Category: Technology

Layman’s Take on Nokia N9– Music of Beethoven

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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..

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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. Smile

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..

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Layman’s Take on BlackBerry Torch 9860- Focused about work beautifully

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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.

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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 …

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First BlackBerry at Layman’s Take-It is a BlackBerry Torch 9860 with BB OS7

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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)

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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.

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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 ….

DA-BANG at Layman’s Take-Yeah it is an Nokia N9

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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.

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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.

Layman’s Take on Gravity 2.0, the first preview–A new era begins

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This was something that we all been waiting since a while, the second inning of the superstar, who never ceases to amaze you. Yes! Gravity 2.0 first preview is finally open for public now.

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This time, I been a little late in grabbing the beta as must have been in the way back to home from office, but once grabbed it, it was not easy to sit and type a review that soon as I was used to do in past. Reason: the experience with this version was so mesmerizing to pull you into it that it was hard to keep yourself distracted into anything else. Specially the facebook section kept me into it for around an hour. Hats off @Janole … I was waiting for shout it again.. since long…

So, let’s see what’s changed with the new version (phew!! it’s a long list and many under the hood changes)

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Layman’s Take Unboxing of Nokia 500

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It might feel odd for a few, but low price phones like Nokia C5, Nokia E5, Nokia 5800, Nokia 5233, Nokia 7230 etc always had a special place for me and I given them a due whenever got a chance. In past, there been many of the readers mails been of similar kind of questions that “what to choose if want to buy a phone under 10k-15k?”. So, it was obvious to be excited when I heard about a Nokia phone coming at a price less than 10k with 1GHz processor, 256 mb RAM and most importantly a capacitive screen. May be the same was the reason that Paul @WomworldNokia decided to give me one of the units for reviewing it and here it goes the unboxing video of the same..

 

 

I must admit that for many like me, Nokia 500 is an odd man out there due to no 3D Acceleration support and only Symbian Anna as an OS on it, but still if you think reasonably and think of the fact that what options were out there for people under 10k range and compare this 1GHz capacitive phone with earlier Nokia 5800, Nokia 5233, Nokia C6-00 etc, then you will know that why this is a welcome step.

Sure, one can’t help but get impressed that how Nokia managed to keep the premium feel in such a low price device as well. Remember the designs of Nokia 5800/5233 and just look at this… lovely for its price, isn’t it?

If you think that its just another Nokia/Symbian, about which we are hearing a lot of negative buzz in recent, then watch the video given below and think again, if you have seen it anywhere else and then remind yourself that it’s just a <10k device…

What you say?? Tell me on @nkumar_ or at nitish@nitishkumar.net that what more you wanna know about this.

Layman’s take on Symbian Belle-A big walkthrough

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Once I got hold on Symbian Belle on my Nokia N8 then it was kind of due to bring a Layman’s Take style big walkthrough of Symbian Belle. Though still one needs to understand that the firmware, I am using on my phone is a leaked and half baked one, so there might be major changes afterwards.

What is Symbian Belle?

The latest firmware update to Symbian^3 devices, Symbian Belle, is what Symbian^3 PR3.0 was supposed to be. A kind of rename for understanding of n00bs rather than confusing them with various version numbers. Its something that seems to be influenced from Android itself (Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, IceCream Sandwitch, Honeycomb ….).

Symbian Belle is the first Symbian^3 update that is supposed to bring major UI changes throughout the Symbian^3 lineup. It will change many Symbian UI paradigms and also the way, we know Symbian till now. A true modernization of Symbian without alienating existing user habits.

Is Symbian Belle the last stop for Symbian^3?

While developers and insiders were already aware of it, Nokia has confirmed officially that despite of the fact that Company is moving toward Windows Phones, Symbian Belle will not be the last update to Symbian platform.

We already seen glimpses of Symbian^4 back in Feb 2010, which though definitely feels outdated now, but still there been lots of references to Symbian^4 in Symbian bugzilla since then and so hard to deny the fact that Symbian^4 will be the next step.

Sure, it will have a new name like Anna or Belle and also there are no exact ideas that what features it’ll bring on board as many of the Symbian^4 changes are already being incorporated into Symbian Belle itself. But there is a big hope.

Now, let’s go through new features of Symbian Belle …

1. New Lock screen

We have seen some changes in the Lock Screen with Symbian Anna itself, when we got notifications on lock screen, but Symbian Belle takes it a step further. Not only there are cosmetic changes in Clock, which feels like 3D now, you see a glossy and colorful lock screen rather than old black one.

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Yes! the standby screen will still stay black (first screenshot) without any mention of signals, battery, bluetooth, data connection etc, but that is totally understandable as queries all those values takes precious battery life that sure would have been unnecessary in standby.

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