Are you too ditching non-touch phone, Nokia?

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Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything. – Harry S Truman

This is probably the thumb rule of any kind of battle and if one misses it, then there should be no one else to blame for. We see the promises, we always seen, but is Nokia really set for a fight back?

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Do Nokia really needs to  leave non-touch phones miles behind or come up with Touch-n-type kinds only for competing with others? I am not saying that they new range of devices aren’t great, but do non-touch range is really worth to be left for cheaper phones only?

I am not thinking to write long over it, but I am again coming up with what I started once. The debate that was started with my post why not a non-touch smart phone?, then we seen excellent views from Steve Litchfield @aas mentioning himself as Devil’s advocate and finally official blog of Nokia agreed with the same sentiments in one way or another.

Non-Touch or Touch?

While once these posts and views were a light of hope for many like me, after two and half a month, this all seems to be dizzy again. With the announcements of Nokia N8, E7, C7, C6, C6-01, X3-02 and C3-01, it seems that Nokia already given up on the debate.

Do you know that what made Nokia such a big name and what were there best selling phones?

  1. With over 412 million units shipped, Nokia 1100 is the best-selling mobile phone of all time and the world’s top-selling consumer electronics product.
  2. Surprisingly, my Old Nokia XpressMusic 5310 is among the top selling ones with 10 million units sold.
  3. There was a time, when Nokia N95 and even Nokia 6300 were topping charts in UK (yes! we are not talking about Asia, its the same UK, where we hardly find presence now).
  4. Do you know, Nokia N73 was the best selling phone from Nokia N Series till recently?
  5. Nokia N82 been such a success that even after tempting devices , Nokia himself wasn’t able to beat the legacy and even those, who left the boat of Nokia, may be found keeping this one close to their heart.
  6. Nokia E71 still known as not only best selling but one of the best QWERTY in market for its kind of form factor.

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These are a just a few examples to state the fact that where Nokia been the best and for a coincidence, do you know what is the most common thing among these all? All of them were Non-Touch phones.

I know They will say ..

  • it proves nothing as they also sold Nokia 5800 in big numbers (over 8 millions) and even the wrongly famous Nokia N97 has sold over 2 million units.
  • Technology evolves and things which were great once, might not be considered that great later.
  • Even if older ring phones were such a huge hit, there was no reason to stick with those landlines only.

or many things like that, but …

  • Is it crime, if still there is a huge crowd buying Non-touch phones too?
  • Are you all really think that it was touch screen only that sold these many pieces of dubious Nokia N97?
  • Why all of sudden it brings a fire in conversations, if someone says that no, I cant stand a touch phone?

Everyone says that you should change with the time, but what if I still want some real successor of Nokia E72, that god battery, that superb keypad which might make you keep typing even with closed eyes for hours and for pages of text…. what if?

Have patience, they will show some love to non-touch as well

As per their product release schedules for the year 2010, only three devices remains to be announced this year that are Nokia X7-00, Nokia N9-00 and Nokia E6-00.

We have seen that Nokia N9-00 is probably a 4” touch screen + QWERTY and Nokia X7-00 again a Symbian^3 with capacitive touch, so all the bets are getting closed over Nokia E6-00 now, but have we really seen some breakthrough developments on S60 UI till now? Do we really have enough reasons to believe that there is something in shelf to tagged as real successor of Nokia E72/71?

They will say Nokia still in game with Nokia C3 and Nokia E5 like devices, but I really feel like so frustrated when someone says that Nokia E5 is a successor of Nokia E72… I already said it once, it is not.

NOOOO!! for god sake… don’t take the name of Nokia E7. A real successor of Nokia E72 needs one hand operated keypad (probably nothing better than that of Nokia E71/E72) and strictly an Auto-Focus camera.

We will keep on crying that why it’s late or why Nokia doesn’t come up with some Nokia E6-00 with same features as Nokia E72 without compromise, a better camera, 256 MB RAM at least, may be Bluetooth 3.0, USB OTG.

Honestly speaking, I am getting fed up of my own confusion of buying which one from Nokia E5 and Nokia E72 as Nokia E5 even if packing up much needed more 128 RAM and upgraded OS still its far far away from Nokia E72. As much I trying to be positive and hopeful for future of Non-touch phones like that I am really really loosing hopes now as it seems that non-touch is second hand thing for everyone include Nokia.

Well!! I really don’t know how to put it, but I just wish to ask a simple, helpless and desperate question from Nokia …

Are you too ditching non-touch phones like rest of the world seems to be doing?

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Laymans Take on Nokia 5233 – The short review

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Since I wrote of Nokia C5, the leading shot of non-touch smartphones crop, some of the readers enquired me about the cheapest options about touch phones as well. The answer wasn’t that simple, but as their concern was price, so I suggested them of Nokia 5233 and Nokia 5235 and specially with a price tag of Rs. 6300/-, Nokia 5233 is sure a great deal for one kind of market.

Today I got my hands on Nokia 5233 finally via one of my colleague and I took the same chance to bring my first impressions about the device for readers.

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Why should one buy Nokia 5233?

We are not talking about the geeks here, who could argue on the specs sheet for hours. We are talking about the guys, who are much mean, when it comes to shed a few bucks from their pockets. I have seen people, who will buy some Chinese model in 5K saying it got all and will come behind you that yaar!! its not opening the sites very well or how to transfer all my contacts on this phone… bla bla.. Com’on .. who suggested you to go for a non-nokia? Even if its priced at 5k, do you really wanted to throw some phone in one year coz there will be no care center for that kind of phone?

People get a life.. Nokia is listening of you people too. Not just for sake of price, but for sake of engaging people in a better experience because only that can bring them in for the bigger things in next.

Have you lustfully taken a look on other people’s Nokia 5800 because of their bigger touch screens and the style with which their slide their fingers on that shiny thing? So what if you didn’t wished to spend Rs. 13, 000/-, you can get the same feel with Nokia 5233. This is a device made for people to have their hands on touch phones world in cheapest way without loosing an inch of the quality standards that Nokia maintains.

  1. ARM 434 MHz processor (Irony or proud! it has the same processor as ‘’lagship’ N97 had).
  2. 128 MB of RAM is more than enough for the target users in this price range.
  3. 70 MB user storage is not much but kind of super, if you remember 50 mb of C5 or E52
  4. A 3.2” resistive touch screen with a very good nice touch feedback.

  5. Proximity sensor, Accelerometer sensor and Handwriting recognition, while target users might not even know about worth of these features.

  6. Not only comes with Ovi Music service, but has 33 hours music playback with Li-Ion 1320 mAh (BL-5J).

  7. A stylus for precise touch input though you can do all kind of things with fingers as well.

Definitely, you can complaint a single line, when someone bring this much in just Rs. 6300/-.Though still I wish people a little more with Rs. 7500/- and buy Nokia 5235 with 3G and A-GPS added, but if you are too picky about the price, then sure Nokia 5233 fits the bill as I have seen with some people around me.

Some of my first impressions after taking it in my hands

If you have taken Nokia 5800 in your hands for some times, then it almost has the same feel like that one. Though you might start complaining only if you dig a little deeper, but that would be purely based on inner features, not the exterior, which is sure full plastic, but still its better than many I had seen. At least opening back battery cover didn’t scared me here.

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Well! as you can see, it wont be a great screen when come under sunlight, neither the build has features that could keep the dust particles away.

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Though it doesn’t support the hot swap SIM feature, but sure you can insert the SIM without even opening the battery cover and same with Memory card that is hot swappable. Though disappointments are, you can not take the SIM out without opening battery cover and the package doesn’t include the MicroSD card.

But who cares, if you are looking for a cheap solution only, then in 1K you could get an 8GB card, while it supports up to 16GB and who takes out and in SIM daily, that could be managed for sure.

If you look more close in the first pics, then you could spot the mono speaker as well near my thumb. Well to say.. it wasn’t too loud, but not too low either. You can sure hear the calls on loudspeakers in normal scenarios, but don’t ask for the same in trains like noise.

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Well! I wont say that plastic buttons are all pretty, but still I would have loved more, if there was an always open miniUSB slot than the one covered with plastic on the top side.

What you love about Nokia is the fact, they still are the leaders when it comes to raise the level of common man. Here I am talking about the 3.5mm jack and 2mm charger that’s real democracy than some company running behind money only.

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I have got my hands on many of the devices, where the manufacturer decides that a dedicated camera key is kind of waste, like I seen in Nokia C5, but if you ask a user then nothing matches the feel of having a dedicated camera key on the side. Though the device doesn’t has a autofocus, so not like some half press to focus, but still you get a camera like feel.

With the volume rocker, you also got the lock button in the middle, quite handy and brings back the memories that how people were used to locking their phones by pressing Menu Key and * rather than waiting for the screen to get auto locked after a certain period.

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It got just 2MP camera full focus camera with focus range from 60 cm to infinity. It is very very ordinary and bigger disappointment is absence of even a single LED flash. I understand that it was a design decision to keep the cost at its lowest, but still it was better if they would not have compromised on this.

Probably for same reason that camera wasn’t the biggest attraction here, Nokia skipped the camera cover too.

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As I mentioned, due to a little easy slot there, it was not that hard to open the battery cover like others, where I always get scared that if opening battery cover may break it.

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Yup!! it got the stylus too though after using the phone for a while, I found that after sometime, you wont even need that. Having a resistive screen than a capacitive one, has some of profits too.

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Green, red and white; typical Nokia buttons, though reminds me of the Indian National flag as well in a way. Green one works as Call button, red as call End button and white one as Menu button. All these lights also serves as notification lights too in case of some incoming call or incoming message.

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Yes! there is no secondary camera, but that’s for a reason. It got no 3G support, so obviously no video calls, though you could spot the proximity sensors easily.

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Its the best thing Nokia does with such range of device, they don’t miss out the signal strength and battery, whatever low price might be. You are getting a 1320 mAh battery here and as no 3G, no A-GPS on board, nothing will stop this device from completing a day in normal usages.

In the same pics, you can also spot the mechanism to push the SIM out of it. The slider always go handy for that thing at least. And yes.. finally we see some metal here, the plates around the camera.

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If still some doubts, then sticker on back cover explains the basics.

So, while I will strongly recommend, a slightly higher priced Nokia 5235 over this, but sure if you gift this phone to your little sister or someone who is not much into tech, they sure gonna love it and you will be ensured that they wont bug you back that this is not working and that is not. Rs. 6300/- … what else you wish for?

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Should you Pre-order Nokia N8 from @NokiaIndia ?

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Even if many might have pre-ordered Nokia N8 and its really getting hard to hold the temptation to buy the camera flagship device of the mobile world, but if you look closer then sure there are many doubts that raises the question that should you buy Nokia N8 right now?

It has nothing to do with the biased reviews coming from some leading blogs or from someone, whom with all due respect, I should only call “Bitch in heat”. No!!! I still very much buying Nokia N8 coz its the best out there to serve my needs, but question is about the time. Do you really need to get it before everyone?

Preorder 

Firstly, what is a Pre-order?

As per Nokia “Preordering a product means you’ll be one of the first to receive it after it’s released. As soon as the product is in stock, we will process and ship your order to you.”

Nokia N8 is available on Pre-order for Indian Customers since September 29, 2010 on the site given below

Pre-rder

While Nokia Priority dealers asking for Rs. 2000/- or Rs. 1000/-for the pre-order amount, I am not sure that if there is a proper process of dealing this systematically in India at least. At least most of the dealers are not providing you a proper receipt or order no. (their sites are providing one, but not the priority dealers in Delhi at least). The one I visited, is only offering a local receipt from their shop name only.

Yes! you can assume that the process is still reliable, but …

Nokia N8 price, Is it decent to buy?

Sure, a price of Rs. 25000/- is not much, if you are in a world, where Samsung Galaxy sells in Rs. 29000/- and ridiculously binding you in pricy app world Apple iPhone 3GS selling in like Rs. 35000/-, but still the price at which Nokia N8 is going to launched on week 1, is no where near what they promised in April. That was Rs. 21, 500/- without taxes for god sake. Are you saying that you are charging Rs. 4, 500/- as taxes?

It will sure hurt many to buy the device in like Rs. 26, 000/- or Rs. 25, 000/-, when they were expecting in much lesser. Nokia sure loosing the USV of Nokia N8 on price point at least. If you ask me, then price of Rs. 22, 500/- was kind of reasonable.

Specially when you know that within a month, it will sell on that price, then are you ready to pay extra 2-3k for just getting it before a month? Remember Nokia N900 was announced at a price Rs. 30, 600/- and now its selling on Rs. 24, 500/-

Some of the cruel facts about pre-order …

  1. You do not get any special discount or bundled accessories or anything. I asked @NokiaIndia and they just said this, nothing else.

    nokiaIndia

  2. Booking early means paying the highest price that the device can ever get and most of the time, you pay MRP. Remember recently they launched Nokia C6-00 in Rs. 15, 600/- and within a week other retailers selling it in Rs. 13, 300/-.
  3. Even if we talk about authenticity of the device or guarantees associated with the device, then Nokia priority dealers are nothing special but a bunch of money suckers. They only provide you whatever come standard from Nokia, while the other dealers not only offer you way better price, but bundled accessories, even greater maintenance cover for the device and a much dignified gesture as a customer.

Oops!! I already did the Pre-order, what’s the way to go from here?

Yup! I understand. Many might have done so. the way to go is to wait a little. Even if you have pre-ordered, you are not forced to buy right then on the day one. If I know right, then you have 60 days in hands till when your deposit wont be consumed by them.

You might even ask for refund citing a valid reason, though that chance would be limited as they already have given you their shot that price might be max 26k and if its even 25.9k, you wont be entitled to pull back on this particular cause.

You will get a call from Nokia Priority Dealer that device is available at the store. You sure can delay the visit to Nokia Priority store for like a week and could keep on confirming the prices from other retailers (though I doubt that at least N8 gonna be available with them real soon like one week). Sure, you will still pay higher, but after a week or two, it should be in few hundreds rather than thousands.

I don’t wanna to be mean with Nokia, but honestly, I tried hard to understand the point of pre-ordering a device that will be anyway available in much lower price with other retailers within half a month, even if I understand the restlessness of holding the temptation to touch best camera phone ever.

Please offer me your views, if you ever find any profit of buying a device from a Nokia Priority Dealer leave alone the pre-order thing.

Note that I am talking about India and specially New Delhi.  May be others find some pleasant experiences as well. Do tell me, if you think otherwise or in same ways as me.

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A Visit to Nokia Priority Dealer in Delhi-N8, C1, C6 and E5

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Finally after so much hue and cry about Nokia N8 and even talking to few of local dealers, I decided to visit the nearest Nokia Priority center to know the real situation in hands and visited the nearest Nokia Priority Center in New Delhi.

Let me summarize all the info that I got today …

Nokia N8 Pre-Order, Availability and Price in India:

Not in the whole world, but there are huge confusions about the availability of Nokia N8 in India as well. Some saying 15 October, some saying 8 October and some even calling that it will come by November.

Let me make it a full stop here.

1. Nokia N8 is expected to be available on all Nokia Priority dealers by October 15, 2010.
2. Pre-order customers will receive the device by October 8, 2010 or October 10, 2010 max.
3. It wont be available over other stores than NPD’s before November due to huge demands.
4. Pre-orders have began by September 29, some asking 1000 INR, some 2000 INR as deposit.
5. Final price is not clear as of now, but max is 26k or if believe @gauravh1 then 25k.
6. Pre-order customers will receive call about availability and could purchase within 2 months.

 

Take a look over Nokia N8 dummies at S.D. Enterprises, Gita Colony, New Delhi, which I seen…

Nokia N8 Black (my personal favorite)

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Nokia N8 Orange (second favorite of many, I guess its a little darker than the expectations)

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Nokia N8 Green (Not one of my favorite, but I seen many loving it as well)

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The NPD I visited had no dummies of Silver or Blue and though same might raise the doubt that if they are launching with all the five colors or not, but there are official words from @NokiaIndia that they are actually launching it with all five possible colors. Obviously, they don’t want to be like Apple.

As of now, there is no word over additional accessories or bundled offers. But following are on offer …

1. Free navigation is coming for all with latest version of Ovi Maps that will be 3.06
2. Nokia Push mail will be available for lifetime free that too with default HTML support.
3. Nokia Music Services as of now, not coming for free, though some will be preloaded there.
4. There will many great apps pre-installed like Joikuspot and Gravity trial (free versions)
5. As Vox has been closed, Nokia as of now has opted out from Share Online feature. Disappointing.
6. No big game coming with the package, not even free ones.
7. As of now, no news if they will bundle Bluetooth Headset for even pre-order customers.
8. Nokia isn’t giving the stylus with Nokia N8, makes you think which countries then?

Well!! take it my personal opinion or something, but I found Nokia N8 a little smaller in shape than I was expecting it to be. I mean, I have spend full 15 days with Nokia N900 and that screen always looked huge. May be it the compact exteriors or something but pics always looked big. Should say, its completely pocket-able and Sorry folks, to whom I always said that 4” or 5” devices would be insane. Yes! we wont mind a 4” or 5”, if that keeps the same level of compactness as SGS or iPhone or Nokia N8 have.

Nokia E5 Availability and Price in India

Yes!! very much anticipated Nokia E5 already on Nokia Priority stores on a price 11, 800 INR. Though its disappointing to see that prices on NPDs are always much higher than the market price, but at the same time, its obvious too. Market works that way. but still.. As per info from other dealers, you can make a deal on 11, 200 INR minimum for Nokia E5.

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There was no dummy of the same thing there, so I asked them for the box itself. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to open up the same. The green area on the front is highlighting the social integration here, like once Nokia was highlighting free lifetime navigation.

Definitely having a hard to hold my urge to buy one, though disappointing that like Nokia E72, this one also not coming with default HTML support.

Nokia E5 Availability and Price in India

While touch has gotten another name now days; Symbian^3, Nokia has also putting devices like Nokia C6-00 on offer. I wonder what effect this one would have caused, if would have arrived a little earlier. While there are still many reasons to discuss on paper about Nokia E5, for convincing someone to buy Nokia C6-00, you will be needed to focus on price point mostly.

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While @NokiaIndia mentioning the price as 15,600 INR, I found that its actually selling on 13, 800 INR from NPDs and even lower from the other dealers, probably 13, 400 INR minimum. Not a bad buy for newly smart phone users interested in touch and type.

The dummy I got to see was of the color white, though I would have liked to see Black one specially, but still what I see from the dummy only, at such a price point and build, its sure ready to take on over Nokia 5800.

Two more new handset spotted there were Nokia C3-00 and Nokia C1-00. Last time, I seen a light colored C3-00 and this time, it was my favorite black one here. Must say, that is the best thing you could gift someone, who don’t care about high end things like Maps or Internet and for later on..  it got wi-fi on it.

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Nokia C1-00 was the phone, the NPD guy was actually selling to someone right then, when I reached. I didn’t asked the price, though took the dummy of same in hands once to take a feel of it. Felt something like Nokia 2600 from past.

By the way, the journey to that Nokia Priority dealer was completely guided by Ovi Maps.

Ovi Maps

Though at a moment, I was completely frustrated by the fact that why Nokia India chosen to provide dealership to such an interiorly location shop than the earlier bigger shop that was located in Laxmi Nagar Main Market.

I must say, even if you are in around 50 meters away from the place, it might happen that stupid people out there will say that they never heard of the address I am talking about. You need maps in your phone, take your preference, go Nokia, go Ovi or go Android and go Google…. but have a GPS enabled phone for sure.

 

So, this was the story of my visit to a Nokia Priority dealer today. Hope it will solve many of the queries from you people and will save a visit on your behalf. Have a nice time waiting for Nokia N8. Keep tuned in.

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Nokia X7-00, Full QWERY coming?

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So my laziness took the crown of talking about Nokia X7-00 first and MobileGeekInc spotted the same in Ovi Store today. So, like I was already talking about rest of the devices coming from Nokia this year, after Nokia E6-00 and Tablet S, now I am back again to talk over Nokia X7-00.

X-Series was dedicated to Music as per new naming convention by Nokia but you must have spotted something else as well…. Sharp edges and rectangular builds, while C-Series seems to has curves on border, that’s a signature for X-Series.

Nokia XSeries 

So, that’s the start to build up the profile that what we have in our hands for certain, when we talk about Nokia X7-00. Oh Yes! like the last two posts, its again a calculated guess on what Nokia X7-00 would be rather than what it is or some leak… no its not a leak or insider info.

If you check the link, then you see that Angry Bird Lite is available for Nokia X7-00 that confirms Symbian^3 as operating system, means almost certain 3.5” multi-touch capacitive and may be CBD display (if we believe the pattern).

And by the way, before you get started on me, let me tell you.. the pics shown is actually Sony Xperia X1 and I have placed that here only for the purpose to show that how it would look like.

Why a Keypad?

Because, X-Series has not any till now and sure with touch-n-type devices, they know that people still shout for keypad. While looking at XPERIA X1, I really thought that if something has to become X7-00, then that would be like that. It makes perfect sense.

So, as a list, following are the things that one should expect from Nokia X7-00

  • 3.5” (may be 4”) Capacitive with CBD Display packed into rectangular build like other X-Series

  • 4 row QWERTY Sliding keypad without hinge like Nokia N97 mini .. flat only

  • Symbian^3 OS packed with some standard goodies

  • An 8MP EDOF camera with HD Recording support

  • Scratch-proof ionized Aluminum build like we seen on Nokia N8, E7 and C7.

  • A fully mature multi-touch capacitive screen (may be even a stylus) protected by Gorilla Glass.

  • ARM 11 600 MHz (Nokia getting generous, but not that to provide Cortex). No GPU

  • 256 MB RAM, 512 MB NAND, 350 MB user storage, 8 GB internal memory and support for 32Gb MicroSD.

  • Full fledge A-GPS making use of Ovi Maps services, 3G and WiFi on it from the very first version.

  • Full fledge Bluetooth 3.0 capable of connecting Keyboard and mouse in it

  • No HDMI, though Dolby sound still on board

Just this? Then why didn’t they released this till now?

Good point!!

At least three or four devices pending and as per the tradition and the bulk launches always had some common connection between them. Like launch of C3, C6 and E5 had new Nokia Messaging solutions as theme, while Symbian^3 was the theme, when they announced N8, C7, E7, C6-01 (Early N8 launch was mistimed due to provoke).

So, there must be some common connection between all the upcoming devices. MeeGo?? Might be, but Angry Bird is available for Symbian^3 only and its open for X7-00, so that shouldn’t be the possibility. Then what it would be?

If you ask me, then as their tag line saying now days, “Its not the technology, but its what we do with it”, very likely it has to do something with the services offering. Might be, we haven’t seen some bigger fruit of Yahoo-Nokia partnership yet and it has to do something with that. Yahoo coming with some Music Service? May be. That indoor navigation? No!! that was a experiment stuff, not very practical to arrive soon..

But it has to be bigger than this… something such bigger that Nokia is thinking of tuning all the tables. You should have reasons to get excited.

Once we get to know that common link, many things will be revealed about upcoming Nokia E6-00 and Nokia N9-00. So, offer me your best guesses please.

What you say? …..

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1Tb USB HDD in Layman’s house, gearing up for Nokia N8, You?

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As I wrote few days back, I am looking for purchasing kind of too many things like Nokia N8, one backup non-touch device for it (E5 or E72), an external 1Tb USB HDD and a tablet (may be iPad). Finally the first available and easy one arrived at Layman’s house.

Definitely USB OTG will be a core selling point for Nokia devices from now on and may be they will set it as a minimum standard for others too. One of the amazing features of Nokia N8 as we seen was capability to support plug and play of more than 1Tb external drives. Means no worry, when we push the limits of making HD videos and fill up even then huge available space.

I have made the first step for Nokia N8, bought a Seagate 3.5” External USB HDD of 1Tb

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I already had an external 1Tb drive that I bought back in September 2009 in Rs. 5600, but that time, maximum External HDD storage available without power adapter was 500 Gb, so I was to buy that with an Adapter and so that was a big one and kind of much less portable. but this one…

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Its sure has a little bulk upon it, if we compare it with the size of 500 Gb one, but sure with a size of 3.5”, one could bear that. Its little pricy than the adapter one and took Rs. 6700/- from me. But in comparison with the convenience, it will provide to me with upcoming Nokia N8, that price would be nothing.

What else I should think about buying? An HDMI LCD Screen?

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Layman’s take on Nokia C5

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Finally after a loooong delay, Nokia C5-00 reached to Layman’s take today. I already heard and knew many things about it before even taking it in my own hands, but having it in hands for a while was just another feeling. After all, this was the phone that already had bring many of my non-tech friends in the smart phone genre.

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I remember my days of entering into Smartphone genre….. not many years ago and smart phone were something else, something pricy like today’s touch phones are. There was nothing like 3G in India and not even Ovi Maps/ Google Maps were that much famous (or might be my circle was not aware of that much). Criteria of buying a phone was just the call quality and music performance. Then some people like me, who wasn’t wishing to go for an E and wanted mails etc as well, chosen to go with Nokia N70, leaving cheaper N72 and N73 (which might have been a better decision).

Few years gone and everything has changed now. Social integration, A-GPS, IMs. Emails and most importantly 3G has became the new minimum. With a price tag of 7.5k, more than a Smart phone, Nokia C5-00 is a question that why you still wanna be with a dumb phone?

Its not going to be a review of kind provided the short stay of device with me, so for that thing, you could check out posts from AAS here and from CJ here. Its just about few of my impressions about the device.

Who should buy Nokia C5-00? Categories might be many, but I wish to target two kind of people here, who would find C5-00 interesting piece for purchase.

1. If you never had a smart phone ever and wont mind buying something better, if no where costing more.

Why you are thinking about buying a phone in some 5k without some proper brand name and with compromised features, when you can spend 7.5k for everything?

ARM 600 MHz processor (‘Current’ flagship Nokia N97 had 434 MHz processor)
128 MB RAM (Its a Symbian means still 50MB of RAM available on boot)
3G with 10 mbps download and 2mbps upload
S60 V3 FP2 (the same OS, I seen in Nokia N86 and will be coming with Nokia E5-00)
S60 means seamless multi-tasking means running many apps together and switching between them
A-GPS with free life time navigation Ovi Maps 3.04 (You need to update, not out of box)
2 GB MicroSD included in package and 16 GB maximum support for hot swap MicroSD

Tell me, if anywhere else, you are getting all these things with a price tag like this.

2. If you already have a high specs smart phone and looking for a simple yet elegant backup device.

We all love to take part in debates over Smart phones. We fight for the reason, one should love touch phones or non-touch. We argue about what features a phone should has and what should be left, but end of day, at the most minimum, phones are something to make calls, send messages and may be even updating your twitter/ facebook with geo-tags. Tell me, if anything more you wanted if left with no choice.

We all face situations, when our phone goes dismay and needs Service center or might be situations, when for any reason, our ‘high specs’ refuses to work in the way, we wanted it to do, then we run for the phone, we bought for our wife/ dad/ mom or little kid, who didn’t knew that what to want from a phone and put our SIM into that to take a breath. But what minimum even we ‘geeks’ want?

Nokia C5-00 serves you as a 3G modem, not to forget, even if you leave the profits of A-GPS on board.

Some first impressions after taking it in hands

The Build

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Such a light (just 89.3g) and yet solid device it is. Nokia E52 and Nokia E72 been like minimal standards for me for any of the solid design and even with some plastic on it, this thing completely surprised me. With a metal border surrounding the whole build and then metal plate covering the battery, this all make you feel very safe, Specially when you see it from front, then its just metal apart from keypad.

Display

The size of display is 2.2” here, while I have been with 2.4” most of the time and it was likeable when I was with 2.6” of Nokia N86. The same resolution on a smaller screen sometimes feel a little hard about fine print. The display of Nokia C5-00 seems to have a bit better brightness than the other handsets I might have seen in this range, but when I read tweets in gravity, then it seems a little bit hard over eyes.

May be my personal opinion, but its making some sense to keep the resolution of 240 x 320 for 2.4” now.

The keypad

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Even if the looks didn’t impresses much, the keypad is such a gem. The tactile feedback and effortless typing is such smooth that I started thinking that why I liked keypad of Nokia E52 more. I bet you can go on typing message on it for hours and still your fingers wont hurt. Wonder what they put inside, sponge?

Connectivity 

This thing is a bundle of joy with providing you all levels of connectivity and it can seriously hit the sales of Nokia E52 for people, who don’t care about the smaller screen.

For God sake, this beast has free life time navigation and upto 10 mbps high data speed that even my all time beloved Nokia N82 always dreams about.

Operating System and social integration

May be people saying nasty things about, when it comes to real thing on non-touch Symbian never had an alternative. My Nokia N82 did all whatever I wanted from it and I loved it when I seen Nokia N86 operating system doing better. Nokia C5-00 got the same operating system as was with Nokia N86 and so stands my detailed post about customizations of it.

Home screen with vertical standby and choice of contact bar, its right there, when you talk about latest. I hate you Nokia that why you can’t provide the OS upgrade to older but capable devices like Nokia N82 in the same way Apple or Google doing.

The facebook integration is something like we always wished. A free app that makes your contacts alive. You don’t need to place pics for your contacts anymore and even status messages from facebook will keep on following your contacts. Though what I badly missed here is the fact that it doesn’t seem to bringing anything more like Birthday syncing etc. It would have been a nice addition and I am sure not a very hard thing to do with Facebook APIs.

I also like the fact the way, transition effects are placed here. Not sure, if they were there in Nokia N86, but at least Nokia doing transitions like somewhere.

I tried a short little video in hurry. Sorry it was all blurry ..

Camera and LED Flash

When one might been with Nokia N82 for long, then it becomes impossible for any other mobile camera to satisfy you and even more than the Xenon Flash, what I missed badly was autofocus. Macro mode wasn’t even available in Camera settings. Is it with all Full Focus and even EDof cameras? Dammn!! I am throwing Nokia E7 likes of 8MP camera in dust bin.

Well!! I wont say that the camera was crap, it works enough well, when you talk about things placed after a feet (25 cm to be precise). It got even the panorama mode that isn’t here with Nokia N82 though there is shortcomings in panorama version of Nokia C5-00 due to absence of accelerometer, but still its right there and it works.

Well!! let me admit it, even if we crave and crib for non-Xenon Flash all the time, on the another side, we love the video light facility that only LED flash facilitate.

What annoyed me about Nokia C5?

Memory I really think that one should make 128 MB internal memory as a minimum now. Your Windows XP with its updates takes not more than 7Gb’s, but will you like if your vendor provides a C: drive with 7.5Gb?

50 Mb seems so low specially considering the fact that the installation of Ovi Maps 3.04 takes additional 8 mb from whatever remains from 50mb.

No extra keys At one side, you might like the minimalistic design, but no camera key somewhat diminishes some chances neither does it has a gallery key. I felt big troubles while trying to set up a shortcut key for Best Screen snap.

SIM Slot Its exactly not annoyance, but its like missing something after coming so close. Check the below pics

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When you see the SIM location above the battery, then at the first sight you get excited that you can change the SIM without taking the battery out, but its not … you just can’t. May be the reason that Nokia knew if they would have provided this then people will ask for hot swappable SIM. Isn’t it?

Nokia Messaging with NO default HTML view yet again Its getting out of every logic now and really demand a proper explanation from Nokia and their developers. What are they thinking of themselves that continuously ignoring such a small thing.

Nokia E52, Nokia E72, Nokia C5 and even Nokia E5, why there is no option of default HTML view? Why we need to open up that crap option of opening mail in web? When we can have it in older sets like Nokia N82, then what stopping you from providing it in firmwares for the devices that are dedicated for emails?

So, this was Nokia C5-00 from the eyes of Layman. Anything more you wanna know?

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar