Swipe the beauty, my thoughts on N9.

When Nokia N9 was launched it blew everyone's mind and made one say 'wow what a phone', an easy to use Harmattan UI on top of MeeGo OS married to a stunning, beautifully crafted, uni-body polycarbonate shell, N9 is a man-made marvel of a mobile phone. What you basically do is swipe left, right, top, bottom from the edge of the phone's screen to navigate to different screens such as Menu, app-switching/Multi-tasking, Notifications. It is revolutionary, unique and well thought out Menu system I've ever used, UI grows on you well and I bet one will accidentally swipe any other phone atleast once after using N9. In this post I share my thoughts about N9.

Swipe..swipe...swipe all over.

Menu screen.

Notifications screen.

One of the cool features on N9 is swipe, there is also Swype(text input) but we'll come to that later. Swipe actions across the screen is all you do to switch between Menu, Open applications and Notifications screens.

N9 has flat menu structure, all applications you download is on the menu screen, there is no support for folders within Menu(Update: with PR1.2 you can create folders), you may have a very long menu screen when you stuff it up with applications. You can re-arrange applications by tapping and holding a particular icon and drag it anywhere in the Menu screen. Notifications screen does what it says by showing Missed calls, e-mails, messages etc. It doesn't notify you for unread tweets, replies, Facebook messages/ unread comments instead it shows your entire Twitter timeline and Facebook news feed. Status bar, on top, is visible all time showing battery status, Operator name and signal, date and also it shows your Gtalk, Facebook and Skype online status with a green icon notification. Phone wouldn't connect me with Gtalk saying 'incorrect password', this seems to be a common problem with N9, work-around is to go 'all offline' and then go 'all online' which works for me.
 

Status bar showing online status

There is, what I call, a drop down utility which pops down when you hit status bar portion, containing Profile switcher, Volume control, shortcut to Bluetooth, Data connection and Transfer(photo upload/download).

Drop down menu with controls

Multi-tasking/open apps screen

Twitter timeline in Notifications screen

Social networking, online services and wi-fi hotspot out of the box:

Coming from Symbian devices I was very much happy to see N9 has built-in, decent, social networking support. Phone comes with Accounts application where you can set N9 to talk with Google, Twitter, Facebook and other online services. Native twitter app has pretty much all features one expect on a twitter client, picture upload support was added to it with PR1.1 update, it uses Twitter's own picture upload service. Adding few more features like sound notification, setting to change refresh intervals, integration with Gallery application would make it near perfect. For some reason app won't tag my location to tweets. Twitter application on N9 does the job very well and it is light years better than pathetic Nokia Social in Symbian devices. Hope Nokia adds few more features to it.

Facebook client, with Facebook chat, is basic but it is nicely integrated with the OS, photos from Gallery can be uploaded directly to Facebook albums. There is no Check-in support but again it does the job well for a normal Facebook user(like me). As an alternative you can download Fmobi from Nokia store, which is a full-fledged Facebook client, it is available as 7 days trial after which you have to purchase the application. For hardcore Facebook users Fmobi ticks all the boxes. Not to be forgotten, with excellent html5 support in the web browser http://touch.facebook.com works beautifully, without any hiccups and slow-downs. There seems to be a bug in N9's web browser with Facebook's touch site, which I came across recently, adding new comments to posts won't work, comments won't appear when posted. This problem seems to be only in N9's browser, I tested same on Nokia 5800's web browser and on Sony Ericsson Xperia mini running Gingerbread there was no such problems with both the phones.

N9 comes with Wi-fi hotspot feature as well, with WEP encryption. 

Photos from Gallery can be posted directly to Flickr and Picasa albums. Other options in Gallery includes favorites, tags and Edit. Recently, Nokia beta labs came up with a plugin called "Photo map plugin' for N9. Once selected photo map plugin shows the location tagged to that photo on Nokia maps on the phone, photos must be Geo-tagged for this('Use GPS' and 'Use geotags' option must be enabled under camera settings), nothing earth-shattering but a nice little feature to show-off to your friends.

Web browser:

N9

.

Xperia mini.

Web browser on N9 shines in rendering web pages. I ran html5 test and Acid3 test on web browser on N9 and compared it with my SE Xperia mini running Android 2.3.4,  N9's web browser scored more in both the tests, results clearly shows what it is capable of. Coming the real world performance, browsing web on N9 is an enjoyable experience, not even once browser crashed or slowed down when opening websites, you can share web links to Twitter from web browser. One thing I was highly impressed with the browser is it displays websites in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam(BTW they are South-Indian languages, excluding Hindi) content well, when I say well it is on par with how it gets rendered on a Desktop browser, flawless it is. I no need to open my laptop for reading Tamizh news websites(which is my mother tongue language) hereafter, N9 does it well. Playing YouTube videos via http://YouTube.com/html5 works well too. With future of web content being html5(here's hoping) I see N9 is all equipped to excel in any operation in regards to web browsing.

On the other hand web browser on N9 is one of the less featured ones around, no bookmarks support, no automatic text re-flow, no copy & paste, inability to store passwords, no flash support(well is that a drawback hereafter?) to name a few. Overall Web browser seems like a unfinished application on N9, lacking basic features.

Text input:

Any touchscreen phone should have a good on-screen keypad to give a better typing experience compared to phones having physical keypad. N9's on-screen keypad is excellent, I always feel I can type faster on this keypad both in portrait and landscape, not with great accuracy though. Word prediction is there but I didn't find it of much use to me. With PR1.1, Nokia added Swype text input for N9. Text prediction and auto-correction works excellently here. Swipe across to get swype keyboard implementation is a clear stroke of a genius, it is one the coolest way to toggle text inputs I've seen on ANY phone, N9 users will agree with me here, enough said.

Swipe to get Swype

Swype in action.

NFC, only for content sharing.

Nokia is talking big about NFC(Near field communications), their newer Symbian devices(err.. in what name should I call them now?) have built-in NFC. N9 is the only MeeGo device with NFC. Photos, videos, music files, documents, contacts etc. can be shared to another Nokia device with NFC, Nokia call it as tap to share. I couldn't test tap to share as I don't have a Symbian device with NFC support. Nokia also have good range of NFC audio accessories like Nokia play 360 speakers, MD310 music receiver etc. NFC is one technology which could take-off in 2012, at present there is nothing much can be done with it than content sharing.

Games:

N9 comes pre-loaded with Angry birds magic(levels need to be unlocked using NFC), Real Golf HD, NFS Shift and Galaxy on fire. I'm not a mobile gamer so couldn't give a pro comment on frame rates, gameplay etc., but I can say all games played buttery smooth with no noticeable lags. There are no big games titles nor you can expect it to come, whatever you see on Nokia store is a bonus. I got addicted this game called 'Incredible Circus', liked the gameplay and levels get interesting and tougher when you advance. Worth giving a try, atleast you won't get bored in a train or bus journey.
  
Music, Video player and Camera.

Music player has a nice look and feel to it, recently added albums art are displayed on top, music files are sorted automatically in artists and albums. Music player in another application with minimalistic features, you can't create a new playlist but can add songs as favorites. With no equalizer support you have to hear how the device plays it. Ovi music(Music on Ovi) is integrated with Music player, only service under the name Ovi you can see on the phone. Recommended albums are displayed within the player using this service. I don't see the point in Ovi music as a service now, you can't purchase music, there are no 'comes with music' phones by Nokia, I don't know one they launched recently. It works for those people with existing subscription which I believe won't work for longer time from now.

Music player screen

 

Ovi music

I am not much impressed with video playback, videos played laggy (DVD quality movies which my E7 played well) and at times audio not synchronized properly. Phone didn't play any 720p HD video well, worst case it won't even open it. XVID encoded .avi format videos played well though. More codecs support needed, maybe with an update or two.

I don't know what to talk about the camera, mobile photography is one thing which Nokia is good at. A person as inept as me in photography all I can say phone takes pictures very fast and camera UI is good. Though, results are not what I expected from a 8 Megapixel camera phone from Nokia.

Before I decide to conclude my thoughts, Push notifications in N9 don't work with any application on the phone. There is an option to enable to Push notification under settings > Notifications, only Nokia pulse application, which was released for N9 recently, makes use of it. Nokia should seriously consider enabling push notification for Twitter, Facebook with next update, if at all they've planned to do so.

Nokia pulse notification on Lock screen

N9 one-off device.

Nokia is committed to WindowsPhone7 for all right reasons and one can see why a Lumia800 is much talked about and not the N9. It is all about support, good applications, developers attention and nifty marketing which N9 hasn't received to a great extent. That doesn't imply it is all over or did Nokia say they are going to wash their hands off. There are some really good utilities available in Nokia store and I find new apps every time I open the store. I'm very lucky to have got a N9 and I enjoy using it everyday with no regrets. With all good hope, let the year 2012 bring new improvements and features to this beauty.


On that note I wish a very happy and gadget filled new year 2012. Hope this year bring more new toys to you.

Scribbled using 'Bord' application for N9.

Me at Nokia world, London.

This diwali turned out to be a memorable one for me, I was invited as guest to attend Nokia world in London along with other top contributors, namely Psychomania, CJLim, Carman58 of Nokia support discussions, see my profile on Nokia support discussions here. Invite was from Nokia discussions forum administrators Vandelay and MichealS( I think picking me was choice of both after two others, invited first, couldn't make it). Names mentioned are their alias on the forum, not real names. I received the invite from Vandelay on 6th October, I was excited after reading the invitation, for a moment thought is this for real. The event was for two days 26th(Diwali day) and 27th and I had already availed leave for Diwali holidays. This being my 'Thala deepavali'( first deepavali after marriage) I was ready to celebrate it in a grand way, Nokia world invite came in as a surprise and suddenly my excitement shifted to it, my spouse was excited as well and encouraged me to attend it. Diwali comes every year but this is one chance I will ever get in my lifetime, I decided not to miss it. Visa procedures were hectic but it is a story for another day, on 21st Oct afternoon I received visa imprinted on my passport delivered at doorstep, I was mighty happy.

Flight journey from Hyderabad to London was not that exciting but for British airways gave me two seats(one window seat), food was OK. Other than my sleeping hours it was a boring flight journey. By visiting this website http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modalpages/2625.aspx and conversations with Psychomania and Carman58 on twitter I was able to get a fair idea how to get to hotel from Heathrow terminal 5 through London Tube service. We were booked to stay in Marriot, West india quay. I accidently met Carman58 and Mr. Mania after I reached Canary Wharf station, hotel was fairly close so we three walked all along. It was so nice of Psychomania who lend me his spare SIM card, it was very helpful for me to check e-mails and post few pictures on twitter while I was there at the event. Not to forget CjLim's cool Guinnes key chain to each one of us.

Got all my keys on this, Thanks CJLim :)

After checking in and resting for few hours in the hotel I met Vandelay, Paul, Jimmy lee(@jjklee on twitter) and Richard dorman who blogs at http://onlyfoolsandmobiles.com/ in the hotel bar down. A special dinner was arranged for that night at La Tascas restaurant and we were joined by Alf Noto, Vice-president Nokia care globally and Adam Fraser who posts at http://conversations.nokia.com, you can read Adam's post on Nokia conversations here. Ambiance at La Tascas restaurant was cool, we talked about phones and community a lot. There were different phones to play with ;-). Later Cjlim joined us. After that, we had a little session back in hotel for sometime, next day was going to be big.

 Day one at Nokia world.

Keynote proceedings started with Colin Giles, head of sales, welcoming all on stage. We were dumbfounded when we four got a mention, that was unprecedented, you can watch the keynote video in this link http://events.nokia.com/nokiaworld/ seek to 3:25th min in the keynote video, later I came to know that CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop himself has told him to give a special mention about us. In the event Nokia launched their WindowsPhone7 devices Lumia800 and Lumia710 and Asha series phones Asha303, Asha300, Asha201 and Asha200. After launch event was over, we were all given a Nokia Lumia 800 for use, they gave it along with an O2 sim card with 10£ credit on it, which is a nice touch, FYI Nokia Lumia phones works only with micro-Sim. Party time started at around 5p.m, probably I might be the only person who didn't drink beer there(bad boy?), there was after party too, I didn't have enough energy to attend so went back to the hotel, anyway I was going to have only coke. 

Evening party on Day one, taken with Lumia800

Evening party on Day one, taken with Lumia800

Day two at Nokia world.

Day two started with a dance show from a crew who performed in 'Britain's got talent' dance show, we attended Q&A sessions from product managers of Lumia 800, Nokia accessories, Nokia music, Nokia store etc. Those who attended Nokia accessories Q&A were given a Nokia MD-310 music receiver, excellent gesture. We were asked to give back Nokia Lumia 800 which we did with regret, phone was awesome to use despite some problems in creating new Windows live account. There was also London sight seeing organized for guests after things got over but I couldn't join them, I stayed for two more days in London, after attending Nokia world, with my high school friend who is living along with his uncle in London. You can see photos of places I visited in London here.

Is Nokia back on track?

Yes in my opinion. Nokia world surely has brought enthusiasm and interest in Nokia phones. There were mixed opinions about Nokia's decision to make WindowsPhone7 as their primary smartphone platform but after using one of the Lumia phones launched I feel they are heading in a right direction and I hope they will prove their decision worth. Nokia world did blow my mind over and this is THE best honour I could get for making mildest of contributions on their support forums compared to others who attended. I thank Nokia for all entertainment and hospitality provided at Excel London. Best event I have attended so far, will remain one of the best for ever. When at Nokia world I didn't miss Diwali at all it was such a wonderful and neatly organised event.

A blog post about Nokia E7.

After using 5800XM for an year I acquired the latest Eseries communicator flagship by Nokia, the E7.

Note: This entire post(text portion) was typed using the E7's QWERTY keypad.

Hardware&Design:

  E7 is built like a tank, it has a slide-out hardware, four rows, QWERTY keypad with Chiclet style keys. The aluminium uni-body design makes it look like a premium device and feels great on your palms, all this in an amazingly slim profile. Needless to say, E7 is a beast, coming under the enterprise series it is also a capable multi-media device, a 4' inch AMOLED capacitive touch-screen with Clear Black Display(CBD), HDMI port output, 16gb mass memory, 8mp camera with dual-LED, 720p video recording and playback etc... are few note-worthy features. Under the hood you have 680Mhz ARM11 processor, Broadcom GPU and 256MB RAM out of which more than 140MB is available for the end user.

Software and usability:

After using it for few weeks now it is growing on me well, I'm loving the qwerty keypad and it is my first ever phone with a qwerty keypad I've used, the experience is really great.

On the software part it runs the latest and greatest Symbian^3 OS which is a functional, capable and feature-rich OS. With live multi-tasking this aspect of Symbian phones has been taken to a new level with Symbian^3 devices.

Visual Multi-tasking on Symbian^3

Symbian^3 is a vast improvement over s60v5 a.l.a Symbian^1 especially to those early adopters of S60v5(devices like 5800XM). Symbian^3, utilising in-built GPU to the full-effect, is very responsive and applications loads faster. There are numerous tweaks done to UI to be more intuitive, as a Symbian^1 user in the past I'm finding some noticeable improvements in Symbian^3 on the whole, but on the competitive part it still lacks behind the best out there in some aspects, especially the web browser. Nokia have promised that there will be updates improving UI, fingers crossed on that.

Multi-media:

E7 is good in both media creation and consumption. Supporting wide range of audio and video formats you hardly need converter software to make it play on the device. Watching videos on the large AMOLED CB display is a true pleasure. E7 can also play 720p HD videos, provided the size of the video is less than 2GB, at present the video player doesn't support sub-titles sure Nokia can sort this through an update. Overall you've got a pocket-able movie player in your hands.

E7 has a 8megapixel fixed focus camera with dual-led flash, the technology EDoF(Extended Depth of Focus) as Nokia claims is good for point and shoot photography but with no auto-focus objects within 30cm are not in focus, in simple terms you can't take a close-up/macro shot, using E7's EDoF camera, the details become blurry. It can shoot HD(1280*720p) videos and you've got continuous auto-focus here, no matter how close you point the camera, in video mode, towards an object it is focussed. Video quality is crisp and clear and there is an additional noise-cancelling microphone at the back to producing some crisp audio too.I've added few camera samples taken with E7 in low-light and in sun light conditions.

Music player on Symbian3 devices has been improved, including eye-candy album art cover-flow. As said before Music player supports wide range of audio formats and with 16GB mass memory there is ample space for songs and videos storage. Lack of folder support and equaliser modification are the few draw-backs in the music player. Audio quality is top-notch as always with Nokia devices and the supplied WH-201 ear-phones do produce good bass at higher levels but I'm going to buy WH-701 ear-phones, which usually comes with Nseries devices, with audio controls on it . I was impressed with the quality of it when I used it before.

Full office suite:

All Nokia Eseries devices comes with full office suite with editing functionality. E7 comes with the latest version of Quickoffice suite, with a hardware QWERTY keyboard there is no need to do your heavy typing work on your PC, slide-out the keyboard you won't feel tired of typing on this. Entire text part of this post was typed using my E7 in quickword. It also comes with a zip manager and Adobe PDF reader. Nokia have also bundled a third-party F-secure anti-theft application for device protection in case of theft, you can password protect the device, the application also sends a message to a registered mobile number if the SIM card is changed.

E-mail is the first priority when it comes to enterprise devices and the E7 delivers well here, by declining the terms and conditions of Nokia messaging you can get additional options in the e-mail client and can use the in-built client to push e-mails from any IMAP/POP servers by-passing from the Nokia servers. E-mail client   display e-mail in HTML, formatted text, with attachments. Option to display images, when needed , is a nice touch  too. Using Mail for Exchange application you can sync e-mails from any exchange servers. There are options to sync e-mail at custom intervals with minimum sync interval being every 5 min. Typing long e-mails, posts such as this, is a superb experience on the stellar hardware QWERTY keypad which gives nice tactile feedback. At any point of time, anywhere in the world, a hardware keypad completely trumps any on-screen QWERTY keyboard no matter how it's designed and how fluid the experience is. 

Excellent keypad of E7.

Features which no other mobile OS has at present:

USB-OTG(USB- On The Go) means all Symbian3 devices, including the Nokia E7, can host a USB device on it. Using the supplied USB-OTG adapter you can directly connect a pen-drive and transfer files to E7 and vice-versa, you can format your flash drive too. If that's not enough connect a USB mouse and browse the device without the touch screen, connect a USB keyboard and start typing if your fat fingers are finding difficult to type on the E7 keypad, I'm thoroughly enjoying this feature and at times boast about it.

8Gb Flash drive connected to E7 showing up on the file manager.

Option to format the flash drive.

  Pentaband 3G- all symbian3 devices works in almost every 3G frequency out there, buying an E7/N8/C7/C6-01 you can almost use the phone around the world, in 3G, which isn't possible with dual-band or tri-band 3G devices.

Recent firmware update:

E7 got an update recently, it got updated to V14. Update was released via FOTA to address some bug fixes and performance improvements.

Version 14.002 update.

Battery life: This is one aspect always depends upon the usage limits of an individual. In case of me, where the device is connected to Internet all time pushing e-mails, refreshing twitter timeline, browing web etc well for that's what the modern devices are made for, I get only less than a day out of it. Using power-saver mode you can drag it slightly more than a day.

All that being said E7 isn't the device for all. There are few drawbacks which may turn down one's choice of E7.

No auto-foucs camera on a high-end device is a complete bummer, I felt the pinch recently when I tried to scan a bar-code using E7's camera it simply won't scan, later I used my Nokia 5800 to scan it and it scanned in seconds, the same applies for scanning some documents or text/picture on a paper.

No memory card expansion, E7 comes only with 16GB mass memory for storage, this isn't a big deal for me as 16GB is enough for my media collection. Device back-up can't be done on to the mass memory, you need to insert a flash drive if you need to have a back-up of the phone memory.

No data encryption. All Eseries devices, except E7, have got data encryption. It's been rumoured that this feature is going to come in a future firmware update.

Non-replaceable battery, no more mocking at Iphone. Any freezes you need to press the power button for 8sec to revive the device.

Final words:I would say E7 is the best ever mobile hardware made so far. Though it has its own demerits, considering what it delivers and it does I don't see them as short-comings. Also the Nokia-Microsoft partnership has dampened the expectations of this device. I'm really worried and sad that such a good, capable and feature-rich OS is counting its days. Nokia have promised to support and release devices running Symbian for an year or so. I bank my hopes on Nokia and wish they optimise Windows Phone OS to match the functionality of Symbian or even better it. If that doesn't happen then many Nokia-Symbian users may bid adieu to Nokia.

 Camera samples

 

Panorama shot of NTR memorial.

Low-light with Flash

There is no point in crying over spilled milk.

Hey can you give me your office phone number; Sure. Wait a moment let me see it from my phone's contacts book.

The above conversation clearly says we are now more dependent on our gadgets(mobile phones for that matter)for storing Phone numbers than our flesh weighing 1.2kgs. Your contacts' information including Mobile, Office, Residence phone number, e-mail address, house address etc., can be stored on a Mobile phone and no one would disagree with me that these days people don't even bother to carry a contact book, why should one carry that? if a phone can store umpteen contacts with ease.

So what is this "no point in Crying over spilled milk" if you haven't guessed by this time its BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP. People store contacts on their phones but seldom they take a backup of it. All mobile manufacturers do provide facility to connect the device to a compatible PC to take back up of conatcts, messages, calender entries, Notes etc. So how do you take a backup of all these? what are the ways through which one can do it?, let me tell you some.

1. SIM card: Yes, don't under-estimate this small piece of plastic. SIM cards can store some good number of contacts, depending on its capacity, an 8K capacity SIM card can store upto 100 contacts, now SIM cards(GSM) are coming with 16k capacity so you have room for storing 200 contacts on to it. A 3G sim card, like the one i have from BSNL, is a 32k SIM card and the numbers double. Always, copy all your phone contacts to your SIM memory too, this would be helpful in occasions where you may need to swap SIM cards to phones, so if your contacts are stored on it simply you can copy them on to the current phone in no time.

                  

Some downsides of SIM card storage are,

• Only the phone number can be stored and not any additional information.
• If you lose your phone or the SIM card your have to say goodbye to your contacts.
• Storage numbers are dependent on its size hence you can't store more number of contacts.

2. PC-suite or PC-studio or PC-sync:  Now comes the Mobile manufacturers' part in backing-up your information, as stated earlier they provide an application which can be installed on to your PC/MAC and by connecting your phone through an USB cable/Bluetooth connection. Starting from basic entry level phones to high-end smartphones can be connected to a computer for this purpose. Go and search your phone box, if you haven't thrown it yet, which would have come with a CD containing the application. Installation isn't that difficult, inserting the CD to your PC would guide you with the procedures of how to do it.

 Advantages of using this backup service are,

• All your data including Contacts, Calender entries, Notes, Bookmarks etc are backed-up.
• Connection to the PC can be done via both USB cable and Bluetooth(provided the phone has Bluetooth).
• If your phone's display fails you can still view and take print-out of your contents.
• Your data is easily accessible and can be retrieved at any time when you want.

Some downsides are,

• If you lose your data cable, and if your phone don't have Bluetooth, then its difficult to further take backup or to retireve it.
• You still depend on your computer for things to happen.

3. Online services: Use your e-mail provider's address book, take some time to update all your contacts' phone number, e-mail address etc. this serves for good purpose incase your phone is stolen /lost,  you can even export all your contacts in a .csv format excel sheet. I use the one such as this and my phone has good integeration to that service. 

Downsides are,

• An Internet connection is needed and you can't view details offline.
• Still you need to search for a computer to backup and get your information.

4. Memory card: Mobile devices, even basic ones(not very basic though), comes with memory card facility(atleast 2Gb) and they can be used to take backup of your data on the phone. It still depends on the phone manufacturer to give such a facility and AFAIK all major manufacturers do provide this facility.

Advantages of using this,

• Everything on your phone, including contacts, calender entries, notes, bookmarks, is backed up on the memory card.
• Restoring the backup is an easy task, with a touch of a button, as the card is always inserted on the Phone.
• No need to depend on a PC to restore your contents.

Downsides,

• If your Memory card gets corrupted you need to depend on the file recovery softwares to get your data.
• If your lose your  Memory card, you lose your data too.

5. Service provider: Some service providers have Mobile phone backup service like this one, contact your provider for such a service. If, none of the above mentioned methods are working and if your data is sensitive enough that it shouldn't be known to others this backup service helps but be ready to cough down the amount your SP demands as this is a premium service.

6. Third-Party applications:

Note: This is applicable only for phones running on a dedicated Mobile OS(Smartphones).

There are number of third-party vendors with security applications supporting multiple Mobile OS platforms, yes, indeed applications aren't free but you get  your bucks worth for it. They provide advanced level security and features, having used one personally(got a promotional free one with license, so didn't pay for it) i was very much satisfied with the features and functionality, you can set password for your Messages, Gallery, e-mail applications on your phone.

If you are a Symbian-Nokia smartphone user check the Ovi store

                    Windows Mobile user user check the Windows Marketplace

                    Google's Andriod smartphone user check Andriod market

                    Balckberry User check BB app world 

I am not a Smartphone user where do i go?. All feature phones("non-smartphones") support Java you can search for Java applications, you can find some free here getjar.

There are six ways which i found, though i use only three on a regular basis, there are many available, if you are using any other way than mentioned above please let me know and put it across in your comments i would be interested in trying it. Always backup your data with more than one source/method there is nothing which is secure and trust-worthy in this case.

If you find any difficulites, I am glad to help in this regard. So, have you started to backup, do it now if you feel intimidated by my post.  Happy backing-up, good luck.

3G and all craze

                       On March 3rd BSNL officially launched their 3G services here in Hyderabad. On March 9th i took hold of a BSNL 3G prepaid connection with 3G Promotional plan. Being a Mobile Internet user most of the times 3G was always a special interest to me, as it offers better internet speeds, better voice quality and the killer feature video calling. In this post i share my experience and understanding about the service, what exactly 3G means to a normal user and what you need to possess( w.r.t mobile device) to avail this service, lets roll on.

                      3G is not a technology its a Value Added Service(VAS), all what the providers get is the additional bandwidth to support High speed data which inturn optimises voice and video call quality. In India 3G operating frequencies are mainly in 2.1Ghz band(2100Mhz) for better understanding of operating frequencies read  Mobile operating frequencies posted earlier. If you have a mobile which supports 3G you are all set  to make use of the service.

How to choose a 3G mobile device: A mobile device should have a 3G radio built in to support 3G frequencies, yes its the hardware not software, this feature can't be added to a device through a firmware update or installing any application. So you walk into a mobile shop, buy a 3G device, insert a 3G SIM card and start making video call is that it, NO, make sure the 3G device you buy have a front facing camera which is must for  Video calling. Prices of mobile phones with 3G have come down in the recent times so buying a 3G mobile device will not make your pockets empty.

What a normal user can get from it: The striking featue of 3G is the ability to make video call, you can see the face of the person whom you are calling to provided the user at the other end have a 3G device with a front facing camera. Let us talk about the reverse compatibility here will a 3G SIM card works on GSM too, Yes, if at times you dont get any signal around your area for a long time you can make calls via GSM, but only voice calls, for this you need to do a small setting change in the device go to your Network settings and make the Network Selection to GSM, this is how it looks

In Dual mode : The device automatically goes to 3G when there is no GSM signal and vice-versa.

In UMTS: The device will be in 3G only mode

In GSM: The device will be in GSM only mode.

The evolution goes like this. GSM > 2G, UMTS > 3G, LTE > 4G

In addition to video calling you also get internet access at better speeds, upto 2Mbps is what BSNL promises, you can be online while on a call in a 3G network with the existing 2.5g GPRS your Packet data connection is kept on hold during call and is active after your call is disconnected doesn't it reminds us of our dial-up internet modems what we were using in older days, thats also another reason why 3G is called Mobile broadband.

How to make full use of it: This is where the geeks try to make use of it to the fullest extent i dont want to make voice calls(network provider's) from my 3G connection instead i will make Internet VOIP calls from it, Yes all you need is an Instant messaging application like Nimbuzz , Fring , Palringo and a flat rate data plan from the provider. You can get good VOIP voice quality over 3G.  At present BSNL doesn't give any great data plans what you get is a paltry 25Mb free which will go down in a jiffy browsing larger web pages. You can also make use of Skype to make cheap international calls over 3G connection some of the applications mentioned above also supports video calls.

With BSNL the only provider giving 3G services i would say they are not marketing it well, if they can give some good data plans and advertise things well sure they will remain Monopoly in 3G services also can make path for competition, when by the time the other private providers start rolling out 3G services they would be having strong and good customer base.

P.S. If you find any information mentioned above which needs correction feel free to comment, I am open to it.

Addicted to Podcasts now.

Another quick blog entry.

On the Music player of my 5800 there is an option called Podcasts  i should call myself a stupid for not opening this since i bought the cell phone so its alomost two months now i missed it, no worries better late than never. Few days back i opened it accidentally and i was exposed to a world of Podcasts about various different topics. I started subscribing to the ones which i liked, i want to learn Hindi hence in the process of finding e-books, now i have decided to go through this way to start my learning, i could find only one podcasts related to Hindi language learning and found only one 'ispeakhindi'  available on the Directories which was last updated some 1200 days back with only to two Audio podcasts.

After that i googled for some other sites which publish podcasts about Hindi language learning, there are plenty available and i found this one , i haven't listened to any of the lessons published there but soon i will, not only this there are surplus topics related to Music, Finance, Technology, Sports you name it, topics available from A to Z. So the next question is how do you listen to all this. Please read on

Pre-requisites: All you need is an application which can download podcasts and update the feeds, i got one inbuilt on my device, there are podcasting application for all platforms(Smartphone) download the one intended for your device. Next you need a GPRS/3G/Wi-fi connection to download the podcasts and listen to it, make sure you have flat rate data plan, i have upto 2Gb data downloads for a month from Airtel with a top-up of 98 which serves for the purpose very well, average size of a podcasts varies depending upon the length and the quality of it, so 2Gb is more than enough if you are even constantly downloading.

How to Subscribe: If you want to add a new podcats look for the rss feed on the website Like this one, type the address, the application prompts to enter the address when you want to add a new podcasts, update it and  you are good to listen to the Audio, there are Video podcasts too.

There are some good things like this which you can make use of and when utilised in a constructive way learning things is a lot simpler. Podcasts are indeed a simple and effective way i found so far for learning.

Thanks for reading...............

Me.On the phonesshow

I like this phonesshow by steve litchfield and i sent my story "Device of choice" and it got featured in the 100th show, i am glad i was a part of it and many thanks to Steve litchfield for this opportunity.

Seek to 11.45th minute here.


Thanks.

My impressions on the new device

Ok my first post in 2010 is about my cell phone

There are numerous reviews on the internet about this device i am not a reviewer the below points are what i observed with the device, since i bought the device now (it was launched on 2009 jan) its very late, anyways those who are having any idea of buying in the future this would help a bit.

After using my 5800 for some three days first i made some comparison with my old device N73, this comparison is not confined to these two devices and it will address what the features you get going for a latest device

Let me start with the unboxing what i got  for 14K

Ofcourse the device itself with the battery also i got some free extras like Reebok watch, senneheiser headset the one given by Nokia was no use it didnt even fit into my ears

First comparison was the camera in a nice evening lighting conditions i took some close-up shots also point and shoot pictures of both the devices and the results

Close up shots taken with N73
                                                                                        

Close up shots taken with Nokia 5800
                                                           
   

You can definitely see some purple colouration on the leaves on left pic of N73 whereas the one taken with 5800 looks OK

With no change in camera settings "Automatic mode"

N73

5800

Even in this pic i find 5800 has captured well i have no reason why my N73 has performed bad

Next is the video comparison on both the devices undoubtedly 5800 wins here since it has got better video recording capability with 640*360 30fps DVD quality recording whereas the N73 records videos only at QVGA resolution with 15 fps

Note: 25 fps is what you see on the Television

Best part of 5800 is the Music player,  i dont know what an ipod or a walkman can offer but i vouch for the music quality of this device it gives you every beat of the song get a dedicated Music stereo headset ( i got senneheiser headset free) and you are in for true music experience it comes preloaded with 8gb micro SDHC card so you have ample room for your music collections. It comes with 8 preset equaliser setting those who are good at fiddling with it can even get better results in sound quality

One more little thing which could have been added to this Music player is the Visualisations which is found on my N73 its not a big deal anyway its a feature missing

Next comes the display it packs 640*360 pixels 3.2 inch 16:9 aspect ratio display which can show you items in 16 million colours and web browsing on that screen it a true pleasure so watching videos

Web browser in this device is webkit based HTML browser with Flash support  in laymen terms you can watch YouTube videos directly on the device and also other flash contents so no more broken images when you load pages with flash content  and the page rendering is good equalling what you see on desktops computers,  the sad part of it the browser is not reliable as it crashes often while loading heavy web pages. Opera mini is the only solution and workaround for this and it dont support flash but it does the job waiting for Nokia to fix this bug in a future firmware update

FOTA ( firmware over the air) its a feature where you can directly update you device's firmware over your GPRS/3G connection or Wi-fi. You can get the firmware version of your device by dialling *#0000# from the main screen. The best part of this feature is the download and update happens fast and its hassle free, another way of updating is through Nokia Software updater application installed on to the PC and with the device connected to the PC via its USB data cable  

Connectivity is plenty for a music centric device it really an extra and Nokia have thrown in every connectivity options available starting from Wi-fi, Bluetooth 2.0 supporting A2DP where you can stream your music wirelessly with a compatible stereo bluetooth headset, 3.5G HSDPA. In india 3g is still a daydream and with BSNL the only provider supporting the service which is not that much appealing.

Memory and Storage Phone has inbuilt memory of 81mb and the supports memory cards upto 16 gb also its compatible with 32 gb cards but those capacity cards are not produced yet , it has 128mb of RAM and the free executable RAM for the end user hovers at around 40 to 50 Mb depending upon the applications running in the background, it never ran out of memory when i opened Web browser, twitter client, messaging i was able to multitask seamlessly

GPS receiver is another feature which comes with the device and its a good one too within few miutes i was able to get GPS fix and it showed me the exact location where i am with Nokia maps 2.0 preinstalled you can also download Google maps which works flawlessly

Messaging  it has a HTML e-mail client enter your username and password of your e-mail provider and it fetches the settings automatically and you are ready to access your e-mails it supports both POP3 and IMAP mailboxes, for your office e-mails you can download Mail for exchange (Mfe) application through the application update, If your office has Microsoft exchnage server then get the settings from the IT dept and your are good to access office mails too

Okay Lets talk about the bad part of it

Build quality utter plastic by seeing the device you wont agree that you have bought a 14k mobile device

Touchscreen sensitivity No means the touchscreen of this one is fluid its no way near when compared to that of the capacitive touchscreen devcies like Iphone, Samsung jet, HTC HD2 etc which supports multitouch (example: you can zoom in on the screen by pinching it ) and kinetic scrolling where the screen reacts to your single flick and never stops scrolling until you keep the finger on the screen again

Double select to open applications and menu items, when you touch any option it never launches instead it selects you have to tap again to open, unless you get used to it you will find it difficult. 

No quickoffice reader and Pdf reader for opening office files like word, excel and powerpoint you need to purchase quickoffice, whereas in Nseries devices you have it preinstalled which is a quickoffice viewer, only on Nokia E-series devices you can edit,create and open office files out of the box also, NO Zip application out of the box anyway i downloaded it later.

As i hinted before Web browser crashes when loading web pages

Selection of items is another time consumig process you have only Mark all and unmark all options so if you want to select few items or delete few you have to do it one by one, assume you have some 1000 songs and you want to delete some 20 in between your patience is tested, In keypad devices you have a "pencil key" holding that and selecting items from your D-pad the job can be done a lot easier and quickly.

Conclusion: I bought this device only for its smartphone capabilities and features like kinetic scrolling and multitouch etc. are more of eye candy stuff than selling points but i never say that i dont want it, if it comes in the next firmware update then its great. Though the touch screen experience is not that much great its only the best value for money mid-level touch screen smartphone one can get

Thanks for reading :-)