gorillapod (NOT a Nokia Accessory).

So, this was all about the amazing evening and experience. Do you have any questions about Nokia PureView? Guide them this way, I will try to get them answered.

While Official Nokia Social app been already a pain for Symbian users, more tragic was the absence of official apps from Twitter/Facebook like popular social services. Adding more insult to injury was the web browser part that never got a preferred treatment from these services despite of having Symbian in market leading position for a time. Part of the blame goes to tedious development with conventional C++ that was always a tough job for developers due to rapid changes across interfaces\features of social sites. With Qt though, Symbian got a sigh  of relief and out of many apps getting benefitted from it, one was our fMobi.

fMobi: First released on 05 July, 2011 (not sure of exact date), the Qt-Based Facebook client fMobi kept on growing its fan-base by each passing day due to plenty of features combined at one place with a smooth working UI (Thanks to Qt). You can understand the level of popularity by the fact that It didn’t took even three months, when it got acclaimed as best Facebook Client for Symbian by Nokia itself.

Its not that I didn’t noticed it then, but somehow it was features like shaky split screen input etc (not a fault of app itself but Qt version issues) that kept me away from embracing it fully rather than relying on some other apps, but this fighter app didn’t gave up and kept on luring me time to time with each update. And when I checked out the latest version 2.5, then I was like.. this is the right time, when the app deserves a mention like a Layman’s Take on fMobi.

What makes fMobi special and superior over other clients out there?

The keywords are innovation and consistency which makes fMobi always one step up ahead of the competition. fMobi chooses a different UI and mannerism than the official apps and yet delivers an experience that brings you best of Facebook activities. Being in latest Qt, its smoothness/animations in various actions, native split screen integration and its own way to notification will sure please any Symbian user.

it might not be free like some of the Facebook clients out there, but the way, this is being developed and being enhanced in each iteration, I couldn’t even compare it with any of the existing clients out there (when there is no real official Facebook client there and Nokia Social is kind of no challenge since always). A few things certainly worth the price (Just Rs. 50/-).

fMobi: The features and walkthrough:

Reasons behind high praises of fMobi in such a short period lie in its being a complete one stop solution for your all Facebook related needs. Not only basic news feeds or notifications or messages or friends or groups or events or user profiles etc, but you have more advanced options like photo uploads to specific albums, Facebook Chat, Check-in/Facebook places, Read-It-Later integration for links, sound notifications, pages etc as well. There are a number of settings options inside the app to fiddle with for achieving whatever flexibility you might wish from your Facebook Client.

Its not only one of the rare Facebook Clients for Symbian supporting Dark and Light theme (like Gravity) but would be the only Qt app I seen in recent that supports pinch to zooming in Facebook photos. Being in Qt 4.74 means split keyboard glitches are talk of past now and we have bubble zooming of text as well (as seen in Nokia Store client text boxes)

For a second, opening the fMobi give you the feeling like you would have opened an application folder on your Symbian^3 phone as you see lots of rounded icons (like Symbian icons are since Symbian Anna). Also like Nokia Belle handsets, you find a wallpaper behind the icons as well (not by default actually but you can set it via settings). Also you still can see the notification bar and even pull the same down for checking out any new notification, just like you would do in any application folder.

Also notice the way, notifications are showing up on top right corner of individual icons. Not only that but check out the awesome transparent looking chat notifications in the second pics (such notifications you might have been recently with Nokia Store from Nokia Beta Labs).

In past, what always irritated me about Qt apps was their lack of proper support to native split qwerty, but with the Qt 4.74 over which fMobi 2.5 has taken shape, all the annoyances seems to have left the place forever. Actually you never feel like if its made in Qt or something else as it feels just as natural and speedy like Symbian C++ apps like Gravity etc been.

News Feed in fMobi

Tapping the News Feed icon takes you into Facebook Feeds of your friends, which might be presented to you in multiple ways as per your settings like you may choose to have the left side tab navigation (as shown above in left screenshot) or may choose to have a full view (like the right screenshot). You may make the bottom bar transparent or opaque.

The UI always feels speedy with kinetic scroll and you see the feeds here with picture/video previews and inline likes/comments (just like Facebook shows them).

Also tapping on any particular comment does a nice rotation to bring the actions screen for you (Check the above screenshots, which I managed to take some how).

Tapping on any of the image takes you to the high resolution version of  the same where you can pinch to zoom in images.

fMobi also came to be one of only client available for my N8 that was able to make and check comments on the album itself rather than particular photo.

Notifications in fMobi

Next is notifications, which will notify the presence of themselves with a snap kind of sound and then will sit as a number in red bubble on top right of the notifications icon. Notifications are listed just like News Feed with Belle style menu bar in the bottom. Unread notifications will have a blue or white bar on the left and tapping on individual notification will take you to particular update.

I would have loved it more if the individual notification was popping up like chat notifications were being shown in transparent bar like chat notification but I can also understand that it’s suits chat notifications more than the general notifications.

Chat in fMobi

As you can see from the above screenshots, Facebook chat is the real darling here. We have a list of online users, bubble kind of chat screen, support for split screen, support for smiley with chat screen and if you are not in chat section then transparent notifications on the top (like the last screenshot above). Top of that, the underlying real-time chat mechanism seems to be working flawlessly with native support of Facebook APIs without any workaround.

I was specially impressed with the chat notifications that is sure a first in any of the third party Qt app (Except Nokia Beta Lab’s Nokia Store Client) I would have seen recently. I really think that this should have been the way, Gravity like apps should have been notifying the info.

Photo Upload in fMobi

There is no video upload option in fMobi till the moment, but one should not be having any major complaints with Photo uploads as it supports uploading photos in individual albums rather than uploading them in one particular album.

Tapping on photo upload will take you to a screen with all your albums list in line, then you have to choose one particular album when fMobi open the locally stored photos (not from all folders but from certain default ones), select one of the photo and you will be on the screen like the screenshot shown on the right where you can write the description about the picture being uploaded while the picture will be previewed as enough large thumbnail below the same text. With fMobi, you find a specially crafted upload icon for the upload in place of some text button (turn the same icon down and it will be icon for download just like in photo albums). There will be familiar circular animation while uploading the photo though I would have preferred any of % or circular marker to show the process.

While it serves the purpose, I would have preferred a little tweak in the same process.

What about a setting for keeping one particular album as default rather than choosing the album manually each time when you want to upload a photo? Isn’t this feel too cumbersome when you want to post around 30 photos in some old album that is not being listed on the top of the list (we already don’t have multiple photo uploads here, thanks to Facebook side restrictions)?

Choices of individuals might be different on this, but I feel a tweak like above certainly can speed up the photo upload process otherwise for now, I would stick to Gravity uploads which not only show up the progress but also makes choosing of Facebook album as one time job rather than asking me again and again. Though I know I would loose the original quality of pictures in the same process, which is available if I upload via fMobi.

But will say, its not a kind of negative for fMobi, but just a suggestion from my side.

Check-in in fMobi

I am not sure that how many people actually use Facebook Places check-ins nowadays, but its good to see that fMobi supports it with a nice minimalistic interface.

You can search for nearby places (if available as Facebook places) and check-in with multiple people selected with you. Though I found it strange to see that there is no map snipset along with place like we see in Gravity or other apps (Reason: fMobi is relying over Facebook APIs only and not taking account of Nokia Maps/Google Maps APIs I guess). Not a big deal but would have been nice to see that how fMobi presents maps with its Qt interface.

Message with fMobi

Don’t know why fMobi chooses a different display style for messages than they did with Chat screen. No smiley etc, not exactly that kind of split bar nor the bubbles\colors for the messages. But apart from these visuals, fMobi would be one of those clients who does it right way, when it comes to utilizing Facebook APIs for messages. The delivery is accurate and real time rather than being based on some email based mechanism as some other apps follow.

Your profile with fMobi

With the latest fMobi, you find a cleaner display for the user profile, where all the fields seems to be part of one single page rather than looking like individual entries. You can access the public albums of individuals and would be amazed to see the animated way via which the thumbnails appear.

I didn’t seen the option to poke here, but there is an option to send a private message in the profile.

Friends in fMobi

With fMobi, there  is something unique about the friend list as well.

Check out the top bar with the alphabets, these side scrolling alphabets are not random, but are made up of first letter of your friends names. Means selecting any of the alphabet will bring you a list of all the names starting with that alphabet.

Obviously, we also have conventional methods like scrolling or searching via split screen keyboard but I find it innovative and much easier to just flick through the right alphabet and then scroll much lesser to find the exact match I am looking for.

Strange part is, searching doesn’t work with the typing and waits you to hit ok, moreover, searching doesn’t searches through your friends only but searches through the friends network or may be through entire Facebook. I think Facebook search should have been limited to search part only rather than being available in friends search option.

Groups, Search, Events and Pages been the usual deal and I couldn’t find anything specifically different about them as I would have seen in other clients, though what I found missing here was if one wants to post something as a page then fMobi offers no way to do the same.

Settings in fMobi

There are a plenty of settings to fiddle with to match your own preferences and loads of languages to satisfy the needs of various Facebook users across the world. Have you seen any other client offering this much in settings?

Last November been a really eventful month for me (though apparently less eventful for my blog posts themselves) as after BlackBerry Touch 9860 and Nokia N9, Nokia Lumia 800 also joined in the list of review devices to me. But then Its not been only tough schedules but also the entirely new product experience that made me delay in posting my first impressions (though I always been vocal on my twitter account @nkumar_ in this while) like I did in case of big devices like Samsung Galaxy S or Nokia N9 in past.

It was necessary to get over with the excitements/ pre-judgments first before writing a Layman’s Take about it. So,… here I am. Back again after the longest period taken with any of other review device to me in past.

Since we heard of leaks about Nokia SeaRay, this handset (now known as Nokia Lumia 800) always been overshadowed by the adjective Nokia N9 look-a-like and that really been a lot injustice to this brilliant piece of design. Think if there was no Nokia N9 and Nokia would have came out with this iconic design as their first Windows Phone? Shouldn’t we judge this device in that way only?

Nokia: Symbian –> Windows phone

Since the Burning Platform Memo, there been a lot of debate around Nokia’s shift to Windows Phone. Like any heated discussion, there will always be some pros and cons of any move on such a big scale, but the thing is, we should accept the reality now that Nokia is a business company and they are here for business. When a new CEO got hired and was expected to do a turn-around (with probably not that many easy options around as many of us might have thought in early emotions of #Feb11), then considering the reputation of in-house software in eyes of major operators, we can see a point here in choosing Windows Phone as viable alternative.

Many called Stephen Elop a Trojan Horse since his joining as Nokia CEO in October 2010 and speculations around his shares in Microsoft kept on fueling the doubts until he sold those shares and bought Nokia’s shares. But in all those speculations, people missed one thing to notice. Even if he would have been a Trojan, even if he had plans of a Nokia-Microsoft deal since the beginning, was this really that easy to convince whole Nokia to go Microsoft way from day one? Making a Windows Phone from day one? Think practical. How much time Nokia Lumia 800 got in R&D labs? Not even an year.

Me and you may not understand that how hard it might have been, but ask the manufacturers and experts that how hard it is to actually deliver a product in market in this short span of time? Even if you write off the design as that of Nokia N9 plainly, it’s a totally different OS and related interfaces beneath and testing of components follow a standard process that is sure a time taking one.

You have to admit the remarkable work that is personified as Nokia Lumia 800 today, one totally distinct design standing apart from whole world of suing and counter-suing. When you think of situations around it then Its just not a design or just another phone, but its something even bigger than that.

Windows Phone and me

Believe it or not, its been the first ever Windows phone for me as I never had a brief hands on over Windows phone in past. So, what I am gonna write here, will be raw impressions for a first timer. I would be someone who is coming from a Nokia device background and being a Samsung Galaxy S owner, can weigh its pros & cons in comparison to other available alternative that is Android.

Its not only interesting for you, but its been interesting for me as well and so I decided to give it enough time before writing something about  it (After all, I been given a generous two months review period for the device). And now it would be one of the biggest text based walkthrough of Windows Phone Software till date.

I didn’t expected another 11000+ words post again, but it refused to remain short due to the new platforms and mannerism of new experience, Yes! ITS A MASSIVE 19500+ WORDS EPIC POST THIS TIME. So Bookmark this link or save it to Read it Later, you will be needed enough time to go through “Layman’s Take on Nokia Lumia 800” that some already called as mini booklet review of Lumia 800 (Am I eligible for writing a full book now? )

Do not miss to click on the page numbers mentioned below (around 24 pages)

]]> http://nitishkumar.net/2012/01/20/laymans-take-on-nokia-lumia-800-take-a-look-over-it-without-shadows-of-anything/feed/ 18 Sameer 2011-12-10-126 nokia-windows-phone7_2 2011-12-02-048 http://nitishkumar.net/2012/01/01/happy-new-year-2012/ http://nitishkumar.net/2012/01/01/happy-new-year-2012/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:46:55 +0000 Nitish Kumar https://nitishkumar.wordpress.com/?p=9664 ]]>

Hi Friends!

I would have been very lazy lately about posting on blog (blame office works) but that wasn’t going to be an excuse for not wishing you all a warm happy new year.

Some take this time as a resolution time when they try to set the targets for the new year and some try to take a look back to see what happened in their lives and around last year & what to learn from those things.

For me, its simple. It was a real big year that just moved away from us. So so many exciting moments to count, either it be personal life (got married this year), either it be my office or it be social circles. Seen ups, seen downs, seen tears, seen smiles … Really a lot of things happened which will keep a big impression on my mind in whatever Ido in next years. Learned a lot from each of them and still ready to learn from whatever that comes across me.

It still looks like a dream when I check that how many of you are connected with me via mails, via tweets and via facebook. Its your trust and faith that always inspires me to stand tall and walk forward with confidence. Nothing more better I would have expected from the last year.

What in next year?

I really don’t know. I didn’t knew in start of year 2011 that it will be an year, when I will get my hands on almost all top end Symbian devices, top end MeeGo device, top end Windows Phones, top end Blackberry devices, top end iOS devices and typing this post from TouchPad itself… I had no idea that "Layman’s take" will get so much love from Nokia and my readers. So I can’t really think of what to expect next.

Just want to say a Hi to all and shout loud …Happy New Year

2012.. A year whom some have even mentioned as even end of the world, so are you scared of it or ready to make the most of it like me?

Even if its a time, when hard core Nokia fans are either moving towards Windows Phones or keeping it low most of the times in a tough battle against the growing base of Android, one must admit that post February 2011, Symbian^3 has seen tremendous activity under his name. Many Qt apps joined the pack to enhance the user experience, Nokia websites got redesigned in fancy blue and even if hopes of Symbian Belle (now Nokia Belle) kept on playing hide and seek with us, those who experienced the performance of Nokia N8 like old handsets with leaked Belle can guarantee you that nothing is finished yet.

Meanwhile the above debate is on, there was one app that was always standing apart of everything, apart of Belle, Anna, S60 etc, apart of Android vs iOS vs Symbian. Yes! our Gravity!! And we really waited impatiently for the next version of the same, not because of some bugs or some expectations, but just to wonder that what new innovation the all in one app Gravity brings for us this time. So, let’s take a ride of what we see new in this new build of Gravity (v2.50, Build 7025):

(First I will cover Symbian^3 changes only will update S60 features later on)

1. Belle compatible bottom bar:

Though most of Nokia Community still don’t have access to Symbian Belle but once Symbian Belle arrived in market in form of some new handsets, it was unavoidable to ignore the UI navigation theme as on Symbian Belle that has shifted from those Options\Cancel button and taken form of icons now. The new build of Gravity tries to do the same though with addition of option to “reverse the toolbar” for those who feel its more natural to have options menu on the left like it been in Symbian always.

Minor UI changes but those who are already on Symbian Belle will appreciate it and those who are not, will get a preview of upcoming via this app.

2. Pull to Refresh and minor but noticeable change in design:

After tap to top, Gravity finally gets the most awaited feature that is pull to refresh. Pull to refresh is not limited to Twitter only but works in Facebook, FourSquare, Google Reader, YouTube etc as well.

The other minor change is replacement of text by icons (as been theme of Belle UI). You can see icon of a pen in place of New Button and Belle like options icon though I still wonder that why @janole didn’t replaced the Back button by an arrow icon?

3. YouTube Account added: 

One of the feature addition with this new build is the option of YouTube account. While we already had the capability to play YouTube videos since last few builds, it was a one step forward to add accessibility of YouTube account in the form of familiar Gravity theme. It includes favorites, Watch it later, My Uploads, friends videos and you can always search with a split screen keyboard. Though I couldn’t find an option to upload some videos, but this is still great for a start.

I was personally expecting MISO and Tumblr to be part of Gravity by version 2.50, but as @janole said its a preview build only so may be later.

4. Google Reader section can now display the images as well:

While today you might think it as one of those many features that Gravity added by this new build, but as @janole said, this was the main feature idea with which @janole started working on the new build. Again like other sections, we find the UI options going via small icons in place of Text (except the odd Back button like old days). Did you noticed the recording like icon for Read or Unread?

Must say, with inline picture display, now you can think of adding your Google Reader Account in Gravity permanently than using any other apps (be aware of heavy data usages though).

Though I find it odd that Google reader section can share the posts via Twitter only not via Facebook or any other service. Also while in outer menu, option to copy the link on clipboard is present, we miss the same in full post mode. May be next build bridges these gaps.

5. Entirely redesigned and more productive Twitter Trends screen

I don’t how many of you use Twitter Trends actively but for experienced users, its been an essential part of Twitter experience by which they can keep a tab on most important things happening around. In older version of Gravity, not much was configurable here, but with the new Gravity, you can check trends worldwide or by country specifically as well.

I must tell you, you gonna love it.

6. Satellite mode, zoom-in, zoom-out buttons added for maps:

Since @janole has changed the UI for displaying the image preview and maps, it has enabled Gravity to do some more tricks. This one is the latest.

Zoom-In and Zoom-Out buttons are now added to UI in bottom bar and you no longer needed to remember the volume key shortcut for the same. Also the globe like icon next to option icon let you toggle between maps mode and satellite mode.

7. Image saving option:

While Gravity already had probably the best support for displaying images from multiple services, addition of saving pictures option makes it a killer now. Gravity was already displaying the non-service images by just URL ending with .jpg, .png etc and with this, things gonna really really challenging for other clients across all platforms. Though the same feature is limited with Twitter Image previews only, but I see no reason that why @janole wont extend the same functionality for Facebook images as well in near future. Finally we can see the larger version of images via Native Gallery and can store it and zoom in.

Gravity was already storing the images earlier as well but those were kind of cache version hidden inside private folders of Symbian. Images will be saved in Images folder of E: drive now.

8. Many other minor changes

There might be many minor changes hidden inside that I am yet to discover though one of them was display of last user names with an “@” on the accounts screen (like the name of @aktiwary showing in the above screenshot).

What is still annoying with Gravity on Belle?

You can blame awesomeness of Gravity full screen mode that @janole always skipped to provide much support for non-full screen mode which remains one of those weak points about Gravity. Like in above screenshots, you can see that on Symbian Belle with full touch phones, one can not write a new tweet as there is no button for that neither than option for new tweet in menu. Also the Gravity Keyboard doesn’t work in non-full screen mode.

Download link for New Gravity version 2.50 Build 7025

Link

So, anything else you find in the new Gravity, do tell me?

Update: The review unit is from @nokia_connects. There was some confusion as came via Nokia India

While many of the readers are yet to finish the giant Nokia N9 review that I posted few hours back, here comes the another big news. Nokia Lumia 800 has just been delivered at Layman’s Take.

While you might be wondering about the first Bluedart bag in place of usual DHL package then let me give you another surprise. This is the first review unit to me from Nokia India itself (in co-ordination with Nokia Connects obviously) and to add into the excitement of the latest device, let me tell you that it will remain with me for next two months.

Not to forget, as per my wish, Nokia decided to treat me with the Black Model. So… now its time to shot a big YAHOOOOOO … oops! big BINGGGG as @modibimal says

Its been enough long since I didn’t came back  about the much awaited Nokia N9 post, the Layman’s Take on Nokia N9, but I wanted to assure you that I wasn’t lost and was exploring the beauty from the most critical angles, so that you can get a view beyond the praises, beyond the technicalities… beyond the background stories … beyond Meego’s Future etc.. just a practical and real life plain view about the device and here I am .. back again..

What will you do if …

• You know that you are among least wanted out there …
• You know that nothing matters now, no matter how hard you try …
• You know that this is actually the last life you are going to live out there …
• If you have to face the world out there alone as even your own people will back off from you …

Yes! this been exactly the thing with Nokia N9, when it was waiting for its turn to come out in lights.

Odds from whole universe been tiding their hands against this lonely warrior. Big tech blogs were habitual of discarding anything from praises, if a name Nokia attached with it. Think of the adrenal in your veins when you know that people are ready to discard you even before giving you a tiny chance, leave the talk of a fair chance, think of the thoughts going on inside, when you know that even your company don’t want to launch you all over the world and just want to pass it on?

Do you know, what Nokia N9 did?

It did something that only heros do, like Beethoven did, with composing legendary music even when he went medically deaf. Nokia N9 stood tall in front of all the odds and turned around the things single handedly.

Its been long since when we heard literally hundred percent reviews about a Nokia filled with adjectives only and when it happens then if it tempting you to know about it “more and more” then you are perfectly sane. After all, when people like Gizmodo, who even refused to review Nokia N8 (still the best Nokia phone for me till date), feel tempted about it, then why should you hide your lust for it?

I had every reason to  literally beg for this gadget pornography and thank to kind people at Nokia, I wasn’t denied like always.

But who was I?

The one who started his mobile blogging with almighty Nokia N900 and still dreams about that “old” resistive device only, I was obviously not surprised by the praises coming in the way of Nokia N9, knowing that it was successor to Nokia N900 itself with removal of most of its shortcomings (not all).

I was obviously not starting afresh here. I had my own expectations, coming from Nokia N900 and Nokia N8 combined, let’s see what I felt about the device, but I should warn you that once you click the Read More link, you are into a post that is as big as around 11000+ words, more than double larger that any other review I posted till date..

Nokia N9 – The Box

After seeing the boxes of Nokia Oro and Nokia X7 likes, I was already aware of trend and Nokia N9 wasn’t any different either, only slightly bigger box than device’s front face itself.

I think we all always liked this kind of approach.

Compared to Nokia N8 box, I was presented with a much compact box for the screen size wise bigger device (just similar to Nokia X7).

But still it was good to see the favorite blue of NSeries back with the same footprints.

Oh! the unboxing video.??? Here we go…

What would have been the appropriate moment to use stop motion at Layman’s Take for the first time.

As about the content, then knowing the fact that Nokia N9 doesn’t come up with USB OTG or HDMI etc, I wasn’t expecting a big fat list of contents inside and it came out to be similar with some noticeable changes.

It was good to see the inclusion of Rubber cover for Nokia N9 polycarbonate body, which actually fits the Nokia N9 quite well and matches the Cyan unit exactly (I wonder how beautiful Dark Grey Black unit gonna look like).

• Nokia N9 all-screen smartphone
• Nokia Fast USB Charger AC-16
• Nokia Charging and Data Cable CA-185CD
• Nokia Stereo Headset WH-901
• Get started guide
• Product information
• leaflet Cover

First the awareness of the fact that Nokia N9 uses a micro-SIM, it was the charger Nokia AC-16 that got me smiling. This device definitely going after something (Read iPhone here ). One of the very eco-friendly, compact and beautiful designs, the charger will surprise you by its performance as well (No wonder, it’s part of Nokia Fast charger lineup).

Like the charger itself, even the USB cable was something different than the one I got with Nokia N8 and others. I mean same specs etc but just a little change in shape.

Considering the minimalistic nature of the device, Nokia decided to provide a sleek stereo headphone with it. Nokia WH-901 might not showing off those loads of controls built in, but the clarity of voice is unmatched even on highest of volume. Though I have some issues with the shape itself, which was hard to my ears and this time, it didn’t packed any ear buds either.

*Note: I took the last two shots with Nokia N9 camera itself. Works wonder for Macro Shots, even better than Nokia N8

As I said earlier, the leaflet Cover was an interesting piece of design. Makes no compromise with the beauty of the masterpiece itself and yet protect it at the best. Though its polycarbonate body (kind of hard plastic, but no nonsense gimmick alone and doesn’t feel like plastic even for a second) should serve one as a timeless material, but in practical, the metal on back camera wont have that kind of luck. So it would be a wise choice for many to keep it on.

Its been a time with loads of exciting stuffs to me, first Nokia N9 and then BlackBerry Torch 9860, Two totally new platforms with a contrast nature. Like I usually been doing with my review units, I was required to immerse myself into one of them totally as my main phone to know about things more than skin deep, but it definitely was tougher this time. But still, Blackberry grabbed my attention in many ways and definitely left a very good impression for a first time Blackberry user. A lot to say, but will try to keep it compact.

BlackBerry and me:

It should come up as a strange fact that despite of being called as a workaholic, I been far away from the BlackBerry World till now.

Reason …

My first short encounters were with models like BlackBerry 8800 two years back, when we purchased around a dozen for our office. The same model never strike me about its looks or QWERTY (didn’t liked that in comparison of likes of Nokia E71/E72 etc). So, it was a sort of first impression that left me with a bad taste just by looks\ design even when I didn’t tried the services part.

Secondly, as far as services part is concerned, then in those days, I wasn’t much into social services/facebook etc (just created those accounts after that time period) and push mails were not that big concern to me so obviously paying a premium amount for BIS/BES services was out of question, when I never felt any particular need of timely delivery.

But things changed over time. I started “regular” blogging by Feb 2009 and later on joined Twitter/Facebook etc by end of 2009 I guess. Mails/ Twitter/ Facebook feeds kept on finding their ways deep into my life and now I generally take part into dozens of twitter communications with roughly 100 tweets/mentions per day and similar about the mails. Now was the time, when timely delivery was important, now was the time, when I was ready to pay premium was accurate services and that’s now it was about time, when I dig into and explore the BlackBerry world, which been a legacy about service delivery till now.

Thanks to twitter and @kaushaldivya5 that I got a chance to take a look over the latest of BlackBerry’s adventure with Full Touch.

Let’s see what I felt about my first BlackBerry …

Blackberry Torch 9860: The content inside the box

Knowing the reputation of BlackBerry about their focus toward core, I wasn’t expecting any marketing gimmick like some fancy colors, lots of cables or any other thing like that and things came out to be the same about the content of box. Not much to expect of, its the usual business.

This is all you find inside the box:

1. One BlackBerry Torch 9860 Unit.
2. One Standard battery JM-1, Li-Ion 1230 mAh
3. One USB Cable (Small one). Same kind of standard jack as we see on Nokia ones.
4. A set of Headphone.
5. A fancy looking charger with separable component (Not sure on fast charger part)

I am sure I always seen a leather pouch coming from the BlackBerry Boxes that got delivered in my office, but this should be a first for BlackBerry, where we do not see any leather pouch inside the box. Also I would miss the presence of a Bluetooth handset in box here considering the premium price of the phone for Indian Market, but that’s the way, BlackBerry is.

Blackberry Torch 9860: The Exteriors

Look wise, BlackBerry Torch 9860 definitely looks bigger than usual 3.7” handsets in the market and though it has managed to keep the dimensions on slimmer side like 120 x 62 x 11.5 mm (As far as I know, it’s the thinnest BlackBerry Full Touch till date). I would say that its a propriety BlackBerry looks which is somewhat similar with their earlier touch models like Storm 2. Weight wise, its exactly same as Nokia N8/Nokia N9, that is 135g. Not a lighter one like Samsung Galaxy S, but I guess one will like how solid it feels in hands.

I definitely would have gone irritated about the fact that it posses a toughen plastic screen rather than some Gorilla glasses, if it was a Nokia or Samsung, but somehow I seen that BlackBerry handsets fare better over time even with that kind of screen.

But at the end, that’s what we got here, a toughen plastic front, which really don’t feel cheap and goes from edge to edge, leaving places for four HW buttons, optical track pad and speaker slot

The edges are curvy, so no standing position possible for BlackBerry Torch 9860 like its been for Nokia N8/N9 likes.

The bottom edge also makes room for speakers and microphone.

The top edge has the room for Display lock switch which seems to be a touch by looks but considering the haptics, we know that its a HW key again. Would love to know that how this design fare over longer periods but seems a solid fit to me.

Coming from Nokia, Samsung and Apple, the side keys on BlackBerry Torch 9860 and on some other BlackBerry models, looks very different. In fact, from a distance, you wont feel that it has keys there. I had some issues with my fingers finding the camera keys natural in start, but it grows upon you over the time and may be a good thing about the design rather than being a con. One side carries raised Volume keys, Camera key and 3.5mm jack.

While the other side comes with standard USB port (same as on Nokia/ Samsung ones, so one can use the same cable).

The top right corner has a notification light, which I would say that should be natural place for notification light on all platforms means at top portion of device rather than hiding it at bottom place. The notification light here has an interesting nature as well. It blinks as red light, once any notification is left unread and blinks as green if you allowed it to show network signal reception that way and blinks as orange if the device on low charge (not sure, if it has more colors as well). Also there is proximity center somewhere inside at the same place.

The five buttons at the bottom that are slightly raised above the screen (why?), are Call Key, Option Key (with BlackBerry logo style), Optical track pad, Back Key and Call End\Power key. Keeping the looks strictly professional, Blackberry Tocrch 9860 keeps it away from colored keys and all are painted as backlit white. Adds a kind of quiet elegance. Also I will say thumbs up for the raised keys part as having used those HTC ones, I know that how confusing it might be to have tiny buttons placed at surface level.

The back of the device is an interesting mix of metal and rubber. I avoided removing the sticker covering the whole back, but you can get an idea from pics above from CrackBerry.com. Borders are steel, then rubber part contains LED Flash and 5 MP camera (capable of AF Video at 720p). The angular shape might not be making some poetry for your eyes, but does a superb job about the grip either you handle it in portrait mode or in landscape mode.

Blackberry Torch 9860: The Interiors

For the people looking for details, BlackBerry Torch 9860 comprises of following ten specs mentions:

1. 3.7" WVGA (800×480) display (~252 ppi pixel density)
2. TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
3. 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Scorpion MSM8655 SoC
4. Adreno 205 GPU (Liquid Graphics GPU)
5. 2.5 GB User Storage 
6. 768 MB RAM
7. MicroSD Card support, upto 32 GB
8. Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
9. HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, Bluetooth 2.1 (can send files) and Wifi
10. 5 MP Auto Focus Camera capable for 720p video recording with very effective continuous Auto Focus

One of the things about BlackBerry Torch 9860 that been pleasantly surprising to me is its Display.  I almost had assumed that a great display should be consist of some SMOLED and Gorilla Glass combination essentially and then here came a BlackBerry with toughened Plastic TFT display to surprise me again.

I was really not aware of the fact that it’s a kind of plastic otherwise I would have been more careful with it, but still in last 4-5 days, while I kept it in my jeans pockets uncovered/ unprotected, no sign of scratches anywhere.

Second thing is about its sunlight visibility and crispiness. I am keeping the fonts on twitter app at around 5 only, but its with such small fonts, the characters are visible in damn good manner. Same about sunlight visibility , which is exactly like some hard core business device should posses.

I was never needed to change some brightness settings or theme when I was moving out under Sun, that is exactly what I felt about Nokia N9’s CBD display. Damn Good.

The third great thing about BlackBerry been its Sound Quality. It doesn’t attaches itself with any name like Dolby or Beats, but just take a call or put the phone on loudspeakers and see yourself. I don’t claim tests or numbers, but I can definitely claim that call quality\loudspeaker volume is much better over Nokia N8\SGS\Nokia N9\Nokia Oro, I own. This is one of the core thing to interest many of the users and impresses you for sure. Placing of the speaker also plays a good role in it.

But I would like to add that I am talking about call quality\ speakerphone loudness here, when coming to Music volume\quality, Nokia N8 likes take the cake again.

The angular design of the back makes it not only fitting naturally in hands, but also protects camera from touching the plain surface and at the same time, places no hindrance for the bottom speakers.

On the con side, with common features, we miss the front camera here, we miss the magnetometer, we miss the ambient light sensor (hence no auto-brightness adjustment) and we badly miss the FM radio (leave the FM Transmitter).  As about advanced features, we miss TV-Out, we miss HDMI, we miss anything kind of USB OTG and we miss any kind of Wifi Hotspot inbuilt (though upcoming Q4 update might bring this feature). Also like Android, BlackBerry OS 7 also doesn’t respond to Nokia Joikuspot Wifi connection.

Blackberry Torch 9860: The walkthrough of BlackBerry OS 7

For  existing BlackBerry owners, BlackBerry OS 7 would be an OS bringing the following main changes:

1. Liquid Graphics Display Not sure about the technical details behind the term like I don’t get the deal about Retina Display, but I definitely like the Glossy feel of the entire OS and quick response of the touch screen coupled with decent animations.

2. An updated browser A new browser that though doesn’t supports Flash, but gives a HTML5 score of 260 that definitely should be called as a decent score.

3. A new social experience via Augmented reality An app named Wikitude that sure seems to be one of its kind and brings all kind of local information at your fingerprint. This app is definitely not one of those legacy community apps depending on user’s participation, but utilizes info from various sources like Foursquare and our own BBM community. 

4. Voice activated universal search Another fancy term it might be, but this does what it says by the name.

But I am sure that over Layman’s Take, you are not looking for these official features, but a rather long walkthrough, so let’s begin …

1. Startup and Shutdown of a BlackBerry

With lots of smartphones around, now we have moved past to slow startups but BlackBerry OS takes the things a little differently. First it tries to avoid the complete shutdown in most of the cases (unless you pull off the battery), like by shutting down the antenna completely in case of extreme low battery and then it general operations, it relies more over the server side push notifications rather than keeping the screen on all the time. With the faster SOC, the cold boot up time has definitely reduced but its still larger than  Nokia N8/SGS etc. though for the defense, we get a nice animation showing the progress of boot up rather than keeping some clueless video or animations on.

Even shutdown asks you options like shown above. Obviously, the OS by nature doesn’t want a complete shutdown (that’s why known as Always On devices). Does this nature a sign of some weakness? I don’t think so that as I seen\heard about almost no crashes in BlackBerry OS, no matter how abruptly someone keeps on pulling out the battery,

2. Connection with PC

Once you connect it with PC, then you get greeted with options like connection mode and then options to set the alarm in Apple kind of wheel clock way. After the two prompts, it leaves you one professional looking big clock. I think this behavior could be controlled from somewhere in options, but haven’t tried it myself. Btw.. we can definitely use our BlackBerry Phone as a modem.

3. BlackBerry Internet\Enterprise Services subscription is a must

BlackBerry is unique about its focus toward work and accurate service delivery which asks for a premium, activation of BIS/BES services. BIS/BES provides your phone a unique BBM pin and rest of BlackBerry related services start from there. BIS takes care of your social feeds like Facebook, Twitter and takes care of enterprise/personal mails as well. In fact, in most part, people can agree that BlackBerry been a scale that measures the accuracy of push messaging. You do not check for your facebook\twitter\mail alerts but they follow you instead.

Unfortunately, Twitter/Facebook like apps do not function at all on BlackBerry with mobile data unless you subscribe to BIS/BIS. Only WiFi is available as an option but I don’t think that provides push.

The charges I paid was Rs. 100/- for a week EDGE based plan that makes it roughly Rs. 400/- expense per month for actually experiencing a BlackBerry in BlackBerry way. The charges may be different for your region but the point is, if you coming BlackBerry way, then it is a premium that you have to pay for other than the premium price of handset itself.

Is it worth it?

My short experience says it is, if your needs are like mine or like some core workaholic. One remains assured that he wont miss a mail and whenever a mail will come, his phone will buzz him about its presence. Same about social feeds, twitter mentions etc. Then comes the unique services like BBM that takes the experience even higher than others. Will come over it.

4. The home screen

The above pictures might give you a little idea about the home screen part of BlackBerry OS on Torch 9860, which basically consist of six parts.

I really like the glossy way of handling the things. All the operations go snappy and require a very little learning curve. High resolution display and GPU always keep the experience on premium side. It’s never like tap and misses.

1. Services  panel

Brings a  drop down when tapped, where you can find all the options related to Network Services, Alarms and other device specific settings.

2. Sound profile

Tap on the sound icon and it brings the popup in center like the above screen. We can also make changes in these pre-set profiles or can add your custom profiles here. It is possible to set MP3’s as ring tone (Not sure about videos though) and you also set different tones for different people for either phone call alerts or even message alerts.

3. Universal Search

Always present universal search bar serves a great purpose of having things on your fingerprint, whenever you need them even (in later part, you will find that even app panels are designed that way to keep you tapping less and less). Also the Universal search is coupled with voice search option which actually I haven’t gotten used to with. May God help Siri

4. Notification bar

We have seen a lot of ways of notifications on Android, Symbian and iOS, but BlackBerry keeps it plain and simple and also focused to core. A notification panel that brings you all the alerts with their respective icons. Not only that but the notification goes deep into the app notifying the event itself.

Means if there is a twitter notification, then you will see a blue birdie on notification panel telling you that there is a mention that is waiting for you and same time, if you check the twitter app icon, then it will be showing a cross sign on top right to let you know that it needs your attention there. Same about calls, messages, mails, foursquare alerts or anything. Also the notification LED on top right will keep on blinking red unless it gets your attention.

There is a con side of notifications as well. You can not clear them, not in bulk, not in individual. It gets annoying when you receive some annoying messages like those Web push alert messages from operator and find no way to clear it without opening it. May be there is some workaround for this, but I couldn’t find one (obviously a naïve BlackBerry user I am).

5. Wallpaper

Don’t know why I am mentioning it here, but It is one of those places, where you feel that how reluctant BlackBerry was about entering the full touch segment. Whole of the UI is accessible by HW buttons even if it can be operated by Touch operations alone and places where only touch could have worked, have been intentionally left off like here. No long tap on wallpaper area works for bringing any popup options. No swipe actions on wallpaper area itself. Kind of non-interactive place.

No live wallpapers as well, neither do any option for widgets. As I said earlier, focused about work and work only.

6. App panel

App panel on the bottom of the screen has many tricks of its own. You can pull it up in stages like shown above.

Also you can swipe it by sides to scroll through five panels: All, Frequent, Downloads, Media and Favorites. The names themselves give you an idea that what they do.

App panel do have folder support, you can create folders, move various icons in them, rename them.

But like I said in wallpaper part, it feels quite visible that BlackBerry intentionally kept the UI mostly HW key driven. There is an option to move icons but you can move it via track pad only not via fingers themselves.

An interesting option is Hide Icon, which hides the particular icons from viewing unless you select show all icons via Menu or select Unhide icon option on the same icon.

5. The Call Screen

No fancy looks, but no nonsense UI either, BlackBerry call screen seems very well maintaining the same elegance that you find in rest of the UI. I would have been annoyed by the white background thinking of battery consumption, but as I have seen with it, battery life never been an issue for BlackBerry.

There are some fancy options as well like voice dialing. Not any kind of uniqueness over other platforms, but is to the point and works.

On the con side, no smart dialing here. I never understood what issue companies have in implementing smart contact search by number/ name like the way Samsung Galaxy S do. On technical side, its definitely not one of those highly challenging task to implement the same but don’t know what stopping them.

Obviously, no video call option here considering no front camera neither I found any kind of service integration here for Skype/ Gtalk.

6. The Browser 

There was a time, when BlackBerry Browsers were known to be worse about the Java Script performance and with BB OS7 here comes the time when it is told to be walking ahead of its competition from Android and IOS camps.

From the layman point of view, I found the browser snappy and performing well, even if Flash support is not there or the kinetic scrolling is not that smooth in comparison to Opera on Symbian or Android browsers. Even the design does so well for watching multiple websites at once (At least much better over the stock browsers on Nokia or even Android). Pinch to zoom is smooth, though on the con side, Text reflow doesn’t seem to be behaving that  way. One tap does the text reflow, but zooming further leaves you without text reflow.

But still the best part of BlackBerry browser is its usability with kind of display land resolution it has. No matter how small font I use, I never felt any issue about readability either in-house or outdoors.

7. Calendar

Calendar application on BlackBerry been always an example for work centric phones and the calendar on BB OS 7 doesn’t disappoint either. All the accounts like Google, Facebook etc get integrated into calendar naturally. No separate app required.

8. Photo Gallery and videos

Nothing major about the Gallery and videos here, but it contains all the basics as found on any major touch platform. But yeah better part about it sharing with other services like Android.

Usual pinch to zoom, swipe to navigate and tap and hold for options popup.

9. Camera

The simplistic camera app on BlackBerry is nothing like something that should be taken lightly. This would be one of those camera apps that provides two separate UIs for landscape and portrait modes.

I been particularly impressed with video recording performance of Torch 9860. Autofocus works perfect and I found it focusing every very well over objects as close as 10 cm too. LED video light feels insufficient though.

Some random camera still shot samples.

A random Autofocus sample

10. BlackBerry Messenger

BBM,, the lifeline of BlackBerry as people call it often and it definitely has some tricks of its own. The first part is deeply integrated social experience, second part is a big community rooting up for it, third part is accurate delivery and SMS kind of experience. Nokia users will say that its something like whatsapp, but its definitely more than that.

First the integration itself gives it a huge edge over whatsapp, when you find your neighbor BBM buddies via other apps like Foursquare or Wikitude and even if that’s not enough, BBM goes one step further from any other IM service of this kind by adding acknowledgement of delivery.

Firstly, it sends the message via BlackBerry’s propriety secure servers, then the “D” icon on the left top of the message tells you that it got delivered on the other end. If you thought that only security is a plus here, then it shows a “R” sign on the left top of the message in place of “D” sign earlier, acknowledging the fact that the message got read by the other party (so, one better not refuse that he\she didn’t read the message and missed it.). It definitely takes BBM one step beyond the conventional SMS\Email\IM system.

11. BlackBerry Mails\ IM Accounts

As I haven’t used myself so I wont be able to comment on the BlackBerry Enterprise Services, but one finds the email experience on any BlackBerry a satisfactory experience always. If your company has the BlackBerry server hosting then you enjoy easy communication between your employees and also a very effective contact/calendar sync and collaborations. Even if it doesn’t then you can always configure personal emails  in the same way and it gets integrated into the core of OS (Calendar\Alerts\Contacts\IM etc) in similar way.

Yes! IM experience on BlackBerry is definitely beter than Nokia ones I  have experienced till date. May be the credit goes to operator support or may be the UX is like that, but I couldn’t find frequent disconnection of IM services issues here.

12. BlackBerry App World

I would probably require a little more time to explore about the App World on BlackBerry but as little my exposure been with BlackBerry till now, its been sufficient about resources. Definitely better over early Nokia experience as various app updates notify you once the update arrives.

13. Multi-Tasking

After Symbian\Meego\Maemo etc, only BlackBerry would be a non-Nokia mobile platform that provides the user a complete multi-tasking experience. Switching between running app is just the same as Symbian and fits perfectly into the need of a business person. Its not impossible to make it lag at time (even though very rare), I found over all experience smooth and glossy.

13. Battery Life

Battery life been always the core concern about designing any BlackBerry OS and BB OS7 seems to doing much better than just fair in the same reference. Can’t exactly say about the numbers, but it always seemed to be living much better over my SGS or N8.

But the reasons lie in usages pattern as well. Due to very reliable notification system, BlackBerry allows one to be careless about checking\following things means one will find himself interacting the touch screen lesser than other platforms, which always been the main draining factor about any platform. I yet to check out its battery performance with long  Gaming or Video viewing but with my kind of usages, I had no complaint with Battery which lived up all day long for me.

14. Common apps and surprise goodies

I might look harsh, when I say that Quality on apps on this touch phone is kind of mediocre or not optimized for Touch Screen at all, but it is somewhat close to the truth. BlackBerry apps definitely are backed with an UX at par with the best of platforms, but the UI never seems to be centered around touch experience. Ultra tiny buttons, Java based apps ruins the experience of the glossy feeling of the core OS. Though will write it again that this is about the looks only, function wise, UX of app rivals the best in market apps.

There are some positives as well. Facebook apps includes the chat option in same way as some IM, we can send status updates on all the services at once via Social Feeds and the Hindi Touch Keyboard, that is probably the best one I ever seen on any platform. There are definitely lots of positives as well.

So, this was all what I explored about BlackBerry Torch 9860 till now. Definitely a lot more to explore about it and the short encounter has definitely tempted me enough for buying one myself. The premium price and half hearted apps is something that will hold me from buying a full touch though. Sometimes I really think that if BlackBerry experience is best described by HW QWERTY only? What you say?

While the excitement of receiving a Nokia N9 one day back isn’t over yet, the first day of November opened the another door for Layman’s Take. This time, I got BlackBerry Torch 9860 (All-Touch) review unit for seven days. (The first from an Indian PR and really the quickest response I would ever had from anyone other than Nokia)

That’s bound to be an exciting week for me and readers sure gonna get an entirely fresh take about a Blackberry because, if you bar a few mins interactions with old BlackBerry models, then I been totally unaware of the new world that been sweetheart of most of the business persons out there.

So, what you wanna hear about this new world? Or what you wanna suggest me about it? Send me all those questions, comments, tips on nitish@nitishkumar.net or @nkumar_ I am waiting ….

Finally it is the time to end the suspense and to reveal what I been holding since last few days. Yes! The One is here. The one you waited to hear about from me, the one, over which I was dying to get my hands on. And finally thanks to Tom and Paul, it is here. King of kings, Nokia N9.

Its been 323 days back from here, when I requested the Santa to bring a Nokia N900 for me and while I thought he missed my plea back then in flood of pleas from others, I can hear that he didn’t missed me, but thought to greet me with something even bigger than that. Something that might have removed all the shortcomings of Nokia N900 I once cribbed about and bring this much more than for counting even my fingers could fell short.

It is a dream come true.

I know you wanna hear all about it, I know you wanna see all what you haven’t seen.. in next coming days, I will try that I wont disappoint you all. Now let me go back to the dreamland again.

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