Category: Nokia

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Nokia N8 Vs Nokia N900-Which one you want?

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The looks that will make you believe in things like Love at first sight, the price that make you fear that will you be able to get one before the stock runs out, the big amoled multi-touch shiny screen that find you only dreaming that how will be that like touching to it and a 12 MP with amazing build, which keeping you on toe that when you will get that one to make others envy. Yes!! I am talking about Nokia N8.

But hey!! wait a little, there might be another news in the corner, something else coming to India sooner than that. Yes!! that thing is known to be Techie’s best dream and opening new possibilities by each next day. Yes!! You guessed right, its Nokia N900. I already wrote that there are strong hints that it might land to India very soon and someone also said that price might be around 26-28k. So, which one you will buy? Nokia N8 or Nokia N900?

update: Nokia N900 got released in India on June 04, 2010. ~~Though we got a price Rs. 30, 369/- not any lesser.~~ Current market price of Nokia N900 in New Delhi as on June 30, 2010 is Rs. 25, 900/- and as this is Nokia Priority Dealer price, sure they must be better deal than this with HotSpot etc.

Interesting is that I haven’t seen a single person that might be ready to change his Nokia N900 for any other phone, either it be iPhone or any Android. Its really something that is growing like some wild fever without being hyped or even without that much backing by the manufacturer itself (unfortunately). We were really tired of hearing thing around iPhone that I got this app, I bought that app, how cool this app is and blah blah … but with Nokia N900, some new and real world seems to be opening. With a closing of around 3-4k price difference, Nokia N900 seems to be all set for keeping consumers highly confused about the choice between the two flagship models once N8 arrives.

I thought that its right to compare the two around the features offered and possibilities here as definitely a new debate is just around the corner that which one should be bought now?

1. Design, Build and UI: There will always be views that what is better, having a awesome physical keypad with you to make most of typing or having a shiny touch screen, that keeps your fingers always etching to slide on? Nokia N8 so far sure ride on the best build from Nokia so far, sure rising the bar much higher than the last Flagship Nokia N97 MIni. More of it, nothing seems more solid than a closed one piece build like Nokia N8 has. But at the same time, you can’t write off the tough male look of Nokia N900 as well. Nothing seemed as solid before. I guess it’ll be left over the choice of individuals.

Note: Beautiful pictures of Nokia N900 are courtesy @arun8GB

On the other side, Nokia N900 houses such a nice keypad that people even might crave for something like same on now days Netbooks. It will be seriously interesting to watch that how will a touch screen keypad will fair against something this much awesome, when currently Nokia seems not support multi-touch of keyboard (No Ctrl+C).

Take a look, I am comparing Touch UI’s of Android and iPhone with Physical Keypad of Nokia N900.

Definitely, for many its not a pleasant sacrifice provided the studies that says touch keypad are less efficient than physical ones and it keeps the rumors on for the next NSeries device Nokia N98 with Symbian^3, probably the same 12 MP camera, but incorporating physical keypad with same sleek design (Check the pics).

Well! personally I really wish to see that how touch UI keypad of Nokia N8’s big screen will fare against Nokia N900’s real convenience that kept me writing many blog posts directly from Nokia N900 only.

Next is about UI, honestly speaking, we haven’t seen much of exciting things about Symbian^3 except that multiple desktop thing. Reason is, it was the Russian site that prompted Nokia to go for announcing the half baked phone, otherwise when Vladislav Savov of Engadget visited Nokia HQ, then he was not presented with a proto-type with NOT working UI, sure a sign that the OS not fully operational yet.

Accept it, till now Symbian^3 might have excited the world in conversations only, yet it remained much to show off in pictures and video, where if we compare the same with Maemo, then we already seen that what wonder could be done with a mere Non-Capacitive UI. Definitely Symbian^3 needs to surprise us hard, if wanted people to forget Maemo for Symbian or MeeGo.

I will say even if lighter weight and sharp build Nokia N8 catches the eye instantly, Nokia N900 keeps the trust with majestic keypad, while Symbian^3 yet to show its full glory, definitely its gonna be hard to ignore N900’s magical Maemo.

2. Connectivity: One of the first phones to support Bluetooth 3.0, USB on the Go, HDMI and all of the other connectivity options that Nokia N900 supported, Nokia N8 is sure ready to hit the competitors big time. Many people says that Nokia like to tick all the checks in specifications and even after doing all end up doing things just ok or badly. But this time, its something seriously to be watched out. It sure beats even Nokia N900 in this department and sure lovely because at least on Symbian, we could expect a perfectly working Radio App for receiving/ transmitting and may be my personal favourite Google Maps app.

For me, I wish to see that how much battery will fair using all these connectivity options as in case of Nokia N900, I have seen that if I keep on using 3G on full go, then it ended up draining the batteries even if being continuously charged by being connected to Laptop. What about the 1200 mAh battery of Nokia N8 in comparison to 1320 mAh of Nokia N900?

3. Touch Vs. Multi-Touch: Nokia definitely has surprised many by announcing Nokia N8 in a price of around 22, 000/- even when packing other first in world features like Bluetooth and a 16GB memory. Fight will be with now more equipped iPhone 4G touch experience, but many expect Nokia be more ready this time through considerable inputs from touch design of N900.

Nokia N900 sure came to re-define the touch for Nokia and it has to move further with Nokia N8 even if that might be an entirely another OS. Multi-touch really re-defines the meaning of touch and the same kept iPhone ride on market big times. Sure, Nokia N8 with good things added from N900 will come to provide more lighter feel of Multi-touch. Perhaps much of reasons to buy it.

4. Maemo Vs Symbian: Maemo is probably the biggest reason behind the new hopes with Symbian^3, otherwise many had given up over Nokia that inspite of good hardware and best of the prices. Experts and bloggers called it Nokia’s obsession with Symbian that’s making it loose the grounds in front of revolutionary Android or iPhone OS.

Arrival of Qt was to bring some hopes and probably with Symbian^3, we could expect to see that in full glory, but still Nokia N900 will stand tall with its Open source and very much user familiar Maemo in front of Nokia N8 and Symbian^3. Probably one of the biggest reason that we are calling for some kind of comparison here. Openness of Maemo is something that couldn’t be compared with anyone. In spite of early bugs and complaints about immaturity at places, only Maemo has bring the scenario that at each next day, we hear about new people doing new things with their Nokia N900.

Many will voice my concern that they fear if with Meego, they gonna loose the same flexibility that Maemo provided and so have their reasons to stick with Nokia N900. Not only Geeks, but even normal people love Linux based Maemo, because its the only place in Smartphones, where you could expect some multimedia player playing all kind of multimedia files, where you could expecting getting some free program to record the calls as easily as you were on some Desktop, only thing that could let you check the logs if something went wrong.

Yes!! we want capabilities of Nokia N8, but still we love Maemo’s openness more. It remains to be see that who will win?

Lots could be said about these and I just wished to point the debate that would take place over web very soon, when Nokia N8 trial units will be out and people will get a feel of real things. Let’s see, who will go more strong? Will after the early excitement with Nokia N8, Nokia N900 will still keep world’s interest in it or Symbian^3 will come to change the game?

Waiting for your comments, more things that could be compared between the two, more things that could have been mentioned here.. anything that you wish to share about the two… you are most welcome.

Nitish Kumar

Now you could download the app for this blog on your Nokia (Symbian5) via this link or widget via this link.

Nokia E72 Diary Continued

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Not much to write about Nokia E72 today, but have you remembered my mention in the first post about downloading a big file inside the Nokia E72 itself? Here are screenshots of the same.

Notice the size of file and also the time stamp given below. Could understand that what speed MTNL 3G is giving to me in New Delhi 😉

I tried the same with Nokia N82, but when it tries to start downloading, I get the message “Not Supported”. I have seen it working over Nokia 5800, Nokia N97 and Nokia N900. Perhaps, N82’s browser can’t handle the downloads.

Nitish Kumar

Now you could download the app for this blog on your Nokia (Symbian5) via this link or widget via this link.

Do Smartphones need a new category more?

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Does one size fit all? Doesn’t it limit your sight, if you fail to know your real audience while selling something? What’s more worth, being specialized or doing all?

Most of the Smartphones in market seems to be classified in three categories:

Entertainment devices: I guess most of the devices fall in the same category. General purpose what focuses on voice communication and additional features like Radio, Camera etc. I want to keep devices around 10-12k in it. Target Audience are most of the users that might not be crazy about gadgets, but still love to keep up with the changing world and also those who just wanna communication in their hands.
Business Devices: The superior devices, whose core focus is on providing better length of talk time and making most use of the hardware for serious purposes than entertainment. Blackberry, ESeries etc fall in this category. Target Audience are business users, who wants kind of mini-computers in their hands. Their devices might not be best of the league about the entertainment, but they deliver the best about what a Communication device always meant to be. best of battery and best of business apps.
High End Devices: Could call it the premium segment, the best of technology, the best of hardware, the best of entertainment, best of versatility and the best of price. Target audience are people, who can’t let it loose and want the technology at its best even if they need to pay a price for the same. People who wanna show off or even making most of what they can get. iPhone, Android, Nokia N8 kind of devices fall in this category.

I guess there should have been a fourth category, a category that could contain the flexible and very programmable devices like Nokia N900 and Android based devices, note that I am not keeping iPhone in this category. What about giving a name to it High tech devices.

Why I am asking for a fourth category or even if that matters for anyone?

The reason for the same is, somewhere I feel that Nokia N900 like devices are bound to loose their existence to devices like Nokia N8 that would seem to be comparable to Nokia N900 or even advanced, but we will loose the flexibility we jus seen only which it. We all techie just loved the idea Nokia N900 came up with. I mean you get a device that you could install/ re-install like some PC, could reprogram the same in whatever manner, you might be missing, flowing number of apps coz no special training required to make an app for it.

Do you want to let Nokia N90 die? Will we be able to accept MeeGo if it came to give any bit less freedom to us? Aren’t we want separate existence of devices like Nokia N900? Nokia and other compnies need to know in strong words that there is a segment, which wanted the open platforms like Android and Maemo badly and there are buyers for that.

Nitish Kumar

Nokia N900 – So, here arrived test unit for me

Now you could download the app for this blog on your Nokia (Symbian5) via this link or widget via this link.

Nokia N900 So finally its coming to India

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It was early morning reply from @IndiaNokia to Nirav Thakkar that might have prompted CJ to post that something is coming to India. So, Nokia N900 finally seems about to arrive in India.

Nirav asked @IndiaNokia about service of his Nokia N900

Surprising and exciting was the reply. Have they went over-excited to reveal it before time?

Definitely twitter is the best medium about being updated 😉 Its crystal clear that Nokia N900 finally coming to India. The question is on how much price they will offer it as India has seen that over priced iPhone 3GS didn’t got place here and Nokia N97 Mini and others sold much higher than N97 Classic. Not only me, but even Nokia might have got the point that Rs. 30, 000/- plus would be a higher amount to be reasonable (people who know about it, might be ready to pay even that amount for it).

Let’s see how long this week gonna to feel.

People who might be thinking that what’s heck about this Nokia N900, should look back for my old posts on the same.

Nokia N900 – Definitely Geek

Nokia N900 – Thought to post from MaStory

Nokia N900 – here comes my first sketch ever from cell

Nokia N900 -Things I don’t like

Nokia N900 – Not only for geeks but for mass as well

Nokia N900 – Things you never seen before anywhere else

update:

Got a word from @IndiaNokia that they have not confirmed that the launch date would be within a week, but saying that they would be in position of telling the confirm date by then.

So, May be we will be needed to wait a little more. Lets see what happens 😉

Nitish Kumar

Now you could download the app for this blog on your Nokia (Symbian5) via this link or widget via this link.

Nokia E72 Diary-Day 7-Camera Review

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This time, I needed to start from apology that it’s not been a possible post by yesterday as I didn’t got much time to play with Nokia E72. Today my day is going with full jealousy all over my mind with people getting #NokiaNav shiny cars. But still I am back with one of the most important aspect of Nokia E72, which caught people’s attention more than anything, the 5.0 MP camera. Read more to know few things about it.

Do you think that its worth talking about a device on scale of its camera that is supposed to be a Business Device ? Perhaps that is the pain of Business people. Aren’t they human? Are their requirements completely in contrast with other common users? Why should they be deprived of a decent music player in their phones or FM receiver or a real good camera? OK!! first two might be personal requirements, but why not a decent camera? Trust me, most of Business users get disappointed that what Business phone they are going to get are without even “basic” features, they lived with till now.

Think of a day, you hear that Bill Gates decided to visit your office or some other star just arrives all of sudden in your office in next cabin. Believe me, no matter how much professional you are, you sure get excited and wish to capture a glimpse of them (with you may be 😉 ). Is it crime to keep a proper camera phone with you?

Leave that fancy thing, take a real one. You got a doc that you urgently needs to send on Fax for info or for some approval or any other formality and your IT guy tells you “Scanner already faulty since last two days and Fax Machine down since morning”. You say “What the f***? what I am supposed to do now? Isn’t there is a option to take a very clear snap of the doc and send it on mail? Sure only if you have some 5MP Nokia E72 with you.

Megapixels … does they matter a lot? My first proper admiration for mobile cameras started with Nokia N70. People will laugh about 2MP cameras now, but at that time, it was very fine with me and I didn’t even mind taking prints of snaps taken by Nokia N70 then, but what changed the game completely was well known Nokia N82. The almighty 5MP camera with Xenon Flash came in to completely surpass my Kodak Digital camera.

Definitely, since when I heard about Nokia E72, then I was excited about it that if its camera could do the same job as Nokia N82 did for me. Because then it was perfect to switch over that because of other amazing features it offers like due to strong battery and connectivity, I am peaking on about 4GB downloads daily, which was sure limited with Nokia N82 due to less powered battery. So, I took the Sunday, day 7 of trial as the day for camera comparison.

First of all, I let you know that its not that fair to compare a Nokia N82 and a Nokia E72 as the earlier one is blessed with a Carl Zeiss camera (only name is enough), while the later has same megapixels but No Carl Zeiss. The other compromise for the business device is No Xenon Flash and not even dual led like Nokia N86, just Single Led Flash. But like I always said, its better to take your hands on first before calling it off. Moreover, com’on we are talking about Nokia N82 here for comparison, which doesn’t got a match in real till now from anywhere and only N8 seems to be challenging the legacy. But let’s discuss that how much Nokia E72 fairs with its camera…

CJ got a good lead over Nokia E72 Camera, for the details, you may look over there, I am here with my little observations only.

Nokia E72 doesn’t have dedicated Camera keys and you left with only the optical navi wheel taking for the same part. Moreover, might be the case that I am not getting used to that well, but somehow it seems that focusing is tougher than Nokia N82 here. Though as I get comparable pictures with similar quality, but I think its due to adjustment with sensitivity of Optical Navi Wheel. Somehow, it was better to have a dedicated Camera key somewhere.

Good thing is, Led Flash may be called lesser for Stills but become better for videos because the technology allows them to keep lit on while making the video (same explains how Nokia E72 works like a torch when we press space for a while). Definitely a good thing and I will sure come up with a video made in some dark soon.

The above is a simple comparison of camera interfaces on both the phones. The point to notice was inclusion of panorama mode in Nokia E72, though some may be disappointed by non-availability of geo-tagging, but I wonder that how many actually use that? Must be hard on battery I guess. Though the same feature wasn’t there in Nokia N82 as well and all I have heard of is an application from Nokia Beta Labs to bring this capability. There should be one for Nokia E72 as well, if someone really want to.

Well!! with time, things get advanced so with the camera interface as well.

You can customize the toolbar here, which was not there in Nokia N82 for sure.

Sure I didn’t took much of the pics today, but putting some of them here for comparison. All the time, Flash is on Auto for both the devices and I tried best to focus before shot. (Nokia E72 left and N82 right)

Honestly speaking, I am not able to figure out the difference, but experts might sure find. Though I still insist that Nokia N82 is more convenient tool to snap due to dedicated camera keys.

The other part on negative side of Nokia E72 is somehow with the resolution. Don’t know but Nokia N82 and Nokia E72 both technically has the same resolution screens, but even though Gallery makeover is great in Nokia E72, but I found somehow pictures doesn’t look that great on screen in Nokia E72 in comparison to Nokia N82. May be I should give some more time before coming to this conclusion or may be I am too much used to of my beloved N82.

In all, I must say that competing with the legend is hard, but except for two points, Nokia E72 not leaving on any place and even scoring on Video light side. Technical details on other side, but I don’t think that anyone is going to find any difference in two. After all, all we want is a best camera to be with us and still one device for all.

Guys!!! here you go. This is the business device you always wanted. I mean there might be many business phones out there, but tell me which one got it all like the way Nokia E72 got?

Nitish Kumar

Now you could download the app for this blog on your Nokia (Symbian5) via this link or widget via this link.

Nokia E72 Diary-Day 5-Nokia Messaging

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Starting from the same first paragraph, where I left in last post, what more you wanted from your Smartphone? A wireless phone, a music device, a gaming device or all of these? Is something remained? Do all Smartphone buyers see their phone as fun devices only? Don’t they ask for some more?

Mobile Emails! Many of you like me loved the simplicity of Gmail’s naive Mobile Email client and many other mobile clients like the same, but still felt troubles with handling of HTML, Attachments and data/ battery usages. Sure! they brought convenience but a few limitations too like how much crucial your mails are for you? How many times you check for your mail in an hour? Does it look good when you find yourself checking mails while in some important conversation with some client subordinates? Will a non-HTML mail could serves the purpose for you all the time?

There were different set of challenges while making a business device than normal users. Your customers were bound to be very demanding, very calculating and asking for things that might be little bit hard over current stage of technology.

Push Mail! This was first introduced by Research In Motion (RIM) and even if little slow in start, later caught huge attention from corporate. Push e-mail is used to describe e-mail systems that provide an always-on capability, in which new e-mail is actively transferred (pushed) as it arrives by the mail delivery agent (MDA) (commonly called mail server) to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the e-mail client.

Wiki reference explains more Post Office Protocol (POP3) is an example of a polling email delivery protocol. At login and later at intervals, the mail user agent (client) polls the mail delivery agent (server) to see if there is new mail, and if so downloads it to a mailbox on the user’s computer. However, outgoing mail is generally pushed directly from the sender to the final mail delivery agent. Extending this push to the last delivery step is what distinguishes push e-mail from polling e-mail systems.

The next problems was with rendering of HTML content and handling of attachments for which different vendors kept on coming with different solutions. This time I am here for discussing Nokia Messaging Solutions on Nokia E72.

Nokia E72 Diary – Day 5 – May 07, 2010

Initially started as a trial beta product, Nokia Messaging comes as in-built and ready-to-go on Nokia E72. I already installed and tried the same on My Nokia N82, Nokia 5800 and Nokia N97 Mini earlier, but all of them were for limited period and having only the full fledge product in your hands was the real time to evaluate the features. Getting your mails delivered almost instantly on your handset like some SMS is an awesome experience. Definitely I am loving it and counting it as the top three profits of having a Nokia E72 in your hands.

Not only it allows you to connect a total of 10 Email accounts with Push mail, but also provide compatibility with 99% mail providers around the world with inclusion of Lotus Traveler and Microsoft Exchange support. Not only this, you are provided an effective and intuitive interface to deal with, which works very efficiently in background to deliver the best mobile experience for you. As you will see in next screenshots, you will get an effective rendering of HTML and for people, who don’t get please by even this, there would be a link on the top to open the same mail directly in web browser. Great intuitiveness.

Much has been written about the technology and how it works. I will keep it simple and will present the screenshots only that how it go and how it feels for the people, who still haven’t experienced the glow.

Configuring and customizing Email Accounts in Nokia Messaging

The last few in above are settings for my Gmail Account, while the below screen shots are for office account that doesn’t support IMAP or Active Sync.

Market might be fighting over one click-two click configurations, but its always about making the process of configuring an account as simple as it could be. I don’t think any need left here for messing up with advance settings of configurations except your corporate environment has some specific alteration with settings.

I don’t think anyone should be having any complaint with configuration steps of Nokia Messaging at least. 🙂

Intuitive Interface of Nokia Messaging

As the screenshot 1 shows the folded view, while the screenshot 5,6 show how you can sort mails based on various attributes or could navigate through folders. Moreover, last two screenshots show that how its shows the size for unread mails and also has option for replying, farward etc without even opening the mail. Moreover auto scrolling for long subject lines just like SMS previews on S40 device make it perfect inbox view.

Rendering of mails in Nokia Messaging

Ok! here comes the mail reading experience. There are little tweaks like direct options for saving any number to contacts or calling the same or even going through any email id and using it for Email/ SMS/ Call or saving to contacts.

Some might still complaint about rendering of HTML as it seems to try for showing HTML links only, not HTML format itself. But as a technical person, I understand that delivering the full HTML experience needs high data usages and Nokia came up with another way out by providing the View HTML message link, which opens the mail in browser as shown in last screenshot. Clever Nokia!!! But still I think some customized and trimmed down technique could be devised to show a minimal HTML experience (if not fonts etc then at least Bold/ Itlic/ Underline etc.)

So, are you still complaining about terrible build of some Blackberry or confusing icons on your mobile home screen, failed trackball of your current QWERTY? You are missing a Nokia E72.

Nitish Kumar