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July 23, 2007

Internet Tablet - Nokia N800

I received a Nokia n800 Internet tablet sample today ...it is a fun device though only for early adopters...By far the coolest feature is the ability to control my music collection over wifi. I have a network-attached storage in the basement with zillions of GBs of music...in the livingroom, I have a Roku Soundbridge M1000 attached to my stereo...the hassle with the Roku out of the box is that it has a two-line LCD display...rifling through long lists of artists and albums was tiresome. To boot, the remote was infrared...so I have to be relatively close to the Roku to control it with the original remote control.

The Nokia N800 has a software called Media Streamer (which I had to download and install, mind you) which finds my NAS through UPnP (the great TwonkyMedia server is installed on it) I can then use the larger UI (ten lines) to rifle through my collection, select albums, songs or playlists to add to the song queue and send the music to any UPnP "renderer" ...in this case the Roku Soundbridge but I can all send the music to play to any PC in the house. Now I can lounge on the couch and control my music collection...It even shows the cover art and all...no need for an expensive Sonos!

The original software that came with the N800 (the creatively named Media Player) crashes trying to load my collection (huge) so I had to search out and install the aforementiond Media Streamer which worked like a charm...they're both from Nokia so I am not sure why they don't have more distinct names and aren't both pre-loaded onto the device. Even the Media Streamer UI could use some improvements...it is easy to use but they don't make use of the screen's real estate very well. They could add buttons for often used tasks since there is a fair amount of UI real estate.

Another cool feature of the Internet tablet is its ability to Skype...very cool...I was pleasantly surprised to find the device has a cool video camera...but I wonder why they didn't support the video in Skype...One can use the video camera with Google Talk but I don't know anyone who is on Google Talk (other than Google employees) and can't find another software that uses the camera...

The device is Linux based so presumably developing software is straightforward. However, the installed base is miniscule and I can't see many (brand name) developers focusing any effort on releasing software for it. Well, at least it makes a cool remote control.

Posted by raza at 3:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 18, 2007

Buying a Nokia Phone

Have you ever tried? I am a big believer in unlocked phones...which are not readily available in the standard consumer electronics store as they are all supplied and locked by the carriers. So i drove to the outer sunset today to hit some of those small-time wireless shops on Irving St that sell unlocked cell phones...came home empty...

it is really hard to settle on one as I find myself paralyzed by too many choices...it is hard to find the right cell phone with all the necessary features (of which there's many now) at a
price one can swallow...to complicate matters, after doing some research on the Internet and settling on a few possible models, one then finds these shops don't have all in stock...

given the increased amount of email and SMS, the qwerty keyboard is moving higher up on the feature list...from nokia, this leaves me with the N70 or the N61i...both of which they didn't have...i played with the N95, N93, N80 and N76 which are all cool phones but lack the qwerty...

and then there's the price...i don't know if I can swallow the $750 for the N95 (i have a long track record of losing phones)...moving down from there price-wise leaves one with some cool choices as well (N93, N80) but as you start getting into the $500 range, one starts thinking iphone...but the lack of 3G gets ya...or does it? it is one of those features that you don't necessarily crave but once you have you wonder how you lived without it.

i checked out the sony ericssons at the store but they're short on wifi...which will start becoming necessary once Skype is ported to all OSes including Symbian...Sony Ericsson has cool phones if you're focused just on music (walkman) or just on photo(cybershot) but lack in the other departments...

arrrrrrrrrgh! iphone, is it?

Posted by raza at 1:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 5, 2007

iPhone and 3G

Presumably, every techie blogger has written extensively about the iPhone by now. My interest the iPhone turned out to be out of necessity not any passion for Apple products or techie curiosity:

I lost my cell phone riding around on my scooter.

Buying a new cell phone is proving to be a very difficult task. Cell phones integrate so many important technologies that are becoming mission critical. It is becoming extremely difficult to decide which are the most important to you and it is becoming impossible to find a single device that does all well. Mission critical features:

- good phone capabilities (needless to say)
- QWERTY keyboard
- 3MP camera
- high-speed data (3G)
- easy integration with existing email accounts
- solid java VM
- good music player
- WiFi (to save on the data plan)
- plethora of 3rd party apps

I had expected the iPhone to be the device with all the necessary features ...for under $500, that is...it seems to be the best at those features it does have but is missing the 3G and, for now, the 3rd party applications. It probably is still the one to buy as there doesn't seem to be a phone that does do all these things...well, for under $800 like some of those Nokia N-series phones...$800 for a phone...what a notion!

Posted by raza at 2:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack