Five Things Nokia is doing good in Smartphones(S^3)

Well after recently reading a post in AAS, I decided ok, Nokia has faced a lot of flak this year , But they must be doing something right to sell so many N8's . Here are the Best I can summarize:




1) Common Platforms: N8 is the shutterbug's delight. C7 is the party animal. But C6 is phone that will perhaps sell more then the two combined. Inspite of the obvious price and positioning differences It is great from a dev point of view that the cpu architecture and the screen resolution is same in all three phones(and also in upcoming in E7). This will probably lead to end of voes similar to what some users post on forums :"Why does oval racer lag on my brand new N85"


2)Fantastic Media consumption: Again What Nokia has done is seamlessly integrated divx,xvid and even the stellar matroska profiles in the default video player. What this hardware enabled codecs means is that you get smoother video and better battery life then you will get with software rendering. Another point to be made is that while the music player remains at usual high quality labels, The external speakers , though mono bring back the memories of good ol' 3250. (I am yet to hear the C6 yet,as it has not started selling here.

3) Photo and video editors out of the box: Yes I know I could have integrated this point in the above two points, But then these basic features are what I appreciate the most especially when comparing them to competing platforms.

4)Metallic Magic: Another positive I would like Nokia to continue. All three phones have good amount of metals in their construction. What this does is apart from making the phone more sturdy,also lends it a certain quality feel. Infact most people who see C7 do think of it as some sort of "spiritual" touchscreen successor of E71/E72 series.

5)Continuation of N series: Well I like others was might dissappointed with the N97 , though I also like others bought one when it came out. Interestingly every single N series I have bought like the N95, N97 , and even the N79 had some or other problems when it was new, perhaps the curse of early adopters. But I kid you not , The N8 is a different sort of Nseries. I mean what si the use of a new N series phone which does'nt hang, doesnt reboot and does not show "Memory full" messages. Well Nokia have changed and it is for better .

regards,
aka.

Why Nokia is to be feared in coming years?

I still remember my baby steps in the world of cellphones. It was the year 2000 and information on cellphones was very scarce on the net. gsmarena was in its infancy . Very few genuine sites were there, some like mobile-review.com have become bigger and better. Some have vanished. Some improvised(special mention of 3lib, one of the pioneers)
whatever decision an individual made depended on his peer group and shopkeeper's recommendations. In early 2000's only one name came to mind of both. It was not a question of which company , rather which model . Those days people used to depend on phones for communication, and in Nokia they got bullet proof Signal,voice quality and Battery life (most of the times,but the last point is debatable)
Fast forward to the present. Nokia is getting pounded from everyone atleast the so called "american blogs". Unfortunately for them It does little to affect the perception of buying public in India,Malaysia or sweden,Russia. Even today when The espoo company is making trend setting phones like N8. It has kept the three basics "reception,voice quality,battery life" intact.


Today It is a connected world. Every app on your smartphone wants to keep you, your news and your social feeds upto date. For this they require constant data connection. This is enabled by default in modern OS's like Android and iOS. However what must be understood That Nokia has learnt its lessons in very competitive markets:
India,China where data rates have traditionally been very costly vis-a-vis the average income of the populace. That is why symbian was designed in such a robust way that every app that tries to access the internet(other then some cert enabled apps) require the permission of the owner. Morever It also give you the option of using separate access points for separate apps. That is a feature to be appreciate if your carrier uses separate apn for mobile streaming and another one for tethering.
This policy also helps you get a rather healthy battery life as compared to connected "OS".


Also recently the issue has emerged where people expect hardware prices to become cheaper- and want the big companies like apple,Nokia to be sustained solely based on the services. Nokia should be careful here. It has always been a hardware company, Delivering some of the best design and never outsourcing its manufacturing to taiwan like others. Services though nice to have should never form the basis of its existence.


contrary to popular belief, N97 even though quite disappointing was actually a bestseller. N8 has none of the flaws of the predecessor. With meego things may get even sweeter for Nokia.

Best android Phones under 15K!

Well what are the best android phones you can buy in India right now under 15k?


1) LG Optimus one (13k):

Hats off to LG for focusing on Midrange android while samsung go silly over SGS and HTC seriously overpricing their droids. Essentialy a HTC legend on budget, This LG runs froyo by default.

Pro's: Froyo, 512 MB ram, Decent cpu, Almost aosp like Default ROM
Cons: Looks strange, reliabilty factor not known

2) Samsung Galaxy 3(12k):
Unfortunately since spica was withdrawn , this has been the main sammy weapon in 12-13k smartphone market. Hated by purists, It still found a good market thanks mainly to its early launch. Beware of the Cpu though. Its perhaps the worst in market

Pro's: Smooth responsive TS experience second only to apple, Divx support, froyo out ( on xda)
Cons: Low res screen hampers browsing, GPS issues

3) SE Xperia X8:

If you are after a phone that is different from your friends , then go for this. Atleast I am sure not many will be having it. Still runs 1.6 donut, I myself am a big fan of how SE have modded Android and love the bluish skin they use. Agaain same qualcomm platform as legend and optimus one means it should run games quite smoothly.

Pro's: looks different ( in a good way)
Cons: Small screen, Low battery, downgraded camera , donut

Top 5 Camera phones you can buy as on 19.5.2010

Well times have changed hugely, with people not as easily fooled by megapixel rating as they used
to be in 2008, with the result that companies have strived to deliever something extra in imaging that every shutterbug goes ga ga-cheeeez...

Here I will be looking at the best camera phones that money can buy u today. I am looking specifically at the camera and things like OS,Screen,etc dont matter.


1)Nokia N86: Just when Every company worth it's salt was readying up 12mp camera phones, nokia were hard trying to justify "sensor improvements" and "megapixel myth" to sensible consumers. N86 took average photos in daylight and in complete darkness, the pinch of missing xenon struck hard and fast. But boy, landscape dusk pictures have never been as good as this even if u include dedicated compacts in comparison.

Strengths: Low light marvel
Weakness: macro mode

2)SE C905: This was a phone That never was a hit it was destined to be because it came at a wrong time,at the wrong price. It had everything people love SE phones for:

1) a squarish simple design
2)metallic camera cover
3)small screen :) coupled with exorbiant starting price

and a crackerjack of camera powered by sony exmor sensor and a super powerful xenon flash

Alas it was too thick and was basically a SE K800 on steroids

Even today if I see someone with c905 my ears go green in envy, and I cant or rather wont buy it because it is simply not practical anymore.

Strenghts: Night potrait, Daylight,macro
Weakness: Landscape photos, poor video


3)Sony ericsson Satio

Included here only because It was the 1st 12mp phone launched by a company I worshipped untill recently. Se C905's sensor was replaced by a cheapo unit and we had embarassing comparos where Nokia N86 ended up being better then Satio. Still 12mp images are quite nice esp when left unzoomed. hope they would have kept the name I-do-u. It just sounded so hip.

Strengths: Daylight,complete darkness,macro
Weakness: Artificial lighting, Evening landscape

4) Samsung Omnia HD

Omnia HD from The big S walk in this comparo based on it's stills alone. Other then the quirky user interface, this phone does well in all departments without excelling in any particular, but then It also records HD 720p videos!

Strenghts: HD video, stills are good in almost all conditions
Weakness: Nighttime potraits/landscape

5)Honorable mentions: 1)Vivaz
2)