Nokia fights back with E7, C7, C6-01 and Much more – Part 2

Continuing from my post covering impressions of Nokia World 2010 …

Nokia’s best ever and the first touch screen E-Series Flagship E7-00 The design of this handset been out since a long while making rounds of rumors that it could be Nokia N9, I always said it can’t be and I had many reasons of my own. Reasons for confusion were the touch screen itself.

Nokia E-Series were always meant to be business people and business people were tend to have focus on crystal clear connectivity, pocketability, durability and ultra-long battery life. But it was becoming more and more impossible for even business people to be completely away from touch screens in the way, many business oriented features were becoming touch-only or more productive on touch.

After iPad started taking some of the sales in Business streets even after its bigger size against pocketibility, it was like a stone on heart that was to break down some day and should say probably BlackBerry was first to take the call by announcing Torch. Nokia came to say that why not the big daddy of family should have the biggest of the game rather than buying expensive phones for kids only?

nokia-e7_3

Just take a look over the pics above and you find it beyond a beauty that could be easily described, specially when you know its a Nokia means you are assured that it got no compromises under the hood and will be as powerful as are its looks. And if after Antennagate, people started tending to think that compact design means compromise with signal and Antenna then Nokia has just one three word answer “Its an E”

Let me try to go into details of Nokia E7-00 (RM-626) though it seems hard for me as the urge to get one is so troubling as I know I have not even received words about Nokia C6, Nokia N8 or Nokia C7 from @WomworldNokia neither E7 gonna release by this year 😦

 nokia-e7-540 nokia-e7_white3

Exteriors, pocketibility and durability Like I was talking in my post two days back, if Nokia really thinking that they are on a downward slope and wanna get a real come back in big way, then they don’t have to just make out some figures here and there or just to offer some mouth watering prices, they have to bang some real hard, need to accomplish something that no one else would have come closer or even could dare to come in next few months.

The design and build of Nokia E7 shown really such a commitment and aggression. Just think that Nokia N8 is just 0.7mm slimmer than this one, when there is no physical keypad. With closed slide, Nokia E7-00 just look like a bigger screen version of Nokia N8 without showing any un-necessary sign that it hides a best ever keypad of planet inside it. Once you open it, you find people bow down in respect.

Definitely, if a touch phone would have slipped in pockets of CEOs and CTOs, then it couldn’t have been something more slimmer, compact and super effective like Nokia E7-00. Would you mind, if a gorgeous 4” super responsive multi-touch screen serves as your all-in-one smartphone-cum-tablet-cum-tourguide-cum-handycam in this much compact form?

We have dimensions of 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6 mm with 104.9cc and 176g weight (considerably higher than Nokia N8, 41g). My Nokia N82 has a weight of 114g with 17.3mm and Nokia N900 had 181g with 18mm, so even if we got a slimmer device here, don’t expect it to be lighter in any sense. You gonna have a solid piece of metal in your hand that will effectively working for hitting someone hard, if you find any trouble. LOL

If wanna more praises for the build then one should not only see the tilted screen like Nokia N97 mini, but also the redesigned and pronounced as super perfect keypad of Nokia E7-00.

N900-E7

You can see that the new keypad design of Nokia E7-00 makes very decent use of additional space provided due to a 4” screen, more evenly spaced big keys and a much bigger space bar. Can you still make a complaint?

The only thing that worries me is the thing that many even praise, the titled slide mechanism. I was worried about it with my Nokia N97 Mini trial as well and feel same here. What if someone drops his E7-00 badly with Slide open? I think horizontal slide of Nokia N900 was more robust with such use cases.

Update: As Brendan posted, look like I was worrying for no reasons. Nokia is always known for being solid. I remember when my old Nokia 3310 was hanging and hitting from a bicycle for half an hour and still I just got only battery cover, keypad out. It seems that even tilted slide is also same strong.

But on the other side, tilted sliding screen means easy to read while typing without bending your head over the device, if you put that on table and start typing. So, people have reasons to find more charm in tilted screens.

Display from here the confusions started, people think that why Nokia didn’t went with doing hand-to-hand with Apple offering a higher resolution or at least Nokia N900’s resolution, when they have such a big screen? Even if they convince themselves somehow then Nokia itself bring new question that why not at least CBD like they already given to rest of two devices announced on the same day?

Yes! there is no limit of what one will be wishing from a device and there is sure a compromise, whatever Nokia designer may give excuse for. I had seen Nokia N900 in 800×480 and I know that everything look smooth over it. Is it something related to Symbian itself that we never getting anything more than 640×360?

Nokia E7-00 sports 24 bit colors, 640×360 resolution, AMOED display and obviously big 4” size, which is entitled to do wonder with GPU available with 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support.

Processor, memory etc Though people are pushing higher for snapdragon, but Nokia still continues with 680 MHz. One should think that Symbian provides full multi-tasking at its best even on 600 MHz devices, which other ‘leading’ and ‘advanced’ OS not able to do even after having 1GHz processors. Not only MHz matters.

When we move over memory specifications, then it becomes more clear that Nokia E7-00 was never geared to take on Nokia N8, but came in just to cater needs of other genre.

We find same 350 mb max user storage, 16Gb internal memory, 256 MB RAM and 1 GB NAND. Have I missed something? No!! its not me, its Nokia, who missed inclusion of MicroSD card. Blame the same design decisions that took the liberty of battery changing away for keeping the dimensions insanely slim. So, no MicroSD card Support in Nokia E7-00.

I will say that USB On the GO might become the big reason of loosing MicroSD cards support in many devices soon and sure a place, where a manufacturer could think of compromising now. But sure, many will feel annoy as it makes you to have three things in pocket; A cable, A pen drive and Nokia E7. There are reasons to be annoyed.

Connectivity While the other two devices were the budget editions in their ways, being the flagship of E-Series, Nokia E7-00 had no reasons to keep a break over connectivity options. So, from pentaband to Bluetooth 3.0, from USB OTG (Nokia Adapter Cable for USB OTG CA-157Connector) to HDMI (Nokia Adapter Cable for HDMI CA-156), you find everything here so that you may not feel any missing connectivity option with it. Same richness, when we talk about security features and protocols supported, Nokia E7-00 is always one step ahead of whatever you might have seen in a Nokia E (Except battery life, will discuss later).

Other advanced features Ovi Maps, free navigation, USB OTG kind of things becoming kind of granted now, when we talk about high end Nokia, same about software’s like Quick Office Premium and Adobe PDF.

What’s not here is 2mm charging and FM-transmitter. Rest everything, you would have seen in other two devices, find a place here in Nokia E7.

Lovely is HTML Emails part, which Nokia E72 been craving since like decades. Such a big screen is sure powerhouse and complete solution for all kind of business needs. People will really come to think if they need to buy Netbooks.

This is also expected to have much important features like remote lock and wipe and may be many more will come out in news as the day progresses. Marketing works that way.

Multimedia, Camera It was Nokia that started that even Business Phones should have best of cameras and others are just trying to catch up now. But still we found only E72 as the best attempt on camera from Nokia side.

Many found themselves frustrated to hear about a camera of 8 MP without auto-focus. If just that was included then without any doubt sales of Nokia E7 might have beating Nokia N8 and business oriented people weren’t having any doubt in mind.

While Nokia E72 was able to focus in range 10cm to infinity, we are stuck with 50 cm to infinity for Nokia E7-00. I don’t mind not having Dual LED in place of Xenon here, but Business phones should be able to take close scan like images of documents. That’s a huge use case. We really feel like 8 MP wasted here even if its not that disappointing in comparison to others (Samsung SGS don’t even have Flash leave focus/ auto-focus aside).

Still like rest of two devices, it can record 1280 x 720 videos @25fps with video digital zoom of 3x. Aperture here is f/2.8. Why no one thought about variable aperture again after Nokia N86?

Power management Here comes the critical part, when one wishes to make a Touch Screen Business Smartphone. Nokia E-Series phones were meant to have insane battery lives with 1500 mAh batteries and E72 had 13 hours of talktime, but sure when you have a 4” screen, then compromises will be on the way.

GSM Talk Time up to 9.0 hours
WCDMA Talk Time up to 5.0 hours
GSM Standby Time up to 18 days
WCDMA Standby Time up to 20 days

Honestly, if we think about others, then even the above stats look awesome, but as per Nokia E-Series standards, sure its not exactly on the mark and real test will begin when the device would be out.

Not to mention, it was impossible to provide a replaceable battery in this dimension. Face it, you can’t have it all. A super slim device and that too with moving part, can’t work.

Price The price point is real huge at 495 EUR means 631 USD or 30, 000 INR and will not attract buyers that easily as Nokia N8, C7 and C6-01 would be making, but sure this is a device that many geeks will look for. I just wish, if Nokia wouldn’t have compromised on Camera, though I know making this much slimmer device was real hard.

Wanna see how Nokia E7 will look like?

Or even Hands on …

So, this was all about Nokia E7-00 first impressions, many thing will come out in more clear in next days and may be new Nokia PUSH will make its debut presentation on one. So many things have to be seen yet.

It has gone bigger than expected, but my post is not finished yet. Still things to talk about are services and those 3D glasses, but I guess, now I will be back by next day night only. So, till then ..

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

Nokia fights back with E7, C7, C6-01 and much more – Part 1

So, finally the big day came for which we were waiting since many months. Many expectations, many rumors, a few set backs and much excitement around, it was great to see #NokiaWorld trending worldwide finally. The big day really shown Nokia in a fighting shape-n-senses and we loved the way that they said they are no Apple or Samsung, they are Nokia and a Nokia will remain Nokia.

Like many other mates, I wasn’t lucky to be at home and sitting closely to internet watching all excitement minute by minute, but thanks to my lovely Nokia N82, MTNL 3G, Gravity and my awesome timeline, I was never out of the game and things happening right there at Nokia World 2010. Even took sneak peaks of videos as well over my really Smart phone and sure I was the first one to nod my head when they said its Nokia, who really made phones smart and invented smart phones. I was the example holding just my phone, dead busy in office routine and still connected with something happening in another time zone (different by four and half an hour).

Let’s bore you with my words on what happened there at Nokia World 2010 and what’s my Layman’s take on the new devices announced there on day one.

The keynotes Not only me, but many others were shaken by departure of two big names and removal of one of them from speaker’s list for Nokia World 2010. Many eyes were set that how Anssi will hold the stage, when he is here for six more months only, but when he took the stage, he took it with the same fire, the Nokia promised to fight back sometimes back.

It was probably the first time, when any Nokia World would have heard competitor’s name this much frequently. They went behind Apple for stealing their slogan of “Connecting People” in their event, mentioned that Nokia devices always performed best in every condition unlike others and most importantly they reminded the world that they are not going to follow any Apple or Samsung, they are Nokia and will be Nokia.

I really liked the way Anssi took the stage and taken people all over with his big voice that everyone forgot about the worries that what after him. What a great man!! we all will miss you Anssi and will hope to have you back till the last day.

For proving the point that Nokia is Nokia and will be a Nokia, nothing could have been better than showing off three new Symbian^3 devices, when most of the people expected some MeeGo there. That put an end over rumors that Nokia N8 is the last Symbian device and next Flagships will go MeeGo only.

Like many of us felt somewhere inside, Anssi made the point that people at Nokia and Symbian feel bad, when by just looking at the screenshots, people start saying that Oh!! its the old Symbian without even checking it out in their hands. Its just not the widgets and fonts that make some OS, its what it can do and what you can do with it. Symbian is still the biggest mobile OS of the planet and has every reason to continue the legacy being the only one with Multi-Tasking (I don’t count other’s shit as multi-tasking without any argument).

Lets meet the super stars of the show that are told to see the real sunlight by Q4 of the same year..

Nokia’s Slimmest C7-00 Yes!! like the tradition has became, none of the events coming with completely surprising devices due to leaks all around. We already have seen some views of this device sometimes back, but then there were many things, which were not noticed in details, let’s check out that what special about Nokia C7-00 (RM-675) …

Sometimes back, I talked that what’s going wrong about Nokia and what could have been done to bring them back and with Nokia C7, the slimmest of Nokia till date, they seem to be addressing many of the things.

Either people admit it or not, the very first thing to attract people was the slimmest design that they maintained even till now. The challenges behind that kind of design were the compromises that it takes… Like fixed battery, hard to integrate superior cameras and designing an Antenna that works flawlessly like the name of Nokia.

It was bound to take its time and when even Nokia N8 finally took the compromise of keeping battery and same was followed by Nokia E7 as well, it was Nokia C7 that emerged as pioneer to maintain 10.5mm width (11.8 mm around the camera area though) but removable batteries.

Lets know more about Nokia C7-00 …

Exteriors Many said that it reminds something of Samsung, but its just the curvy looks, otherwise when dimensions of 117.3 x 56.8 x 10.5 mm with 64 cc volume and 130 g weight come to hold the biggest of features like it has, then we call it phenomenon than just some look a like. Moreover, the stainless steel looks make you feel some premium thing for real.

Display 24 bit colors, 3.5” AMOLED screen, the latest Clear Black Display technology to beat retina display and I am still trying to figure out that which kind of glasses it has, Gorilla? When you know that it got graphics processor having 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support, then sure there remains no reason not to be eager about its arrival. The resolution might be 360 x 640, but still the people out there posted very positive comments about comparison of this with Retinna display.

Update: got confirmed that Nokia C7-00 doesn’t has CBD in it

Processor, memory etc Same 680 MHz Single CPU ARM, 256 MB RAM, huge 1GB NAND, 350 MB maximum user storage and 8GB internal storage though greedy will still crave for 512 MB RAM, but provided that this thing gonna arrive in probably less than 20k INR, many would run madly behind it. Don’t forget apart from huge 8GB storage, you always have option of adding up to 32 GB microSD (not sure if hot swappable, but likely its not).

Connectivity USB OTG seems to be becoming core part of upcoming Symbian devices and I feel pity about Apple fan-boys as they are already unanswered about Bluetooth file transfer till now, when even $30 Nokia has it. OSB OTG would never come even in their wild dreams.

Pentaband frequency support, EDGE Class B, EGPRS, HSDPA Cat9 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps, WCDMA, WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS and TV-Out, you only miss HDMI here, otherwise what else you could have bargained for?

Other advanced features New socially aware Ovi Maps 3.06 backed by improved A-GPS unit on it, MicroUSB works for charging as well along with standard 2mm charger, special connectivity cable CA-179, 2 Microphones, Accelerometer Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Compass (Magnetometer Sensor), proximity sensor, you really run out of thoughts that what more to ask for a trimmed (?) down Nokia N8.

Like same video editor, Nokia Messaging and even better Social Integration as on Nokia N8, I am expecting them to keep Doc\ PDF viewer in the package that there seems no denial for the same.

Multimedia, Camera Must say, people feel disappointed here. It gets 8MP, it gets full focus, it gets 3264 x 2448 pixels, its gets 28mm focal length, it gets f/2.4 aperture, but what’s exciting, if you can’t get close to 100 cm? I am really confused about the post from @aas, where its marked as having Auto Focus, as it seems untrue to me. Will try to get it confirmed soon.

But yes! you are reading right. 100 cm. I checked  many times on their forum page. The focus range of Nokia C7-00 is 100 cm to infinity that seems to be an epic failure and makes its camera ordinary like any of iPhone or those Samsung Galaxy S. What about those Macro shots that I used to take with my Nokia N82 or took with Nokia N86?

But Nokia C7-00 is still strong when it comes to video. It doesn’t got Xenon and works with Dual LED means you could expect video light for sure and also it goes 30 fps with 640×480 recording and 25 fps with 1280 x 720, if anyone could beat it, then it would be Nokia N8 only.

Good thing is, we don’t miss any of Nokia N8 goodies like our Video Call, Video Editor, Video Sharing, Video Stabilization, Video Streaming or FM-Transmitter.

Special thing to be seen will be support for media like xVid, Divx and mkv etc, which will sure follow footprints of Nokia N8.

Power management With Nokia’s recent love with BL-5K 3.7V 1200mAh batteries, people really wonder that how big these devices gonna make in real life. Nokia C7-00 specs sure shows big promises.

GSM Talk Time up to 9.6 hours
WCDMA Talk Time up to 5.3 hours
GSM Standby Time up to 23 days
WCDMA Standby Time up to 27 days
Video Playback Time up to 6.4 hours
Video Recording Time up to 3.8 hours
Video Call Time up to 2.6 hours
Music Playback Time up to 2 days
Navigation Time up to 6.0 hours

Have you noticed the huge 2 days music playback? Definitely Nokia seems to have tweaked their OS big time under the hood, which making me very eager to hold one of those.

Price A price point of 427 USD or 20, 200 INR sure gonna boost some big sales figure for Nokia, when it brings almost all the promises made by Nokia N8 in a lower price.

They calling it a social device, let’s see some of it.

Nokia’s redesigned C6-01 This really triggered a big time confusion, when everyone on stage kept on naming it Nokia C6 and people were confused as Nokia C6 with qwerty already taking rounds of globe. Definitely this naming system gonna bring much confusion in the market and one of my friend rightly said, people will start calling it as C600 or C601 rather than calling C6 only. While none of people were sure that what are they talking about, things started getting clear, when they shown that its nowhere a variant of Nokia C6 and has much more features, brand new Symbian^3 and no qwerty with it.

Lets know some more about Nokia C6-01 (RM-624 or RM-718 not sure)

 

Exteriors Having a dimension of 103.8 x 52.5 x 13.9 mm with 65cc volume and 131 g weight, this 3.2” multi-touch device sure ahead of all budget touch smart phones presented by Nokia at this size. You might say that Nokia E7 is slimmer than it, but remember Nokia X6 or Nokia 5800 or Nokia C6… it will rule its segment with these looks for sure.

Display 24 bit colors, 3.2” AMOLED screen, the latest Clear Black Display technology like Nokia C7 and same time, it also got graphics processor having 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Nokia really seems to have understood the worth of having GPU inside. Resolution is same 360×480, but remember again, its CBD display.

Processor, memory etc Surprisingly same 680 MHz Single CPU ARM, 256 MB RAM, huge 1GB NAND, 340 MB maximum user storage and no internal storage. It has the same up to 32GB support for microSD card, but this time, its sure hot swappable.

Connectivity USB OTG is again part of the magic bag and so it Bluetooth 3.0.

List goes exactly same with Pentaband frequency support, EDGE Class B, EGPRS, HSDPA Cat9 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps, WCDMA, WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, A-GPS and TV-Out, again no HDMI for this mid-range device as expected.

Other advanced features Again the list goes the same with just a smaller screen experience here. New socially aware Ovi Maps 3.06 backed by improved A-GPS unit on it, MicroUSB again works for charging as well along with standard 2mm charger, same special connectivity cable CA-179, single Microphone this time, Accelerometer Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Compass (Magnetometer Sensor) and proximity sensor, Nokia really has raised the bar, when it comes to connectivity.

As Nokia seems to include its video editor for free in all of its coming capable devices like this one, it will sure mount big time pressure for iMovie to go free very soon and Google running for putting some real app for video editing.

Multimedia, Camera I must say, I am really feeling confused here in mid of terms like Auto Focus, EDOF and Full Focus etc as this one is just EDOF that stands below than but still it gets a better focus range of 50cm to infinity. It gets 8MP, it gets EDOF, it gets 3264 x 2448 pixels, its gets 28mm focal length, it gets f/2.8 (C7 had f/2.4) aperture, but again you are not going close enough than 50 cm.

Is it end of era for Macro shots on mid range devices? Is this will remain a premium feature for Nokia N82, N86, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia N900 and Nokia N8 likes?

For videos, it again goes 25 fps with 1280 x 720, is anyone else thinking about a flood of videos coming soon on youtube? Google, if you listening it, then start working on upgrade of your Youtube servers.

No one was expecting FM-transmitter in this price and sure it doesn’t has that, but still video editor is included as I mentioned in last para.

Power management Surprisingly this device doesn’t has Nokia’s recent love BL-5K 3.7V 1200mAh batteries, but it finds BL-5CT 3.7V 1050mAh this time and as are the official promise, then you really feel hugely impressed.

GSM Talk Time up to 11.5 hours
WCDMA Talk Time up to 4.5 hours
GSM Standby Time up to 18 days
WCDMA Standby Time up to 16 days
Video Playback Time up to 6.0 hours
Video Recording Time up to 4.0 hours
Music Playback Time up to 2 days

Nokia started with 1 day music playback standards, when they announced XpressMusic series and now they are all set to make the standard of 2 days. Any Samsung or Apple fanboys daring to compete?

Price The price point this time is 260 EUR means 331 USD or 15, 400 INR at which Nokia C6-00 is expected to be sold. I am sure that till launch this price will go a little higher, but eventually when it will be selling in 15k INR, its gonna be another hot cake like Nokia 5800 been once.

Are the teenagers going to get another toy and wont bug their parents for iPhones anymore?

It was really going long, so I thought to make it in two parts. The next part will cover the best of these three, Nokia E7 itself, few words over new Ovi Maps, new Developer’s App signing process, new Ovi Store and finally what those 3D glasses were for.

Keep tuned in …

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

Nokia World 2010 is tomorrow

September 14-16, 2010, days that were due to get a place in history seem a little shattered after two unexpected news like departure of OPK and seemingly biggest setback after resign of Anssi Vanjoki today. But is it really as you see it or you still should hope bigger now?

I will divide my post in three parts here: few worlds about Nokia world, what we could expect from Nokia world and finally few words over these disruptions happened just before the days.

Nokia World 2010

Nokia world been the biggest date for Nokia in last all years. Nokia lovers and bloggers always keep on waiting for this date. Last Nokia World events been marks of Nokia N900, Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia X6 likes. Always known for displaying new devices, definitely, Nokia World sure has so many reasons for making people to hold their purchases before the big announcements might happen that day.

More than that Nokia world been a place, where Nokia Enthusiasts find a place to meet people, whom they knew from posts but not in person. Many new friendships begin, many new ideas take shapes and many many more memories.

Womworld/Nokia been a bit too busy in arranging the invites and other activities around this biggest festival of Nokia. Though its very unfortunate that due to short notice and VISA issues, two only attendees of Nokia World from India CJ and Dhruv weren’t able to make it, but was that the end of story?

September 13, 2010 and many of us from India started receiving parcels from Womworld …

When opened then there was a black bag inside with Nokia World 2010 printed on it with a cheering note that says Let’s all get together

Yeah! after taking the packet in hands anyone would have been clear that its not gonna be some device inside it, but when I seen Nokia World 2010, then it reminded me of the last event, we shared moments with Nokia. Am I going to see some another cryptic message? One could be dammn sure about it otherwise, why they would have sent such a big parcel? But hey! there was a T-Shirt inside it (And thanks God! this time its not XL size at least, still large but fine) and also was an access card inside saying access to all areas (I swear, I was just saying to my colleague in morning that when I would be having one access card of Nokia).

13092010796

But the most interesting part was the five funny glasses that I found inside …

Not only access card, but T-Shirt itself cool with the tie imprinted on it.

FunnyLooking funny? I bet, I was going to look much better, if I was really there.

While, I am trying my best to guess that what purpose these glasses going to serve tomorrow, can anyone else point me out something? 3D glasses? I tried watching some 3D movies in my HDD, but didn’t felt anything .. or may be reason is that I never used any 3D glass ever.

What we could expect from Nokia World 2010

There is really no limits that one could expect from something. We make expectations that they get thrilled if they really come true like it was last time, when we figured out some of the things hours before they could have actually unveiled. This time, its tougher.

Nokia N9 Each pair of the eyes, which are going there will be looking out for only this name, which been under main part of conversations since people started talking about Nokia World 2010. What it would be? What it should be? Is it be exactly like we think? Is it gonna steal all the limelight from Nokia N8 as always bigger devices used to do or Nokia will let N8 live its part of fame for more long?

Nokia Tablet running MeeGo Why not a tablet? After success of iPads almost everyone running into the same game, then why not the company, who could do the best about it. Nokia N900 was sure serving very well as a tablet too. Timing is right and would be more awesome, if they could combine that will some 10” screen and 3D technology that they were working in mid 2009, which will enable people to see 3D content without using any glasses. With 3D kind of glasses in swag, there is a big reason for this possibility.

Nokia E7 The launch of Blackberry torch must have provided Nokia the boost around the fact that people are thinking of touch phones as business phones now. A phone with big 4” touch screen with full four row horizontal QWERTY could be all a business person might be looking for to leave Notebook and Netbooks very far behind. Sure, the timing is right for that.

OS, Services and Apps There was a time, when everyone thought that technology is meant to develop more and more powerful hardware only and then Bill Gates came and changed the whole perspective about software world. Now, its something similar is happening, where we seen so many apps floating around here and there and so many web services. Nokia has to adopt this in one way or another, if their Symbian is not able to adopt, then it has to MeeGo. Question is how and since when? No one wanna hear any other answer than tomorrow.

Few words over disruptions before Nokia World

Whatever you say, no one can deny the fact that timings of these two big departure have caught up Nokia in a very odd time. As you can see in the video, irrespective of what the old CEO says, its clear that it wasn’t very much expected to him, whatever happened. Though its also true that its been months, since when we been hearing that Nokia Directors wanna make some big overhauling in their management team.

 

Question is what emergency came that Nokia made such a big decision when their biggest date of year is about to happen? And what’s going on behind the curtain, when Anssi Vanjoki also resigns just one day before the big date?

Definitely things are out of control inside Nokia and even if we want then we can’t deny it. It seems that there is a fight between business and innovation. Its clear that Nokia not feeling very right about its position in market right now and also ready to do any thing for keeping the profit levels rights which are sinking now days for their low cost handsets.

May be some people at highest post of Nokia are not feeling comfortable with giving out free services like Navigation, when they given more than 8 millions for buying Navteq or may be its Nokia’s hard backing of Symbian and refusal to adopt Android, when whole world seems to moving in that side of world, might be making big argument from inside as well or may be its just slow developments at their side to cope up with the innovations coming up.. from outside, we just could make the guesses from here.

We know that we wont get the exact reasons ever, but we just don’t wanna see this company go on path of Apple or Microsoft to be a money making machine rather than technology leader, which seems to be happening taking the hints from these abrupt changes. My mind just keep on saying that don’t be right!! don’t be right!! We are still with Nokia in the way they are, wanna improve them, but still wanna shout that there is nothing as wrong as changing the whole things.

Let’s we all wait for knowing that what going to happen in next two days…

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

Indian Railways Reservation Website got an awesome makeover

[tweetmeme source=”mrnitishkumar” only_single=”false”]

Nope! I am not talking about some icons here and there or some new colors, its just not about the theme, the official website of biggest Railways network of the world got a really big makeover from today. Its not a regular thing that some of the innovation from Govt. side could have given such a big impression to me and I must say, if someone could have done this, then it was to be http://irctc.co.in

Gone through the new interface and thought to give you all a ride of the awesomeness. First we will see the new interface of home screen and then will enter the most awesome part, the internal interface. I must tell you that they have reached to this home page after trying at least two other themes in last two days.

Home page

irctc home page

It was interesting to se that the new website seems to be adopting the new world coming from touch screen mobiles. The right top rectangular icons for services just fit into the touch language. Advertisements now finding place in the bottom in place of cluttering space here and there.

The likeable thing the space savvy zipped interface based on Jscript extensively, you find the folded menus to navigate to various options once you move the cursor over the menus.

zipped

1. User Guide Menu

user guide

The very first menu is user guide menu that contains links to educate users about the various facilities available through the website itself.

2. Enquiries

enquiries Probably still most of the people access the railways website for one reason PNR enquiry or finding the availability info about various trains. the second menu Enquiries takes care of those all and bring them all at one single place.

3. General Information

General infoThe third section takes care of information available about the various services offered by Railways, frequently asked questions like sections and also the various new announcements will get their places through here only.

4. Agents

Agents This section lists out the Do’s and Dont’s for Booking Agents, list of names\addresses of agents. list of authorized agents etc.

5. Special Offers

Special This section will show up the seasonal offers that Railways makes time to time. I must say that Railway is much competitive and if in a whole we see the government services, then undoubtedly Railways stands as the biggest, efficient and most competitive service of Indian Government.

6. IRCTC Zone

IRCTC Zone IRCTC Zone seems to the advertisement zone kind of thing. Various packages like Shubh Yatra etc get their mentions here.

7. Mobile Zone

mobile zoneMobiles has became really really powerful than ever and each of existing business seems to be trying to take advantage of the same. This section takes care of services that IRCTC might be offering for specially mobile access.

Internal Interfaces after login

internal1Once you login into the site, you get introduced with a brand new interface that is much more convenient and super efficient to use. The most awesome part come, when we go for searching a train and booking a ticket, but we will come over that part at end. Lets see what more it offers.

There are total six big icons for display maintaining five common services any regular user might have used many times in past with old interface, lets see how new they have became now.

Booking history I wont say that they have got a functional overhauling. That doesn’t seem to be a case for most of the services except ticket booking, but one must praise the powerful yet clean and light interfaces as they are now.

Bookign history Print Tickets

Print ticket I have not any current ticket available here, so cant show that option, but I guess its like the earlier kind of. Means you have to select radio button before the PNR number to take print out that button through the button in upper corner.

Cancellation

Cancellation I must say that probably cancellation is the most smooth part of this IRCTC site since it was born otherwise, it was a hassle kind of thing to get refunds of your tickets, which you cancelled in last moments. But the IRCTC website made the process so simple and also guaranteed kind of thing. I always loved it and used it many times.. its great.

Refunds

Refund Like I was talking about cancellations, you can check my recent refunds that I got from IRCTC. I never felt worried about the fact that I wont get my money back or wont get that in time. IRCTC process is totally automated and transparent about it and the cleaner interface now is loveable.

Subh Yatra

As I am not using this service, so I am not sure about the functionalities and it shows me up like some advertisement only. May be people using this feature might get some interfaces behind the link.

File TDR

TDR This is also a thing that I never used, but you will love the fact that they are maintaining the exact same clean and sleek interface through out the site. Commendable and I must say that designer and other people, who made this change possible, should get pay hikes for sure.

There are many other features than just booking tickets like one feature that I noticed only by today is finding the pin codes that appears in last General menu at last position. Good and authentic database to find out pin code of some place.

pin codeYou also find cool new features like track your ticket that integrate the tracking system of the official courier partner Overnite Express Courier Limited of Indian Railways. Its applicable for people, who book i-tickets that get delivered to you by courier (though I really doubt if many make use of this option ever).

TrackThe new interface is also richer about the information part, though the beauty lies in the fact that information  is not scattered like links everywhere, but they are part of the system in natural ways. Remember, where you read the ticket cancellation procedure and rules related to that?

Cancellation procedureAlso where you last read that what are the services that IRCTC website offers and what services they don’t offer or offer to limited audience. All is here now

Not offered 

Rest part of review, I will finish by tomorrow, till then don’t miss to praise the new awesome interface of http://irctc.co.in

Ticket Booking

This is the most awesome part of the new looks, which is not only as much clean as possible, but as much effective as well. Look like not only Nokia, but our Government was also listening when people were saying about Symbian Smartphones that various features require multiple clicks. Most of the essential activities are taking much lesser click than earlier.

This is the first screen you go through, if wanna book a ticket now…

first screne

Even the way, dates are handled is changed like the following…

Date

I must say, whoever got the contract of redesign of IRCTC as they asked tenders for back in March, has done an awesome job, specially keeping the mobiles and touch screens in the mind.

irctcThe above is the most special part that impressed me really a lot. Once, you select a checkbox against the search results like the above, you get complete details like Fare, Name, Train Type, Distance and Availability for a week etc. without clicking additional buttons like it was the case in earlier design.

More of it, for getting the train route, now you have to click over the train name links and you will be straight to Train route page of that specific train. Really saved much of the energy.

Its still not exactly close to the design available for agent, whose screenshots I am not been able to provide till now as they get results irrespective of trains as well means you need a ticket and they will tell you in one query that which train got empty seat on that route and in which category without any more query. But still … great job done guys.

Now, as a technical person, I understand that this new look will accelerate the number of queries per seconds to deal with. According to my info, each of their database servers were already entertaining lacs of queries per second and this new design will push for more. I could only expect that they have restructured the database as well that seems unlikely due to such a volume of data and SLA of no downtime allowed. Though I have heard a few words over the migration part itself, but will come up with that details later on.

Though still its possible to optimize the things to bring the results like its giving now days in smooth manner, but there will be fear that if we keep on getting errors like this in peak hours.

Error All the best Indian Railways and whoever designed this new looks. Great job done guys, probably the best of this year.

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 

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Is this gonna be biggest surprise of this year? Nokia N9?

[tweetmeme source=”mrnitishkumar” only_single=”false”]

I was reading my earlier post over possibly Nokia N9 and then another post from people at Nokia Conversations, when this came into my mind and I thought why not? Why can’t be its possible? What else could be a Nokia N9? Read further … probably I am gonna throw my guesses over the device that is very very likely to be presented in Nokia World 2010 and could be materialized to bring into market very sooner than you could have expected.

Till now, in the name of Nokia N9, we have seen this or something like that.

 n9191

The specs were good, but really not much exciting that one could call that a worthy successor of Nokia N8, not some exciting camera, which we might be going Ga Ga about, then how come it be a successor of the best mobile camera in the world? Obvious way was to call it a Nokia E7 keeping the qwerty in mind. It was as simple as people were guessing about it. But one thing is sure that this can’t be a Nokia N9. Then what it could be?

Camera: Oh come ‘on!! don’t say, you didn’t guess it, when Nokia posted this blog post as the N-Series always been about, can’t be that Nokia N9 may go any lesser than the GOD camera of Nokia N8. Whatever features we might be expected from Nokia N9, if its Nokia N then it has to be camera and it has to be center attraction, but how… how specially after like of Nokia N8? What more could be done?

Can Nokia U be Nokia N9 and could be unveiled in Nokia World 2010?

12 mega-pixels are probably the height of megapixels mobiles could ever have in the form factor, we are expecting them to be in now days. If you have to go beyond the megapixels, then obvious way seems to be bringing optical zoom to mobile cameras, which has been the biggest hurdle till now even if just 8 megapixels, optical zoom gonna change the way, you think about mobile camera entirely again.

Do you hear the sound of Nokia replying someone in their words “Changing the world again” against the stolen lines “Connecting people”? Why not?

Just optical zoom?? Enough to make a Nokia N9? I don’t think so, consumers don’t think so, Nokia community doesn’t think so… how could Nokia think that? What else we are missing? What else could be added to a Nokia N9-A camera successor to Nokia N8?

Xenon? Yes! we need it, what if that makes us loose the capability of shooting the videos in low light with LEDs like Nokia N86. Xenon is what everyone loved and always will be. But … but if Nokia gets generous, then?

What about Xenon and Dual LED Flashes together inside the same mobile camera?

So, now you talking something… that’s what the expectations said.. that’s what the community project decided, that’s what has been submitted to Nokia design team at least 2 months back.

8-megapixel
4X optical zoom
Dual LED and Xenon flash
HD video capture
Instant image capture
Upgradable image sensor

Dimensions: We understand that when you talk about features, then its hard to make it slimmer like nothing and so been all the handset of Nokia till date. And accept it, this was where Apple won many hearts apart from introducing the multi-touch technology. Sometimes, people really say that iPhone is the limit that how slim one phone can be.

So, what you should do, if your stocks going down, your profits going down even if you selling more handsets than ever, what if people keep on saying that you don’t really have a proper high end device in your hands? They say that they will pay even higher prices, but at least come up with one that could reply other big time.

Yes! the dimensions are important, if you gonna dig a graveyard for your competitors like Apple. I know, its technically next to impossible to bring 4x optical zoom inside some mobile and then asking it to keep it never more than 10mm? Insane to even say, but more insane is the urge to reply back hard. If you want to tell everyone once at all that who is big daddy then here is the deal … let’s see what specs of community project say …

Display and user interface
Display: 4-inch capacitive 16:9
Power button, camera, zoom and volume button controls

Size and shape
Shape: Monoblock
Dimensions: 60 x 110 x 6-10mm
Extras: Auto lens cover

Materials
Material: Aluminium
Finish: Soft touch
Colour: Single colour
Durability: Super strength

Do you hear the music, when they write 6-10mm? Can’t just reading these specs as concept thrill you to give all your knowledge and expertise in to make it into reality as you really really wanna win back. A challenge to Nokia engineers that they have taken and they could deliver it coz if they not, then no one else can.

The fact to Notice that final specs for this dream community project doesn’t talk about resolution and just says 16:9 means Nokia knows that the way they build their OS’s bring higher resolution wont work in favour of preciseness, but even then what about 860×480? Not sure, what’s in their mind, when they say 16:9?

Operating system: We have seen Android coming from no where and becoming biggest phenomenon without even being from a mobile manufacturer. Now days, the business model becoming about cloud services more than putting the life behind making an OS that further needs to be grown up everyday to keep ahead of everyone. No one company could cope up the demands that are coming from users now days, open source is just not the cheaper thing to go for, but most energetic and happening thing too.

Creating a worthy and happening operating system is not a matter of just one years and some brilliant programmer taking inputs from real world. Windows wasn’t like today, when it was just created. But what made it grow, were the other microsoft tools like Visual basic etc designed around it and continuous and deeper tie up with all leading manufacturers and even with likes of IBM was what that made Microsoft what, they are today.

People are really getting desperate to see MeeGo, but there are reason to delay the same. You have to make sure that they are enough tools available to easily program Applications for the same, you have to make sure that when it come, it may spread like a wild fire. You find it not only in your mobiles, but everywhere you see.. from cars to watches, from ATMs to big interactive hoardings inside shopping malls. MeeGo is silent, but its slowly making room to make people talking against Nokia silent. When you have something like Intel backing you up, then you could be assured that such tie-ups don’t come in existence to bring just another disappointment.

Their concept says …

Operating system
Open source operating system with unlimited multitasking.
The DbC OS 1 sports temperature and location sensors so your device constantly monitors your whereabouts and the local conditions.
Device-based storage is supported.
The majority of OS functionality responds to touch control.

Sensors interacting with environment, with nearby devices, nearby situations .. you are definitely talk something real coming in next. Intel been pioneer in many things while Nokia been pioneer of making things into demand by bring it to consumer in best value for money. First Mobile camera, then GPS and then environmental awareness. Is it seems that I am hyping anything?

Rest all we already know about Nokia next gen device, like it can’t be anything lesser than Bluetooth 3.0 now, can’t be anything other than Dolby sound and why not we can have USB 3.0 and also HDMI support now?

What you think? Can Nokia prepare such a device within just 2 months? There was a statement from Paul Jacobs, CEO Qualcom about snapdragon 1Ghz Nokia in feb 2011. Why can’t it be taken as a strong reason to believe everything around?

The biggest question is, if something like this could have existed on this planet, even in form of proto-type then was it possible to keep it under wrap till now? But heart hopes, what if … what if this concept device that been already submitted to Nokia design team could have been came into reality after the best efforts from them? Will that change the entire game again and put MeeGo as more of consumer OS rather than just Geek?

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

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A full detailed Interactive Nokia N8 Unboxing-All Videos

Do you know what we Nokia fans do on twitter now days? Most of the timeline of mine goes on talking about Nokia N8 and why not.. where else we have something like a 12 megapixel mobile camera with Xenon, where else we have a gorgeous 3.5” screen with capacitive multi-touch, such a superb anodized aluminum body and where else many more things like this come at a price of under 25k INR? If you could hold yourself not talking about such a thing, then you must be brave for sure.

I guess one day back, I said that I wont be writing anything over Nokia N8 till I wont get the same in my hands as was really feeling jealous with my mate bloggers of the gang, who had their hands on this shiny new toy of town. Moreover, the whole blogger world is buzzing this much about Nokia N8 that it leaves really little for you to talk about Nokia N8, when you might have not seen it in real yet.

That was what I decided one day back, but here comes Nokia, here comes Womworld and 1000Heads, here comes the bonding they make with us in way like no one else does. You might have seen stories of many trial devices from Nokia to bloggers in past and some very exciting competitions .. but hold your breath, something most amazing happened today…

While I was already watching the interactive videos being uploaded by Nokia since Mondays and controlling my excitement about Nokia N8 somehow (I must say, no other smart phone from the past might have excited we Indians this much) , but it was till 1954 hrs of today …

After a stressing day at office, when I was really tired after reaching back to home crossing the terrible, rainy traffic and checked my mail box on my Nokia N82’s Nokia Messaging account, there was a mail from our very own Lydia and the WOMWorld/Nokia team …

Hey Nitish!
Hope all is well over on your side?

Thought we’d drop you a quick mail to let you know the guys over at Nokia put a little surprise together for you 🙂

Not only are you the first person to see this, but you’ve also got a personal introduction to it all!

Let us know what you think, and feel free to share.

The intro:
http://www.luxusonlinesg.com/unboxing/FinalVideo/blogging_100831/Brenda_nitish_mp4.mov.zip

The unboxing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VPxntuYwVA

Lydia and the WOMWorld/Nokia team

 

This all got me suddenly much excited and excitement crossed the boundaries once, I downloaded the video from the link given in mail. Promise you guys @1000Heads, if ever, I owned a company, then you will be my marketing team, only you .. no one else.. you are beyond magic… just awesome.

Wanna know, why I am this much excited about the video? Check out the video yourself ..

 

Whoaa!! She took my name… how come Nokia came to know that out of those three people, I liked her most. I am still like dreaming… should say.. awesome was just a word before today.. now its a real feeling. Thanks Guys thanks.. you got me.. you totally got me.

People talk about Apple’s marketing and say that Nokia should learn a thing or two from them, but today I really think that if Nokia really need such marketing?

You need marketing to sell something ridiculously higher priced device that come to change your habits and leaving you constrained about features without pouring extra bucks at each step. You can’t make a complain as people will ask that why you bought something in double price and you become fanboy.

Nokia never been into such marketing and that’s the reason, you even find many negative words over bad products from even we like bloggers, whom people many times call Nokia fanboys, but still we are family, yes!! family… a word that is too easy to be spoken and used, but making people part of your family is something that is beyond marketing. Nokia is part of lives of ours… isn’t it?

Let me introduce you all something that really don’t need any kind of marketing to sell it … Nokia N8 unboxing in most awesome way, you might have ever imagined.

The blue boxes, as I seen with Nokia Booklet 3G, but so many of them… it feel really itchy and we feel like even begging from Womworld for our share from it.

We got three amazingly hot unboxers here presenting three streams …

1. Brenda the elegance: Brenda, whom I liked most among the three even before receiving the mail, is here to unbox the Blue Nokia N8. A color, which I would like chose if someone says that Black is dangerous to my life (otherwise Black is my color). I wonder that how come Womworld guys there knew that I liked her most?

 

Brenda represents the sober and elegant class, who weighs any product just not by exteriors, but by its features, its elegance … in short in most sensible way of judging. Truly speaking, she is so sober that it was hard to decide that what to look.. her face or Nokia N8.. LOL

In first part, she talks about things inside the box, which we will see in next videos as well. She shows each and every component of the Nokia N8 box and the first thing that relieves us is … yes!! we do have a proper length USB cable here (Thanks God! Nokia got the point finally). She shows the special stylus for the capacitive screen with the note that its available in select regions only and we really pray that it will arrive in India too.

Let’s see other part of the unboxing videos by Brenda that could be navigated to from end of the last video.

Five Vibrant colors of Nokia N8

 

After the unboxing get over, she demonstrates the five different colors of Nokia N8 here. While at one side, people are still waiting after months for white colored version of something… here Nokia coming with five brilliant colors from the day one. Yup!! for many, it’s hard to decide, which one to go for.

Multiple Home screens to choose and customize in one Nokia N8

 

Multiple home screens provide one a much better and larger space to put their priorities in their own unique ways. I loved the fact that Nokia kept the implement up to three screens only as it didn’t make sense to have like some dozens screen. Think you could have hundreds of icons on your desktop, but is that a good idea?

720p HD Recording

I still remember the days, when we were hiring professionals to shoot our videos in functions and not many were able to afford Digicams to record their precious moments. Then came the era of mobile camera and life really changed. I really think that youtube wouldn’t been such a big site, if there were no mobile cameras around. May be exaggerated my statement look like, but man.. look at the resolution.. where are we…  its not the resolution, but its the revolution. 

Social Networking

It really surprises you that how social networking has became an integral part of our lives. Its not long that when internet was meant to be Yahoo messenger and mails only. But today twitter and facebook like sites became bigger than anything. Facebook and twitter has as many users as not even many country might be having citizens in total. Sure the credit is to smart phones and when someone like Nokia N8 comes with Integrated Social Networking then..

Seamless Multi-tasking

There is a big world of apps out there when we talk about other operating systems and it looks like they have apps for everything.. even making a call also an app for them, I guess and may be even Antenna … what’s profit of having apps for little things which we never thought that should be separate thing from OS itself? What’s part of installing hundreds of small apps in your memory and keep on moaning that we have millions of apps out there for bucks, when you can’t run and navigate through even 12 together. That’s where you say..

Nokia is Nokia and Symbian still rules when it comes to Multi-Tasking.

2. Ryan the Geek: Geek.. someone on twitter said that when it comes to Nokia, then every Tom and Harry become Geeky and expert on mobile technology. I guess that should be taken as a compliment that how natural and simplified the technical innovations of Nokia are. Ryan here presents a Geek’s perspective about Nokia N8.

He goes with same unboxing as Brenda gone through or might be with some geeky little details and then let’s zoom in, what more details, he wanted to share about Nokia N8…

Bright AMOLED Screen and tough body

Definitely that gonna be some divine experience, when such a live and talking AMOLED screen with play with our fingers and we thought that big screens are meant to better view only. The scratch resistant body really assures us that its same robust Nokia we lived with since decades.

Ultra-Sharp 12 mp Camera

When I talk about Camera of Nokia N86 some days back, then I mentioned that its not only about Megapixels, when someone make a camera and it really make us proud that no one knows it better than Nokia itself. Definitely Nokia N8 is beyond that whatever you might have expected from a successor of Nokia N82 and Nokia N86 likes. Your phone is much much more bigger and important thing now and you are very much ready for handling anything instantly.

Flash Support

 

“Flash website are just way cooler to look at” – it really made me smile that Nokia chosen to make an entire heading over it. We all know that whom are they referring to and we are all with them. Flash is here to stay and no one could keep on deciding that what way we choose to live with.

Flexible Keyboard

 

Definitely this is the most important part, I am looking for. I already said once that its gonna be hard for me to live with some only touch phone, so it become so much of important that how touch keyboard of Nokia N8 gonna feel in my hands. Though still not demonstrated anywhere, I would really like to see that how swype will perform over it and also a request from Nokia for coming with idea of transparent keyboard as well. Still proper support for Landscape and Portrait modes delights.

High Speed Symbian OS

 

May have faced much criticism with touch devices, Symbian been a real Gladiator when it comes to mobile phones and Symbian^3 really really have a lots of expectations from it. We really expecting that Nokia has removed all the annoyances, people might be complaining till now. Each video seems solid and smooth… itching to feel myself.

3. Suzy the sizzling hot: She alls herself sizzling hot and even we don’t deny the fact as while playing all the videos, our eyes kept slipping from Nokia N8 sometimes. When she talks about Nokia N8, then she really talk about entertainment, looks and compactness of things.

After her own way of un-boxing, she talks about going under skin of Nokia N8

12 Mega Pixel Camera

 

It might have a different meaning for a Geek like Ryan, while for fashion conscious people like Suzy, it opens up another vibrant world of colors.

 

HDMI Output

I really wonder, if Nokia N8 will push up the sales of HDMI monitors, which are really down in prices here in India up to an affordable level (I have seen 48” in 44k). My Nokia N82 been a personal digicam for me since years and I always challenged even professionals, really wonder that how the world will fall in front of me, once Nokia N8 arrives.

Two ways of charging up

Definitely its cool to have feature of USB charging if all of sudden your phone is low on battery and you have no 2mm chargers around (Though unlikely keeping Nokia’s popularity in mind).

Faster Micro USB Output

Nothing was frustrating you more, when your smart phone was taking too much time, when you wanted to get ready for some trip and wished to fill up your phone with Gbs of songs and movies at the last moment. Not only USB OTG has arrived to forget such worries forever, but the enhanced speed of Micro USB sure gonna blow your mind, when you will experience it.

Crisp Call Quality

When we talk about Call Quality and signal reception, then there were never other names and its always been the most pleasant part that while making design decisions like keeping the battery locked down, Nokia never even dreamed of making compromises like Antennagate.

Though still we will be wishing for a better front camera always. May be that will arrive when our network will be capable of providing better speeds (even 3G is not everywhere in India).

So, these were the details about the huge flood of videos from Nokia side in last two days and at the end, again I would like to thank Womworld Team to make me feel close to them, when I was wishing much lonely without any trial device like C6, E5 or without any plans of going to Nokia World.

Whatever I do.. I am with you guys.. always. People please join with my voice, if wanna say something.

By the way, whose unboxing you liked most? My heart goes on for Brenda… what about yours?

 

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

Symbian alternatives for Gravity – Snaptu, Socially, Tweets60, Trill and Dabr

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I hope you all loved the last review of Gravity from me, which some even mentioned as the biggest review over Gravity till date. Thanks for the love shown by you all, which encouraged me to come up with another post showcasing other alternatives twitter clients.

Its never like that only few twitter clients out there, but if someone had tried Gravity once, then it becomes harder to settle for anything else. Still there are many, who search for other clients as Gravity asks for a little price. So, here I am trying to sum up some of the free alternative twitter clients than almighty Gravity, let’s see how much worth everyone of them has.

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Snaptu: This was probably the first ever twitter app that I installed in any of my Smart phone. A simple yet effective mobile app that could find its place in your phone even if not just for twitter.

Snaptu is not just another mobile app, but in fact its a widget platform in itself, which has very easy and open API to build widgets upon to bring number of services to your smart phone in easiest way possible, in form of widgets.

Most special thing about Snaptu, being widget based it works in same way from lower end S40 devices to higher end Nokia N97 Mini etc. Specially over S40 devices I found nothing as rich as Snaptu.

Installation is as easy as it could have been. One has to just navigate to http://m.snaptu.com and it will show up options accordingly.

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Snaptu caters a variety of services\ apps like CricInfo, FaceBook, AccuWeather, Picasa, Dictionary, Sudoku, Dictionary, Google Calendar and of course twitter. Twitter appears as a widget in Snaptu and serves all the basic purposes in simplest possible way.

Though Facebook app here is also worth special mention as that one works better than the official facebook client app, but this post was intended for twitter service, so let’s move that way.

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The login screen is simplest yet include the search twitter option and view public timeline option as we find on twitter official site. Quite handy to start with twitter, if you are new to it.

User name and password fields take you to Nokia native text input screen that might feel annoying to making, but its a thing that you have to live with as it will continue in rest all experience with Snaptu. Wherever there will be option to input some text, it will be the same native screen. Though that’s not exactly annoying as it include the familiar experience and also shows the counter on top.

But I should say that putting a checkbox like Follow Snaptu is un-necessary pushing, which they should have avoided. You should not ask people to follow you in this way.

Later it comes to the twitter experience,

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I would like to see better fonts, geo-tagging and pics upload support essentially here, but still it presents all the basic functions, one might be looking from a twitter client. Not only you have options like reply-to-all, but you can check the profile and have the preview of pics as well (though I am not sure, how many services it supports, but being web based, it should support most of them).

Though I didn’t found any pics upload option, but I think as Snaptu handle Picasa very well, there are other pics upload widgets for sure and that could serve the purpose, but again a unified experience is what we don’t get here.

One thing that I would admire here, which we always wished to have in Gravity as well is picture zooming option like given below, sometimes we really need that only.

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As you can see picture viewing screen also has Open in browser option. And yes like almost all of twitter clients, it also doesn’t make use of Flash Lite for showing previews of videos posted rather than showing the screen like the above when clicked. Is video playback that hard to implement?

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With settings, Snaptu is as basic as it could be. I wish if they would have given options like theme etc here. Still it has enough to show off the twitter, see how updates appear with notifications. It got most of the basic things that you require from a twitter client and it supports touch phones as well.

Socially: Like Snaptu, Socially is also an app that could find its way in your smart phone, even if you didn’t wanted it for your twitter needs. Not only free, but it also brings some functions like even Gravity trying to reach now.

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Socially facilitate not only integration with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook (though the same is having some problem now days) and Foursquare, but goes beyond that. These social services get integrated with your contacts in a very good way and facebook app is much richer than Gravity has. I mean browsing through profiles of friends, photos and options to have birthdays from Facebook or to sync profile pics with contacts pics just by one click.

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The UI might not seem that cool after you might have seen Gravity itself, but still its cool and effective enough with a desktop alert (last 15 updates) kind of thing for even non-touch phones.

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Initial steps to connect the services are kind of naive and the facebook one is facing some issues right now due to some changes from Facebook side, though you can easily connect the facebook via browsing through given URL on your PC and it will automatically connect your socially with your facebook account after you authorize the same from web.

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Unlike the other apps, I will talk about in this post later on, this one has plenty of settings to fiddle with. Not only auto start, preferred Data Access Point, preferred WLAN Access point and even prompt for Foursquare Check-Ins since the latest version arrived. You say… WOW!!!

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Though I am not able to find some way to upload photos through it, but if it was there, then was picture perfect as we already have features like browsing through pics.

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Definitely, its likeable when some app brings your favourite business networking site directly into your phone. After all, its not only about twitter and social networking, when you talk about social. Though haven’t started using LinkedIn that much from cell till now, so can’t figure out the use cases, but I know many people, who could make out a good deal of it.

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But yes! I would say Gravity reminds you at many places, like when you try to check in Foursquare. You think that it could have been easier like the way Gravity does, so simple, so natural, so tight.

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The home screen displays photos of your contacts (twitter/Facebook etc), which got recent updates and the updates could be scrolled right to left below to it. Not only that whatever you say from the home screen in updates, goes across all the services means one door, one update to all Facebook, Twitter, Linked and Foursquare. I am specially happy about this app that it adds the geo-location options, which Snaptu misses badly.

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Yes! there are no picture previews, pics upload options and no Reply-to-all in socially’s twitter experience as of now, but still no naive typing screen and option of geo-tagging makes socially is exactly the thing, which you wanted as alternative to Gravity, if didn’t wished to pay any price.

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If you thought that’s enough about Socially, then you probably missed the fifth icon in top row of home screen. Yes! Socially has a very very surprise package for you, if you leave it running in background, then it also tells details about incoming calls like from where and from which provider someone is calling and also when the last call or SMS was made from that number, not only that but also a blacklist function for incoming calls. Definitely, there are many thing in Socially that even gravity could learn a thing or two from it.

Tweets60: Its only non-free product in my list and I have taken a lite product for review (free version), so there are many things I might miss about this. This app even gotten a mention over AAS, so you might check out a thing or two from there as well.

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When you open the app, the first thing that strike your mind is, how much similar it looks like Gravity, but as you move further, you start finding differences. There is no full screen mode (or may be in lite version only), no control over font size like gravity, no themes, no image upload, no under the tweet options of reply, reply-to-all or conversation mode.

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As much, you try to move in, the disappointment gets bigger. Again saying that its not because it has something lesser than the two mentioned before it, but its because it reminds you too much of Gravity and when you try to do things in Gravity way then you suddenly woke up from the dream.

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This app has own way of handling basic twitter operations and though no geo-location support or reply-to-all option, but its good enough to live with sometimes.

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There are common tabs like Home, Replies, Direct msg, Direct msg sent, favorites and updates. No options for conversation or like who replied to whom, I was not even able to find the way to view someone’s profile.

Nothing much to talk about more in it, I guess, but please remind me, if I would have missed something.

Trill: This client has recently joined the game and people loved the bird way of tweeting specially. After Gravity, only the interfaces of rounded buttons and inline options here touched me somehow.

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Not only, you can view any profile in best way,but also the inline buttons to reply or anything been something one get addicted to, if would have used Gravity. Definitely, its a good design in comparison to rest all free product dealing with twitter.

There are again tabs like Home, Replies, Direct messages and Public timeline. One must not miss the bottom center icon as well, which shows possible navigation ways. simple yet Innovative.

Its design has taken many elements from Gravity and though misses things like picture preview, reply-to-all and geo-tags, but they could really built it upon this base.

Dabr: And here comes the only mobile site of the all names I mentioned above. If some mobile site get higher ratings than even the official mobile site of twitter, then it has to be something. Dabr.co.uk is probably the simplest way available on planet as you can find it running in same way even on lowest GPRS supporting phones and that too with much needed pics upload option.

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At the first sight, you might find it a mess of links only, but once you start with it, then you find all the functions built in. Though no reply-to-all option here, but It also got reply-to-all option and you can even view if someone sent a geo-tagged tweet. There are previews available for pictures too.

dabrSome of my friends told me that dabr has option to send geo-tagged tweet, but I am not able to find that yet. After making this post live, James from @1000Heads confirmed me that as per dabr’s own blog post, Geo-tagging available for iPhones, iPads, Android phones and the N900 too.

Why not Symbian, dabr? Why not?

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It supports a number of themes to choose from and even choice of modes that which kind of phone, you are using dabr on. But what I liked most about it is its simplicity yet capability of doing most of things like picture upload.

So, that was my attempt to bring some info about free twitter clients for people, who couldn’t afford to buy a Gravity license, but still I will insist that one must see Gravity once before thinking that how much price its asking for.

Please add your comments, if you like the info and wanted to add something.

Update: On suggestion of one of the friend, I decided to add a poll here

 

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar