Nokia’s latest salvo in the smartphone segment was recently unveiled in Singapore and I was amongst the first people in the world to touch and play around with it. Here’s my in-depth review of the phone that’s directly pitted against the Google Nexus One and even the iPhone.
The Nokia N8 introduces a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash and a large sensor that rivals those found in compact digital cameras. I have used the Nokia N82 which has a 5 MP camera and I was super impressed with the photos. So, I have very high respect for Carl Zeiss and Xenon combination. Expect very good photos from this phone.
The N8 is the world’s first smartphone to incorporate Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound technology. The folks at Nokia demonstrated it and I have to say that it offers a home theatre experience. The inclusion of Dolby Digital Plus in the Nokia N8 brings a new dimension to the capabilities of the smartphone, transforming it into an HD mobile entertainment device, which can output high definition content with Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 channel surround sound to HD-ready TVs and home theatre systems.
Powered by Symbian ^3, the Nokia N8 supports gestures such as flick scrolling and pinch-zoom and offers multiple, personalisable homescreens which can be loaded with apps from Ovi Store. Honestly, all this is nothing new. The biggest negative factor that will weigh down the N8 is its operating system. Symbian ^3 does not match up to the iOS4 (in iPhones) or Android. The positive thing to note is that Symbian ^3 is a stop-gap solution, just as Windows Mobile 6.5 was for Windows Phone 7. A lot of hope rests on Symbian 4 which is expected to be way better.
The music player is quite nice. Its powerful 1GHz CPU along with a dedicated Graphics Processing Unit means that the music plays seamlessly and is quick to respond. Add that to the unique and amazing feature called ‘Nokia Comes with Music’ which lets you access a whole truck full of music tracks. It has both 2D and 3D graphics acceleration that should make it feel at home while using graphics heavy mobile games.
There’s even sufficient space for you to fill up your music. The Nokia N8 has 16 GB of in-built storage space, expandable up to 48 GB with a Micro SD card. Large files can be easily transferred to a memory stick with the USB On-the-Go.
I was quite impressed with the performance of N900 and it looks like the goodness of memory management also gets reflected on the N8. This means that you can use multiple applications at the same time without feeling the lag.
Nokia is offering developers a new platform to innovate on. The Nokia N8 comes integrated with Qt, a software development environment that simplifies the development and makes it possible to build applications once and deploy across Symbian and other software platforms. Nokia has also made it simple to use Nokia Qt SDK available in its initial beta, to enable developers to start realising the potential of Qt. The N8 is also Nokia’s first handset that’s integrated with Qt.
The touchscreen is capacitive which means that its quick to respond to your finger touches. It measures 3.5 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels. Nokia announced that the cost of N8 is 370 Euros before taxes. This is around Rs 21,000 which is quite competitively priced. Nokia N8 has taken some positive steps forward in the smartphone segment even though its rivals are increasingly raising the bar higher.
Source- http://www.financialexpress.com/news/a-new-dimension-to-smartphones/637677/0
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I’m at the Nokia Connection 2010 event in Singapore where leading journalists and bloggers are invited to preview the latest technologies from Nokia. I’m interviewing Jo Harlow, who heads Smart Phones for Nokia for my podcast show.
Long ago, I realized the limitations of my intelligence. I also greatly believe in the wisdom of the crowd and that the collective intelligence of the audience is far greater than just one person. This is the reason why I went to Twitter and Facebook and said I’m interviewing a top boss at Nokia and if anyone had a question for her, I would ask her on their boss with full credit given to them.
Here is what I posted on both Twitter and Facebook.
Am interviewing Jo Harlow, Head of Smart Phones, Nokia at 4 pm S’pore time. Have any quest for her? Will ask on your behalf with credits.
Within a few hours, I had a treasure trove of questions and quite honestly I would never have thought of them myself. I may not be able to ask all the quetsions to Jo Harlow considering that it is a group interview wiht 6 other journalists from India asking her questions and another factor that we only have about 45 minutes of time with her.
So, I decided to publish all the questions here so that you can take a look at it for yourself. I will also ask Nokia to help answer these quetsions at a later point in time even if I’m unable to get answers for all these during the face-to-face interview.
Here are the questions with links to the awesome people who have asked them.
Nimit Jain (FB) : How is their business shaping up in India with new players like MicroMax, Karbon mobiles etc in the market?
Ramaswamy Alwarsamy (FB): Apple has just one smart phone and its easy for people to remember. Nokia has a wide array of Smart Phones, way too many to remember all. Is it a disadvantage having a wide portfolio a disadvantage?
Kannan Iyer (FB) : Nokia has been clearly facing a problem with the time to market. They announced the N8, but then the launch is much later and that can affect the mindshare that people may have . What is Nokia doing to tackle this?
Kannan Iyer (FB) : Everyone is talking about iPhone and Android. But there is also the enterprise phone market where RIM has been ruling and almost … See Morea monopoly. The E-series was the closest Nokia came to challenging RIM- what are the future plans to fight in the enterprise phone space?
Kannan Iyer (FB) : Nokia’s developer strategy – How is Nokia thinking differently to get more developers to build apps for the Ovi store?
Bharath Yeshwanth (FB) The i-phone has changed the user experience through its well designed software with no major changes to its hardware.The strategy adopted by Nokia to cater to different genres of users is through changes with hardware. Can we expect a phone soon that will shall be one fit for all?
Bharath Yeshwanth (FB): Today’s news report read “RIM shifts focus from execs to teens”. Can this be seen as a threat to Nokia’s sales numbers?
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(from Twitter)
@BalaSN : Why maemo is not available in the lower range mobiles ?
@talaivar : What according to her would be “the” compelling reason for one to buy a Nokia smartphone? Price? Features? Ovi Store? Why?
@talaivar : Being late into the game, what are the short term goals for Nokia Smartphones division?
@RameshYanthra : When we will get Augmented Reality based browser in Nokia smart phones? ”
@dipanshubehl : When will Nokia let go of its S60 OS in its low end smartphones/touchscreens??
@dipanshubehl : Will Nokia extend its Ovi Music Unlimited to other phones as well?
@jainnimit : How is their business shaping up in India with new players like MicroMax, Karbon mobiles etc in the market?
@mrnitishkumar : 1. When now days, we have very capable hardware in smartphone, why Mobile OS like Symbian even with there latest versions, not supporting widely popular DivX and Xvid video codecs?To be noted that possibility is already shown by their own maemo os that supported all.
@mrnitishkumar : We understand that people could have difference of opinions, but still Nokia sold amazing number of Nokia N900 that shows how popular maemo went even when price was unaffordable to be a smartphone.
@mrnitishkumar : What’re major reason to back off from their first geniunely praised and at least twice faster OS than symbian? Just straitegic partnerships with Intel and Qt?
@adityarao310 : Is Nokia looking at competing with new phones which specialise in in-built ‘social networking features’ benq / corby .. If yes. how?
@kursed : Why is Nokia’s software support, for smartphones, so weak? Specially in firmwares.
@vams21 : Can you please ask her if its possible to bring Smartphones in India in the range of 10K ($200).?
@BaskarG : How will Nokia plan to differentiate itslef from the likes of iPhone and Android devices for the “emerging” market?
@prakup : With unlimited data plans being scrapped (proposed) what is the future for smart phones? Esp in a price sensitive market…
@achitnis : Ask her when the N900 will have an official Nokia supported Meego port. Don’t accept any evasive answers like “community supported”!
@anandan1982 : Most of Nokia’s high end phones face software issues in the long run. Can they do something to curb that?
@achitnis : Nevermind how Nokia will compete with Apple & Android – where does Nokia see A&a lagging behind Nokia, other than numbers
@max4974 : N900. Why did they soft launch this powerhouse product in India? Werent they confident of success in India?
@achitnis : Nokia’s numbers are in their established base/legacy. What is it that Nokia has now that A&a don’t, to stand out?
@max4974 : Will S60v5 users be able to port their devices to symbian^3? What other devices after N8?
@ankurdinesh : What’s next with Nokia which will lead them to next cycle of innovation?-the cycle which they started when they came to India
@bluethroat : Are smart phones making people dumb. They make people think and apply themselves lesser and lesser. Comment.
@max4974 : Is there any truth to buzz in community that Nokia might be towing with a limited windows 7 mobile foray?
@max4974 : What does Nokia genuinely believe is gonna be their WoW PRODUCT thats gonna help them gain traction in the US mobile market?
@sriganeshr : Can you ask Nokia executive what happened to Vertu. Is it in market and how is it doing. Was supposed to be the costliest phone!
@sriganeshr : A strategic Q. If they decide to create sub-brands? Hi-end phones by one name & lo-end something else. Might do good.
@msigeek : What is stopping Enterprises to adopt Nokia platform as a solution? Have they identified it and working towards it?
youmoveyoudie : Is Nokia planning anything new on mobile ads based on location services? its been there but not noticed.
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If there is one term that is least understood but still continues to generate a lot of buzz, it has to be 3G. I’ll demystify this jargon and find out exactly what it is and how we can benefit from it. 3G will also unleash an amazing number of new gadgets that will redefine the way we look at entertainment, education and communication.
3G stands for third generation, a wireless technology that helps to simultaneously transfer voice (telephone calls) and data (broadband Internet). 3G is an evolution of the existing 2G technologies that has limited capabilities, both on the device side and on the network side. The mobile connectivity we currently use runs on 2G network and its plagued on two accounts. One is the limited network bandwidth which explains why our calls can’t go through because of network congestion. The second is extremely lean data bandwidth, which explains why surfing on the mobile phone or the GPRS data card is so pathetically slow.
3G could be our solution. 3G offers a huge bandwidth which means that we no longer have to suffer from congestion. We can now benefit from superior voice quality, higher call connections and lower consumption of battery power.
Networks supporting 3G would have data transfer speeds up to 3 Mbps. This is a huge improvement over the extremely limited 144 Kbps we are used to so far. For example, if you chose to download a Tamil song over the existing setup, it would take you upwards of 10 minutes.
But with a 3G connection, you will be done in under 15 seconds. One can take advantage of higher mega pixel cameras that come with the latest phones and upload both photos and videos online or even stream live. Higher bandwidth means easier way to listen to music, watch videos, do social networking and play advanced games.
3G makes video streaming applications such as Live TV, movie downloads, high speed data download possible on mobile phones. Higher bandwidth opens up many possibilities and thereby enables a common user to experience a host of advanced data services like mobile banking and micro finance. Now with such widespread mobile penetration, imagine the wide reach of banking.
A business user using 3G-enabled hand-held devices will be able to download large-sized files quickly; his email capabilities and Internet experience will increase considerably due to higher network speeds, thereby making laptops redundant.
3G has immense potential in India. We are nearing 600 million mobile phone users in India and it is expected to double by 2012. Every month, we add over 20 million new users. We continue to be the fastest growing country in the world when it comes to mobile adoption. The good news is that in India, there are at least 40 million 3G-enabled phones, which means India already has 5 times Singapore’s population as a potential 3G market.
However, due to the government bureaucracy, red tapism and the haggling over the prices, the licenses for 3G have taken far longer than it should. The auction has been completed and the good news is that the private players will join in the fray very soon. When private players like Airtel, Reliance and Idea get into the fray, their marketing blitzkrieg will push adoption levels higher. But that’s in the near future. Add to this the government player’s long arm of reaching 700 cities, 3G is definite to take off.
For the present, only government players like BSNL and MTNL have been given licenses but their sales has been very disappointing so far. Analysts say that the big players have not marketed the services well.
Countries like Japan and Korea have made 3G a national agenda and have waived the huge license fees. This has drastically increased the adoption levels and the benefits of economy are for everyone to see. Its just a matter of time that India takes that path.
Source- http://www.financialexpress.com/news/3g-what-does-it-mean-to-us/628496/0
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