Bye Bye 2010, welcome 2011

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While everyone was writing their part of farewell to 2010, I didn’t knew what I should write about it. There been a lot of things that I could have written about in this farewell post, a lot of things that happened in the year, a lot of feelings that I gone through, really a lot .. has happened to make the same year a memorable or probably one of the most crucial one for me.

happy new yearLet’s go through the flashback ..

Continue reading “Bye Bye 2010, welcome 2011”

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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 …

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…

All set to buy Nokia E52

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May 24, a special day for my youngest bro, his birthday. Thought to give something special to him, a handset suiting to his requirements, long texting, longer talking, accessing web, social sites, mails and still wishes to have a slimmest of all. Here you go bro.. all set to buy a Nokia E52 for you.

nokia-e52-unboxing-33

Ok!! Admitting it, its not my choice look-wise even if it has a solid and slimmest build, not because its not good, but because I am used to of something else. QWERTY!!! Yes!! here it lacks what E71 and likes of that have, but leaving that aside, see what it got.


Best of connections; HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps, Bluetooth 2.0, microUSB 2.0, Free Ovi Maps Navigation via A-GPS coupled with Digital Compass (means all that I just seen in Nokia E72)

Best of meat; Got ARM 11 600 MHz, the same which E72 got. 128 MB Ram might be lesser than Nokia E72’s 256 MB, but still enough for keeping your experience more than smooth. Though 60 MB Internal memory kind of disappoints.

Best of battery life; That’s what even normal people love about ESeries devices, the battery. It got the same almighty 1500 MHz, which completely floored me while experiencing on Nokia E72. Hoping to get more of it on a slimmer device.

More of it, I have heard that it works perfectly fine with 16GB cards, nothing get slowed down or buggy. Will see for sure, got offered of 8GB card in Rs. 1200/-. I was worried about 60 MB Internal memory but most of the reviews rating the experience smooth enough (except mediocre camera performance, not that much issue).


The price I got of it was Rs. 11, 905/- and at the same time, they given me price of QWERTY champ Nokia E71 as Rs. 13, 500/-, while Nokia E72 available in Rs. 17, 500/-. Confused!!!! Which one should I go for???

Nokia E72 was not a question at all as wasn’t willing to put more expense neither did bro required such price as of now. Most of the confusion was around E71 and E52 and the deal breaker was HSPDA 10 mbps over QWERTY and improved OS looks of E71. Hope I didn’t made a wrong choice and bro gonna love this.

Still trouble remained otherwise, I would have bought by today only. As per Nokia India’s website there are Navigation Accessories included in package, while Priority dealer here in Laxmi Nagar, New Delhi seems to have no idea at all about that. Is it not available till now? Trying hard to confirm from @NokiaIndia, hope will get an answer before tomorrow.

What you think.. a smart choice??? What else you will like to present your tech bro?

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

World Earth Hour (20:30 – 21:30, March 27, 2010) and us

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I already discussed in past about some innovative effective social  campaigns and ideas coming our way now days. Here I am with the updates on latest and biggest social event ever that is going to be happen tonight, World Earth Hour.

earth-day-earth-in-hands 


What is World Earth Hour?

World Earth hour was first conceived by The Sydney Morning Herald and World Wide Fund for Nature on March 31, 2007 in Sydney, Australia at 7:30 pm, local time. The reception was mixed as many columnists and bloggers mentioned it as a Hippocratic move. Many statistics were shown that there wasn’t that significant drop in CO2 emission or electricity savings and the move was comparable to taking out 6-7 cars from road for an year only.

Statistics aside, the campaign became very significant for awareness towards saving nature and kept on getting worldwide support for the same. The next year only added 35 countries from all seven continents and 400 major cities, when the event was celebrated on March 28, 2008 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time.

The official website for the event, earthhour.org, received over 6.7 million unique visitors in the week leading up to Earth Hour. Other websites took part in the event, with Google’s homepage going "dark" on the day Earth Hour took place.

Much detailed statistics related to this event could be found on the Official site or on the wiki link.


What’s your excuse for not participating?

Are you aware that in moments of wars, countries including India had asked from its countrymen to contribute by giving their one young member of family to forces? People were always been asked for donating some part of their income in form of taxes in such situations. Are you waiting for something such to happen?

Yes!! its a war, not between countries, not for mere some piece of land, but for our own existence. Doesn’t sound something bigger and serious?

state-newspaper-excuses

I know many of you feel that the fears about environment shown in movies/ documentaries much exaggerated and also think that its not going to “collapse” in near future if you have left some bulb on in your lawn.

You feel that there are many marriages happening out there with thousands of bulbs and electricity equipments emitting loads of harmful gases. You talk about highly decorated with electrical equipments monuments by Government Officials only. You feel grieve about millions of AC running around the globe sucking environment badly.

I understand that you feel that a small contribution doesn’t matter. Earth Hour and its statistics growing over years (increase in number of people participating per year) are the biggest example that how such small contributions could matter a lot, if spread well.


What will you loose?

If someone says you to do less showoff in your functions, then you feel that you’ll loose the fun of the moment and it will look dull and bore. If someone asks you use public transport rather than using your own Car, then you give him weird look that do you know anything about rush there? If someone asks you to mere share your car with people heading in same direction than using separate cars, then you think about inconvenience in waiting for others when you might get late due to that. If some campaign tells you that you should switch off your engine on red lights, then you think that do someone knows a bit about traffic in India?

imageslose-lose-small

Yes!! its been about inconvenience, whenever such a campaign rise on air.  But tell me what are you loosing? Few bucks less from electricity and a pride to participate in the biggest event of history??? That shouldn’t be heavy on you, I guess.


Are we supposed to stop our work and businesses in that one hour?

scared-monkey

No!!! Earth hour is asking you for only switching off what you find redundant for you and you can manage without for one hour. If you are running businesses, then you could switch off few central ACs for that while, could switch off heavy decorations outside. If you are normal family, then you could all gather in your dining tables with lights off and a moody candle light dinner or even if wish then all watching your favorite shows on Cables or TVs with all lights off. You can enjoy your rare moments on roof of your house/ flat with your family. Its nothing like that you can’t think of a way.

So, who is joining me tonight to celebrate World Earth Hour 2010?

happy earth

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