Tag: Layman’s take

Nokia S tablet to showcase MeeGo?

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

Continuing from last very calculated guess Nokia E6-00, I am pushing a step more with some words and thoughts over an unannounced Nokia tablet code name S.

The year started the new era with Apple’s announcement of a complete multi-touch tablet, something which many were gearing for since long, but the credit was to go for the company that really shaped the touch screens in the way they are today and now we are hearing every next company coming up with their own version of ‘iPad’ish tablet. Are we missing anything in all this? Where is Nokia?

You may call it adding 2 and 2, but there are pretty big reasons that the last quarter of this very year might see the real deal of tablet from Nokia featuring MeeGo OS on it.

Why Nokia S?

Remember the second week of June this year and there was a leak all around the web, being discussed among all Nokia lovers ….

series

French: La nomenclature des produits Nokia se base sur une repartition par series et par niveaux, generant ainsi 17 categoes de produits differents

English:The nomenclature of Nokia products based on a breakdown by series and level, thus generating 17 different categories of products

17 Categories and with Nokia World 2010 closed in now, we are already with C1, C2, C3, C5, C6, C7, E5, E7, X2, X3, X5, X6 and N8. So, it leaves the room for the next announcements scheduled for the last quarter to be Nokia E6-00, Nokia X7-00, much awaited Nokia N9-00 and mysterious S Series. After all now, no one can deny that it was the roadmap of Nokia for year 2010.

What it says on S?

French: La serie S est reservee a un nombre limited de mobiles qui ne rentrent dans aucune des autres series de produits

English: The S series is reserved to a limited number of phones that do not fit into any other series of products.

The wild guess of calling S Series representing a tablet seems not fit as they called it “limited number of phones”, but as they already have said on their Nokia Conversations post that C, X, E and N complete the circle of phone models, it leaves the bet open for mysterious S being a tablet only. We can’t even remotely assume that in this fight back roadmap, Nokia could have dared to miss tablet phenomenon, when there own words were already speaking of confirmation for a tablet to coming …..

Due to the spread of cloud computing and new advances in electronics and network technology, mobile devices will increasingly move beyond smart phones to include other computer-like gadgets such as tablets, and the MeeGo platform will be an important asset for Nokia.

Overwhelmed by the amazing price point of Nokia N8, people might missing the point that why Nokia seems to be out for kill with Nokia N8 with less margins on their side. Obviously, Its just not about making a best selling phone, but it’s about placing such a huge selling beast that makes developers craving for making a fortune out of it and thus making the way for biggest mobile platform ever (as Qt will be bridging the Gap between always live Linux and biggest mobile platform Symbian).

Nokia definitely holding the temptation of bringing the tablet game on somehow, because they first want Nokia N8 to embrace the world all over first and then developers will already be developing apps for it, Apps, which will be running on Symbian, MeeGo and all touch range of devices.

Apple was able to bring iPad in, only when iPhone was getting such a success and developers were making apps for it day and night. HP Slate been hard for HP because of the only fact that WebOS isn’t a big name yet. Definitely Nokia just waiting for some successful device like iPhone to bring its own platform on the top of everything, otherwise making a device like tablet is just a piece of cake for Nokia.

What the possible specs of Nokia S Tablet might be?price

Their price roadmap also places a mark on what price one should expect on Nokia N9-00 and Nokia Tablet running MeeGo. Moreover, with Nokia Booklet 3G, we already know that what Nokia already has in its bag.

There are something that you can expect from a Nokia tablet ..

  • A size of possibly 9” with 10mm thicker build.
  • Scratch-proof Ionised Aluminium build like we seen on Nokia N8, E7 and C7.
  • A fully mature multi-touch capacitive screen (may be even a stylus) protected by Gorilla Glass.
  • ARM Cortex 9 as processor even if Intel might be pushing for its Moorestown.
  • 512 MB RAM, 1GB NAND, 2 GB user storage, 16 GB internal memory and support for 32Gb MicroSD.
  • Full fledge A-GPS making use of Ovi Maps services, 3G and WiFi on it from the very first version.
  • Full fledge Bluetooth 3.0 capable of connecting Keyboard and mouse in it
  • An HDMI port, , USB 3.0, USB on the go and Dolby.. even writing about it is exciting.
  • A 3.5mm jack for media and also two microphones for noise cancellation.
  • Loud enough speakers serving good enough for the Dolby output.
  • An 5MP EDOF camera on the front side with dual LED.

The last one might seem pushing for a little bit more, but it makes good sense for having better camera and LED on the front aiding the better video calling experience than ever and that too with a night light on (via LED).

Still have to see that what more Nokia could bring on it, being MeeGo targeted to be a Cloud platform and backing Chrome Browser as of now. Even if such a possible tablet get the always trustable name Nokia on it, it will still be just another tablet in town. So, Nokia has to bring some magic from software side as well.

Nokia already said that it will be services that will distinguish Nokia E7 from Nokia N8 and so I am already looking for some big services coming from Nokia very soon.

So, these are my thoughts on something that might make its big appearance once Nokia N8 gets settled and brings developers on the Nokia board, probably after Q4, 2011.  What you think about it?

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

Nokia E6-00? A Revamped S60?

[tweetmeme source=”nkumar_” service=”wp.me” only_single=”false”]

If you just jumped from your chair thinking that its a leak, then sorry its not, you may choose to leave from here. Here you will get what Nokia E6 should be or what possibly it could be.

No, I am not some hacker, who might have sneaked into some Nokia Server and would have found some XML, neither do I am someone, who might have hands on some proto device, nor I am any important guy that Nokia mind to send prototype devices to understand the demands (my own country Nokia might not even know a word about me).

Who I am then and what this is all about? Just a Layman, who might not be some kind of geek or not that much into mobile developments, still he uses the phones or what we call them now days … the smart phones. Someone, who doesn’t know that his words will affect the multi-billionaire venture or not, but he dreams, he write to tell that what’s better to be included into lives of Laymans just like him.

Another Nokia world ended and reminded us that we live in a real world and nothing changes here like fairy tales. Be it Apple, be it Android or Microsoft, all are companies and follows a same systematic process for constructing things. Why were people expected MeeGo phones, when even lead developers have no clue of things around that? Why a business will release another showstopper, when one of their own still have to reach in consumer’s hand?

Expectations should have been real and then it was a great show indeed marking a superb design language in their new line of products.

Even if we kept on hearing about all these devices and watching videos of Symbian^3 in all recent days, now all of sudden, the logical mind senses a fear. A fear that its all about Symbian^3, Qt and touch screens now and S60 & non-touch might be dead now or just cheap category like C3 or E5.

So, no more those wonderful E-Series devices that had a compact screen, near perfect keypad either you use with one hand or two and those insane battery lives, which were kind of guarantee that you wont be running out of juice for whole day and even at another day, if you forgot to insert the charger pin at end of night. Really?

Nokia E6-00: A revamped S60?

While all of the future development is moving toward Qt  and as per current Qt development status, it’s very likely to get a revamped S60 now, high time to be so.

Nokia C5 and E5 OS design elements suggest that like touch phones got Symbian^3, something big must and must be on its way for non-touch phones too.

There might be much noises from many sides, but Nokia can’t afford to abandon their forte that’s been non-touch phones always and even now. Remember its the touch phone they messed up, otherwise have you heard any Android, Bada, iOS or anything else that could have compete with Symbian?

Yes!! to match the standards set by Symbian^3, its likely that Nokia coming up with a revamped S60 very soon. Question is “Are they going to mix it up with touch support like they did with S40 touch and type? Or they will concentrate more on core stuff like smooth social contacts, social messaging, much more efficient and intuitive Nokia Messaging, a proper blogging app and the updated map with features like Check-ins”.

Same about the battery consumption, as we are already hearing that despite of having 1200 mAh battery in place of 1500 mAh, Nokia E5 working as same good as Nokia E72 was, the credit sure goes to underlying tweaks to the OS and app ecosystems itself. Definitely, Nokia wont be stopping the same with cheaper and compromised devices like E5 only.

Like many around the globe, even I don’t know that what we exactly want from Nokia, but its high time that S60 should also get some love as obviously Qt has to make its way there too. The requirement of a revamped S60 might be the core reason, we have not seen a successor of almighty E72 yet, what’s say?

Nokia E6-00: What will be the shape and hardware?

e72__e71I am sure, if someone set up a poll that what shape an E-Series should take then many would think beyond E72 shape and form factor. A little things here and there, but everyone believes that the keypad shape which E71/E72 enjoyed was best of its class. A perfect device that go marry with each of your typing needs , no matter you are using one hand or two.

After announcement of E7, while it found many attracted towards it, the social web is also buzzing with opinions like its hard to survive with a ‘business’ device that might be draining battery like multimedia ones.

“Many still quoting that they are still happy with their Nokia E72 and will wait till Nokia understand that they exists.”

I find no reasons that Nokia can’t sense that.

They need to keep the same QWERTY with minor modifications like larger space bar or may be nothing.

What else you see from the design language of N8, E7, C7 etc? Mono block. Single piece of metal, which may be even ended in sacking the flexibility of changing the battery here as well as they will push for keeping the device even slimmer than Nokia E72.

The tougher part is Battery and Camera.

Battery

Nokia does not seems to be settled for any better slimmer battery than that 1200 mAh one that we are seeing in every next device of theirs now days. Though whoever had their hands on upcoming Nokia E5 had promised that its not a single bit lesser than Nokia E72, when it comes to battery. While fans around the globe wishing for come back of 1500 mAh only, which has been imprint of E-Series lately, there are strong reasons that Nokia will be settling for the same 1200 mAh one. Like they bring the concept of universal charger for devices ranging from $30 – $500, why not they might be talking on same battery among their new line of devices?

Camera

That’s the most toughest part and what compromises we expect here, are already heartening. They way, for keeping slim profile of design, Carl Zeiss and Auto Focus has been sacked from E7 and C7, its likely that Nokia ready to the same again with same 8MP camera.

Only hope is that constant buzzes of disappointment over Nokia E7 camera, which can’t scan Business cards or Barcodes, Nokia will come out of their official line that 8MP full focus is bringing not so bad results. CRAP.. CRAP … CRAP.. Nokia needs to hear this out in loud.

The success of Nokia E72 was also from the factor that it was the first business series with a top of the class camera and multi-media experience. I bet users didn’t liked nor will like the experience without Macro shots like C7 and E7 gonna give to them. 8 MP without macro shot capability is like some Ferrari,which can’t cross speed of 50kmph. Does it matter that what exterior or interior that Ferrari got?

We like our devices be slimmer like Apple, but in any case don’t want to see Nokia’s camera like Apple’s ones or like those Samsung ones coz a proper camera unit can’t fit into a slim body. Hell with the slimmer build then, we can’t accept anything lower than E72 camera. I mean what this CRAP 8 MP, should we put a big sticker of 8MP on the back of camera to show it off? We need something real.

I think Nokia need to hear it loud before its too late that its Nokia and here we expect cameras like Nokia only.

Connectivity

Nokia E-Series been always known for their top class connectivity options, so nothing spectacular when we find Pentaband frequency obvious here. Questions are after that.

Nokia has three more connectivity options now:

1. USB OTG
2. Bluetooth 3.0
3. HDMI
4. Terminal mode

Usually Nokia been providing their best of connectivity options to their E-Setries, so people will sure be expecting all of these, though last two options seem not that reasonable for something that has just 2.4”-2.6” screen size, but still no wonder if Nokia manages to include at least terminal mode in their successor of Nokia E71/E72 as that would be pure blessing when it comes to presentations in company meetings.

So, these were a few of my own quick thoughts that what Nokia E6, the successor of Nokia E72 might be look like or feel like as even Nokia admitting that Nokia E7 is not the successor of E72, but it matches like of Communicator only.

Definitely there are many other aspects that to be weighted before formalizing a design that will rival Nokia E72 likes. I might have just started the debate … but I know many wanna finish it off.. lets hear your views in loud.

Update:

I thought to update it with a formal specs sheet as well… check out and suggest me more spread the words, if you wished the same.

specs1Specs2 Specs3 Specs4

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

Laymans take on new Twitter – The big Review

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

Twitter; A 24x7x365 running social party where everyone is invited and approachable in most warm way as wasn’t even imaginable in any of the social services before. If even now, some thought that its just another social site or something too messy to deal with or think what just 140 characters do, then new twitter has arrived to spice up the party even more.

A simple idea in the start, twitter sooner became the biggest phenomenon of the planet where people even started missing twitter most, when in space. More than the simplest look of the Twitter, it was the services that kept joining in and made twitter such an engaging place. There been apps like Gravity and Tweetie running around Twitter services that made tweeting much more fun and given another mean to it.

While Gravity and Tweetie like twitter clients were writing another language of navigation, there was becoming a bigger gap between what various twitter client offering and what was available with the origin itself, the web interface of Twitter. Finally the big announcement came at night of September 14, 2010, when twitter decided to fill up this gap and announced an all new interface for twitter integrating many services revolving around twitter.

new twitter

GigaOM mentioned an interesting comment on it..

The code name for the new launch was Phoenix (Kind of funny when you think of the metaphorical bird rising from the ashes. As long as in this metaphor the ashes are the fail whale.

Rolling out of the services was started since the same night, but considering the gigantic volume of users, the process was to go through phases only and it was only  yesterday, when it reached to me and after spending sometime with it, here I am bringing some of its bit for you.

 

I will not bring the technical details like how JavaScript was used to implement most of the part and how many services get unified to bring this experience look like what it seems right now. Just bring you what a Layman see.

Twitter  pointed down the changes under four categories…

1. New Design First it came the blue ribbon on the top to indicate that a new experience is just a click away

blue ribbon 

Just a click and something richer and very pleasant appears

new twitter page

You zoom in and the first message appear that your twitter web experience gonna be having previews of pictures and videos as well means no reasons to go behind those links of twitpic, youtube etc.

greet message

While the left side contains the basics related to you and also the trending topic at a much better place. It was also a pleasure to see followers and following list at equal levels.

left side

On the other side, when we take a look at timeline, then even if it managed to retain the old and cleaner look that has made twitter this much success so far, there are many significant changes to improvise the user experience drastically.

Tw

We have the search bar at top like we seen it in Facebook and tweet & location buttons appear only when we type something in the update box.

Interesting was to see how things are adopting touch screens now, few days back I seen the new IRCTC website looks and now this… you click at any place of a tweet or click at the details button at the left top of the tweet, we see the left half of the screen getting converted into conversation mode.

details

I was wondering for sometime that what that message type of icon for, till I came to see that it changes the shape according to the content. Check in above screenshot that how it changes shape for Geotag and pictures. Cool!!

conversation

Not only this, but the idea of Mini Profile at the left side of the page was equally cool as most of the things getting constrained at one single page only rather than going though various pages.

updating tweet

Not only this, but the basic operations like reply or retweet took transparent Pop-Up format. Before thinking that an annoyance, think once that now you wont be needed to go through all over to the top text box and then coming back to find that where you were… when you are providing the infinite scroll, then it was impossible to manage without that.

retweet

And by the way, there is always a small icon on the top to bring the update screen anytime you want to update something, without disturbing where you are in the timeline. That’s called something streamlined and tight.

quick update

View Photos, Videos and other media content Started with the information sharing, twitter has became the biggest tool for sharing pictures and videos than any other service of the world. It always seems tasteless to see only links around when someone shares a video or pics, but on the other hand, it was bound to be messy, if they would have gone for putting inline richer contents.

The magical left panel came out to be solution of all ..

Picture preview

Though available for partner services like DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube only, but these names are also the biggest names.

Also it was interesting to notice that if you are not following the person, then you get something like the following

twi

Nothing was more delightful to watch youtube videos with all features without leaving the twitter homepage ..

youtube preview

Sure such a streamlined interface gonna make twitter users stay more on twitter rather than spending half of the time in navigating links going outside to twitter and so will facilitate twitter to bring more focus on ads in. Hope the luring side of ads will not take down otherwise superb clean interface as of now.

I think I still can manage to find one suggestion for twitter team that they still not dealing well with the links. May be the works is under progress in background, but it sure makes sense if Twitter also could bring the snipset of links as LinkedIn started doing through link share by this year.

Link details

Mini Profiles As I mentioned earlier, idea of Mini profile was cool and sure focused again on the same goal to keep the user on the same page for as much possible, so that whole experience may not go out side the site itself.

You just click over name of someone and in place of opening a new page or refreshing the page to remove your timeline to bring his/ her profile page, you get just a mini profile with sufficient information on the magical left panel.

mini profile Cool!!! Isn’t it?

Discover related content We have already seen in earlier screenshots that the conversation mode is much richer in the details. It not only brings the replies in the same chain, but also bring other tweets of the same user, which makes much more sense in giving you a proper view of entire conversation.

And you don’t need to click anything to get location of someone’s geotag info or to know who he is

mini profile and geotag

Definitely, great innovation so far.

What seems to be missing now

Even after trying hard, till now I have not been able to find links to show that a tweet came from which twitter client. Is Twitter all out to kill others? Openly?

Not only this, but uploading pictures or videos still has not made its way to twitter, when its becoming like essential part of all kind of desktop clients. May be for sake of simplicity only, but that’s something, which has to be here today or tomorrow.

At first look, I felt the mobile edition of the site got some changes also, but I guess I am wrong as things are just same as earlier with m.twitter.com

Scr000142Scr000141

Scr000143Scr000144Scr000145     

So, this was my little bit, which I got know after using the platform for day one, what you got till now, tell me back for sure….

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar
http://nitishkumar.net
http://scifireviews.wordpress.com
 
 
 

New frontiers – Which one of Nokia N8 and E7 is yours choice?

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

When Nokia N8 was announced then it was the time, when Nokia N900 reached India. The announcement really jeopardized many possible purchases of Nokia N900 here and today as many like me were fearing, a glimpse of Nokia E7 and we are confused again that should we wait for that 4” beauty or rush in for Nokia N8 as we are already decided?

I hope that when Nokia World 2010 was marked to show off four devices together on stage, then many might have got an answer that why release of Nokia N8 was this much late.

Four devices together on biggest stage of Nokia with many never been before in Nokia features;

1. A Brand new OS Symbian^3
2. Polished Capacitive Multi-touch AMOLED Screens
3. Third generation of Bluetooth 3.0
4. USB OTG for the first time on Nokia

One may comfortably assume that if Eldar wasn’t in middle with shocking revelation of Nokia N8 and intentionally worse choice of words like disappointment of year, then Nokia was all set to put this Symbian^3 bunch once for all in Nokia World only, not before than that. The similarities in profiles, features and design language all indicate for the same fact only. But that didn’t happened …

Many will argue and curse Nokia that why they were this much slow?

Answer was their ultimate failure Nokia N97, something they came to recover. With lesser RAM and power, it was a misplaced shot that came back to hurt them only in place of making them strong in touch phones genre. Like me, they never expected that market suddenly will be ruled by touch devices only provided the advantages of Non-touch ones and their huge heritage of years with their beautifully made devices and there it went wrong …

Anyway, it was a grand show, if all of these Symbian^3 devices with new interfaces, hardware, services and just another level of design language were set to appear at once, but in the world leaks, Nokia World 2010 was a little faded like Apple iPhone 4 launch went.

Though not designed to be, but it was Nokia E7, which stole the show and kept people confused that should they really go for buying Nokia N8 that blindly as they were kind of decided to? And why shouldn’t they, when it seems to be perfecting the build with addition of only missing thing in Nokia N8, the keypad and also adds 0.5” more bigger screen in the beauty …

In last many weeks, a major portion of hits toward this blog came though one post: the comparison post between Nokia N8 and Nokia N900 and so one could understand that how much such a comparison would be required this time, when it really much more confusing as now they are all seems to be on similar ground. Lets take some sneak peaks into finer details. I am also including Nokia C7 and Nokia N900 together for the reference.

The display, the design language and build

Here is the comparison between the four devices …

Display Build and Frequency

Three new devices not only set AMOLED as new minimum standard but they do the same for Pentaband too.

The Display resolution

It was shocking to many, when they seen a 4” device having only 360×480 resolution, when rivals roaring to 900x now and may be more in near future. It was more awkward as after 800×480 resolution of Nokia N900, no one was expecting Nokia to go below than that.

Nokia’s argument is “same resolution makes the job of developer easier, when they know where have to put their pixels on through out the range of devices.”

For sake of argument on Nokia side, the basic question was what the purpose of going behind the number of pixels, when you got to deal with same 3-4” of screen and can’t be pushed to be more smaller icon? Even AMOLED gorilla glasses were not that cheaper side, then even pixels, who actually not gonna make a productive effect on experience rather than marketing gimmicks, if you would have gone beyond retina.

But on the other side …

its true that resolution matters a lot and even the Nokia fans, who would have taken a ride over Nokia N900 will argue on that. Bigger resolution means larger, comfortable space for browsing and better viewing angles for other medias.

True that while making design decisions and pricing, one has to go through compromises, but it was only Nokia, who made consumers hating the word compromise.

So, conclusion on resolution issue is …

Nokia E7-00 gets no direct advantages over Nokia N8 in terms of resolution though it gets numbers on CBD technology, which makes the display look impressive than even Nokia N8. Still we can pass out that. Nokia has to care about the fonts and icon details on a comparatively bigger screen, so that people may not feel something cheap or may miss Nokia N900 likes.

The design language and build

The statement that actually won many battles for Apple was being the slimmest. The design statement was always loud and clear from their whole range of products. Sometimes such loud that people miss the fact that at what cost these products come and what compromises they bring in their lives.

It would be certainly interesting to see if iPhone’s sales figures were really that higher when they were selling it unlocked or people weren’t buying it to Jailbreak first. Provided the major sales of Nokia comes from the countries, where they sell their phones unlocked only, they were never on the same grounds.

The rule of war is “Beat the enemy on their grounds, on what they felt them best, without leaving the skills at which you are best”. A victory in that way leaves the opponent out of courage to fight again, no matter how big they might be.

The all new design language as reflected from the three leading phones on stage (N8, E7 and C7) shows the same commitment to beat the opponent on their turf. Though they get limited by inferior camera (moving parts not allowed in slimmer builds, so heavily compromised) and were forced to restrict the removal of battery for sake of unified build, but it was sane as they maintained all the features and at least one of their device was branded to be the best uncompromised camera in the world.

Literally uncompromised camera of Nokia N8 is something which doesn’t let Nokia E7 stands a chance in that era even if Nokia E7 seems to bring the same looks and solidness in same slim profile, but with huge benefit of QWERTY for less than 1mm difference (13.6mm and 12.9mm). People really may confuse a Nokia E7 from Nokia N8 if at some distance and that’s make it tempting to go for E7, but let me show you something …

18092010822

Not a best macro shot of my Nokia N82, but such shots at workplace help you a lot and I kind of can’t think living without such macros, but the slimmer design comes with a compromise in Nokia E7 that its can’t focus on objects closer than 50 cm.

We buy higher priced phones for more features not just for more power or numbers and Nokia has made us to think Camera as integral part of Smartphones. Even if 8 MP, the Non-Carl Zeiss Camera brings Nokia E7 at somewhat the same level as of Apple iPhone 4 or Samsung Galaxy. Hope Nokia could prove me wrong, but that’s a deal breaker for me otherwise, I would have bought Nokia N95 in place of Nokia N82 years back.

Even if now, I am assured with the solidness of slider hinge of Nokia E7, Nokia N8 scores point due to literally uncompromised camera.

The processor/ RAM

People reading too much from numbers might get a surprise here …

CPU 

If you check ARM 11 Vs Cortex A8, then ARM 11 been the processor that were used by iPhone 3G once. I am not an exactly  right person to talk on this, but no one would argue that superb performance of Nokia N900 was for a reason; Cortex 8 that was also used in iPhone 3GS and known as next generation to ARM 11 and even Snapdragons. So, we come back to another ‘compromise’ here that Nokia made for keeping the costs down.

But at the same time, one should also consider the fact …

Symbian been known for bringing top notch performances from minimum processor/ RAM usages and even if we are here with an older processor, it just cut it better than other OS platforms been doing till now. An ARM Cortex 9 might be the future, when they come to MeeGo, but with Symbian^3, Nokia decided to be with ARM 11 680 Mhz.

It doesn’t make a difference about Nokia E7 and Nokia N8 as both of them share the same processor, but it thrills to see that Nokia N900 still has a place with a superior generation processor.

Greatest part is the inclusion of Graphics 2D/3D processor in all the coming phones, which was a thing that Nokia was forgotten since Nokia N95/ Nokia N82 time.

So, here no one score points neither Nokia N8 nor Nokia E7 as both are on the same level.

Connectivity

This has been a core part of discussion I posted about Noia N8 Vs Nokia N900 and after a year, now we have seen that a mobile could have HDMI and Dolby as well and could be operated by Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard. Technology is really travelling faster.

Connectivity

Connectivity features are exactly identical when it comes to Nokia N8 and Nokia E7, but its also sure that Nokia gonna come up with some exclusive features for Nokia E7 as they mentioned in Q & A rounds that it will be Software part that will come to distinguish the Nokia E7 and so will justify the price.

Are we going to see thing like remote control in Nokia’s as well? Certainly look like so.

Memory support

Memory part been the biggest reason behind the failure of Nokia N97, as even if Symbian is known to perform best even with 128 MB RAM, Nokia missed that time to take concern of escalated needs for a touch based platform. Nokia N97 Mini was correction to the mistake and after feeling well settled with 256 MB RAM of Nokia N900, even if tempting number of others on 512 MB RAM, it was no where a wrong decision on Nokia part to keep RAM settled on 256 MB for all the three devices.

Memory comparison

Note: The mentioned 135 mb in the above pics is wrong, which I realized after having N8 in my hands.

After the standardization of Processor/ RAM, it was time to address the second part, the internal memory, the C;\ drive of phone. Interesting is to note the difference of maximum user storage part between Nokia N8 and Nokia E7. Nokia N8 has only 260 MB while C7 and E7 come with 350 MB.

After living with Nokia N82’s 100 MB maximum user storage since long and also surviving the other side with Nokia E52, not only me, but other users know very well now that what important maximum user storage or C:\ of phones has. Happy to see that Nokia seems to address the same as well.

Numbers might look like otherwise, but experience says that 260 MB is more than enough for most of the users need when there is already 16 GB space available for saving all kind of media.

But still presence of 350 MB maximum user storage and 1 GB NAND memory in both of the devices E7 and C7 indicates that Nokia seems to be setting up with something big coming for these devices in near future and the those software features will keep on revealing itself in steps over time like has been in case of Nokia N8 in last months.

There is an unrest about exclusion MicroSD support from Nokia E7, but provided the USB OTG support, it seems that with already huge internal memory soon gonna make requirement of MicroSD support irrelevant. Think if there was MicroSD support, then people were asking for hot swap support as well, but now after USB OTG, hot swap is available for everything.

 

Camera

When it comes to Camera then obviously Nokia N8 is something that is made for that only.

Camera comparison

Even if no Macro Mode support disappoints big time like I mentioned in first part, definitely having a sleek camera that could record your moments in HD quality video is something been a dream for Business Phones. After all, not only marriage and birthdays like family-n-friends moments are precious, but things like visit of some big shots or some special achievements at work place also might be something that one wanna cherish for ever.. and what could have been better than HD quality video?

So, if Nokia E7 looses scores in Macro, then scores big time as a business device setting standards for the market. Remember, we have the best ever keypad here, which no business device in market could beat at the moment. 8 MP Camera still stands at it best possible.

Secondary Camera comparison1

Secondary camera bring no surprises here, but again like I always been saying… its time for Nokia to set another standard by putting some 2-3 MP camera in front place. Ok OK.. I understand not at this dimension but may be future models.

Was just thinking in Sci Fi mode that it will be possible to make superb camera lenses without moving parts, if someone could find such a material, which could change density and so focal lengths on controlled electrical probes. Isn’t it?

When it comes to camera then Nokia N8 is sure second to none because of being almost uncompromised, but still Nokia E7 is not loosing the battle as we have won a 8MP camera with HD video recording on a Business device. Remember, it was just few years back, when just 2 MP was being taken as a Business phone standard.

Nokia N8 wins in this department hands down, but Nokia E7 still has worth.

OS and Extra Features

Extra features 

There been a lots of argument and discussions around that Symbian is dead and Nokia should move on to Android at least. Why Nokia resisting the urge to do so?

There is a strong reason for that.

Symbian is not only the biggest mobile platform on the planet, but also has backing a a big loyal community that even after difficult times has kept on serving the people at their best. Going towards any other platform will be meant to loose them.

Another OS come up with different file structures and implementation of things that will be an area of concern over expectations from Nokia. It seems very reasonable that Nokia is trying to keep things on their own turf here. They know Symbian been big till year and has much more caliber to make a comeback very soon. Symbian been known for their effectiveness in least resources and had no reasons to be abandoned coz others getting ground.

Maemo on Nokia N900 was great but was an example of the same thing that bringing a platform is easy, but bringing interest of developers is not. “Developers, Developers, Developers” that exactly was the words of new CEO of the company and with free signing and many welcome changes Symbian seems to be set for bringing a new world yet again.

As about features, then again many services are yet to come when Nokia E7 will be actually available or sale and some are even being targeted and design to Nokia E7. So, its better to keep mum till something really arrive.

Power Management

This was the other area of concern, when Nokia went for such slimmer design language. Not only finding the perfectly slimmer battery was a thing, but so was to decide inclusion of non-self-replaceable battery.

Battery comparison

As of now, without finally software, its useless to comment over the mention figures about battery performance, which only time will tell. Its sure that Nokia E7 not gonna be like typical E72 like battery life being a 4” multi-touch screen neither do the stats says that it might be better than Nokia N8.

We all are keeping our fingers crosses that new OS and new battery is going to perform as well as written in stats. 12 Hours talk time would really be deal breaker for anyone, if Nokia N8 gonna just do that.

As per specs and power hungry bigger screen, Nokia N8 scores point here, which seems strange due to the fact that Business devices always been on the top in this field at least. Is it gonna change?

So, these are a few things about upcoming phones and soon to be available Nokia N8. I really think that these never like before devices gonna bring some fresh breath for Nokia and Symbian. What you think?

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 
 
 

Digg This

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