n95

Nokia N82 is one of the top end, feature packed n-series phones from Nokia. It is a cross between the N73 and the N95 - form factor of the N73 combined with the features of N95. The highlight of the N82 is its excellent camera. It can easily replace one of those pocket digital cameras people carry. When compared to a stand-alone digital camera, the only thing you will miss from the N82 is perhaps the optical zoom.

Now for the important question - should you buy the N82? Hmmm, before I try to answer this question, let me list the Pros and Cons of this phone.

Pros

• N95 in a pocketable size
• Excellent digital camera
• On board GPS
• Expandable memory with micro SD card slot
• S60 v3 FP1
• Choice of great applications

Cons

• Tiny keys on the keypad.
• Plasticky feel
• Small screen size

Surely, Nokia doesn’t believe in ‘one size fits all’ theory compared to some other mobile phone vendors. Looking at the spec sheet, it is hard to tell the difference between the N95 and the N82.

When it comes to the buying decision, choose the N82 if you are looking for a good camera phone with decent music support. On the other hand, if you want a good internet, movie watching and music listening experience, go with the N95 8GB.

If you are on a budget, choose the N82 as it  costs significantly less than the N95 8GB. If you have the cash, then perhaps you can even the skip the N95 8GB and wait for the mother of all phones, the Nokia N96 - which is just a few weeks away from reaching a retailer near you.

Read the entire series here:

1. Life with N82: Hardware walkthrough
2. Life with N82: The camera
3. Life with N82: Rest of the features
4. Concluding thoughts

Bookmark It

The camera on Nokia N82

In terms of hardware specifications, there is hardly anything that differentiates the Nokia N82 from the N95, except for the form factor perhaps. But if you read the specifications closely, you will notice a difference in their camera specifications. Yes, both of them share the same 5MP Carl-Zeiss optics - but for the on-board flash.

Yes! The N82 comes with a Xenon flash - the same type of flash you find on your digital camera - whereas the N95 features a pretty ordinary LED flash, which I found to be of use only when you are shooting videos under low light conditions.

The xenon flash on the N82 is very powerful and takes very acceptable pictures even in zero visibility. Here is a comparison of the same object shot with the LED flash on Nokia N95 and N82. Settings on both the cameras remained the same.

Shot with N95 8GB (LED Flash)

Shot with N82 (Xenon Flash)

The camera application is invoked by sliding the mechanical shutter on the camera face. This is the way it should have been on the N95 8GB too, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Here are some screenshots from the N82 camera application, which will show you the kind of features you can expect from it.

White balance settings:

Exposure compensation:

Contrast settings:

Sharpness settings:

Light Sensitivity:

Scene Modes:

Flash settings:

Self-timer:

Image sequence mode:

Color tones:

That reads like a digital camera walkthrough isn’t it? Yes, Nokia camera phones are approaching the levels of usability and functionality of a standalone digital camera.

What makes the N82 camera phone much more useful than a normal digital camera is its ability to share the videos and pictures directly from the camera itself. You can configure the built-in “Share Online” application to automatically upload pictures as and when they are taken to your favorite photo sharing service like Flickr or even Nokia’s own Ovi.

In my experience of using several mobile phones, I would rate the N82 as the best mobile camera phone. It is a shame that even the upcoming Nokia N96 does not sport a Xenon flash, which makes a world of difference as far as the picture quality is concerned.

Read part 1 of this article.

Read part 3 of this article.

Bookmark It

The good people at WomWorld sent me a trial Nokia N82 to play with. After having an extended stay at the Indian customs, the phone reached on Thursday this week. Since then, I have been playing with it and getting familiarized with its features. In this series of articles which will span for about 10 days, I will cover on what it is to live with a modern S60 handset and how it can become an integral part of your daily routine.

Hardware

Nokia N82 is a candy bar phone with a nice large QVGA screen. Though large, the 2.4″ screen is noticeably smaller than the Nokia N95’s 2.8″ screen. Nevertheless, the screen is bright, sharp and lively. When you see the N82 for the first time, what strikes you most is the minuscule keys on the keypad. It certainly is not the most comfortable keypad in the world, but surely is not unusable either. You have to place your finger on a certain angle and then press the keys, or you may end up pressing two keys.

The phone is relatively thick by today’s standards. The tapered design on the back makes it comfortable to hold. The shiny metallic front gives an expensive feel to the phone, but the rest of the plastic feels cheap.

You will find a multimedia and an application key on the front, which have now become a standard. (On the N95, the multimedia key equivalent is the slide-out).

The 3.5 mm audio jack and the power key are on the top of the phone. This is an improvement over the N95 where the audio jack is on the sides, making it uncomfortable to use with a pouch or when it is in your pocket.

On the right side, you will find the two stereo speakers, the volume keys, the camera and the gallery button.

On the left side, the micro SD card slot, the power jack and the USB port can be found. There isn’t anything on the bottom, except for a small hole for the microphone.

The 5 MP camera and the associated Xenon flash can be found on the back of the phone. There is also a front facing camera, essential for making video calls. The 5MP camera becomes far more effective than the camera on the N95 because of the inclusion of the Xenon flash. More on that in another part of this series.

The N82 comes with a 1050 mAH battery, which is quite adequate for this phone. The innards of the N82 consist of a 3G baseband with HSDPA support. There is also a GPS chip which along with the Nokia Maps will help you navigate in most cities of the world. Except for the form factor, the specifications of N82 are pretty much similar to the Nokia N95.

Here is a comparison shot of the N82 along with the N95 8GB and the Apple iPhone.

That was a quick overview of the hardware of the N82. In the next article we will cover the phone and camera features of this amazing little phone.

Now available:

Part 2: The camera

Part 3: Everything else

Bookmark It

If you have subscribed to the Apple MobileMe service and have a Nokia S60 handset, you may like to receive your mails on that phone too. It is pretty simple to configure. Here is a screenshot walkthrough. These instructions should apply for S60 v3 handsets like Nokia N95, N95 8GB, N96, N82, N73, N78 and several other e-series phones.

Lets get started.

If you have not defined a mailbox, you will get this message:

Select Yes.

Select IMAP4 as mailbox type

Type your MobileMe email address.

For the incoming mail server, type mail.me.com

Similarly, for  step 4, type smtp.me.com as the outgoing email server.

I usually select "Always Ask" as the access point choice. Select your choice here.

For the mailbox name, give a descriptive name like "MobileMe". Now press Finish. We are not done yet.

Go back to your messaging screen and select settings.

Select MobileMe. On the next screen, select Incoming mail settings. You have to change a few options in this screen.

Type your MobileMe username and password.

Change the security setting to SSL/TLS and port to user defined. Change the port to 993 (Most likely it is already chosen as 993, if not change it).

For the outgoing email settings, just type in your username and password and leave everything else with the default values.

You can now go back to your MobileMe account on the messaging screen and select "Connect". You should see your mails getting downloaded. Since this is an IMAP account, as long as you do not disconnect you will get your new mails automatically updated (which Apple calls as "push").

Unfortunately, it is not possible to sync your calendar and contacts using this method. If you want to sync them regularly, use the Nokia Multimedia Transfer or the PC Suite depending upon whether you use a Mac or PC.

Related: Gmail IMAP on your S60 phone.

Bookmark It

As the release of iPhone 3G is fast approaching, you may be wondering if it is an upgrade you should go far. Especially if you are the owner of the first generation iPhone. If you are looking at the alternatives, then there are two phones which I would strongly recommend. One of them is already released and the other one will be released in a month’s time. Here is a quick and short description of what are the pros and cons of these phones when compared to the Apple iPhone.

HTC Touch Diamond

Perhaps the best Windows Mobile phone in the market that you can buy today, though I do not recommend this for readers from India.

Where it betters the iPhone:

• Much higher resolution than the iPhone (640×480 as against iPhone’s 480×320)
• Far better camera (3 MP)
• Better PIM applications and Exchange sync capability
• Desktop compatible office suite
• Huge base of freeware and shareware applications

Where it struggles to match the iPhone:

• Though high resolution, the screen is only 2.7″ as opposed to iPhone’s 3.5″
• Only 4GB capacity and no expansion slot
• Windows Mobile default interface will require the use of stylus
• No multi touch
• Resistive touch screen does not offer the responsiveness of the iPhone

Nokia N96

This soon to be released flagship from Nokia will be a worthy rival to the iPhone 3G (No one can forget the N95 comparisons we had with the first version of iPhone).

Where it betters the iPhone:

• 16 GB capacity with expansion slot. (Virtually unlimited memory)
• Stellar camera with excellent video recording
• Mobile TV (DVB-H as of now is available only in a few countries)
• Huge base of freeware and shareware applications
• Nokia provided Maps for virtually every country in the world
• Truckload of Nokia services including Ovi etc.,

Where it struggles to match the iPhone:

• QVGA screen
• No touch features
• Brick like form factor may not appeal to many

There are many common features between these 3 devices. The browser on each one is very useable (In fact Safari and the S60 browser share the same codebase). All of them feature GPS and excellent multimedia capabilities. So the choice is yours.

I have left out phones like Samsung Instinct from comparison because they are not strictly ‘Smart Phones’.

Related: Should you buy the HTC Touch Diamond in India?

Bookmark It

Several new mobile phones are coming with TV out as an option. While people use this feature to show off their photo albums and video clips, it can also be used in corporate environments to exhibit power point presentations etc., But unfortunately not every projector can accept a composite video signal - most can only take a VGA signal as input.

A simple solution to overcome this problem is to use a Composite to VGA converter. There are many such boxes available in the market. To use these, just connect the provided TV out cable to the converter and the other end (VGA cable) to the projector. You can use Quick Office to show the presentations. Since the output is normal VGA, the same technique can be used to connect to a PC monitor also. The only thing you have to watch out for is the output resolution of these devices, as you cannot set that from your mobile phone.

Amazon has several such converters.

You should be able to use any mobile phone with TV out in this manner.

Bookmark It

Traditional radio is slowly dying as internet radio stations are catching up fast - the obvious advantage being location independence. You can tune into any radio station irrespective of your geographical location. With  new mobile devices offering you 3G and Wi-Fi data connectivity, many mobile radio players have started appearing on the internet.

If you are using Nokia N95, N95 8GB or the newer handsets like N78, you will find the Nokia Internet Radio application preinstalled, assuming you have the latest firmware running. Once you launch this application, you can browse a huge list of radio stations by going through the station directory. Unfortunately, you cannot add a custom radio stream with the help of this application.

There is an excellent third party application called Tunin.FM, which is a nice little digital radio for your S60 device. You can easily install it by visiting http://wap.tunin.fm on your S60 browser. Once you download and install the client, you can go back to the wap site to select the radio stations of your choice. When launched, the radio client also provides you an option to play one of the top 10 stations.

Another digital radio is from Spodtronic. It is the most professional and beautiful looking among all these three applications. Spodtronic also offers a huge collection of radio stations to tune into. (When I tried, I never got the confirmation SMS from them, which is required for activation. Your mileage may vary).

You can pick any one of these (or all the three!) to enjoy streaming digital music on your S60 phone. Just make sure that you use a free Wi-Fi connection or an unlimited data plan from your operator. You may run into huge monthly bills otherwise.

Related: GMAIL IMAP configuration on Nokia N95 /N958GB

Bookmark It

Here in the 21st century, it is still an irony that many smartphones still ship with the QVGA (320×240) screen. Though the trend is slowly changing with the likes of HTC Touch Diamond, Toshiba G series and Apple iPhone, it is a pity that almost all S60 phones shipping today still sport QVGA. Of particular note is the upcoming N96 from Nokia. Apart from the E90 no other S60 phone in Nokia’s current portfolio has a screen larger than QVGA. Ha, the good old N80 days!

You may ask- do we really need anything more than QVGA, especially with the kind of mobile browsers available today. When compared to QVGA, VGA at 640×480 provides four times more pixel count. This means less scrolling while browsing. Your pictures and videos will also appear with better clarity and details because of the higher pixel density. Excel mobile becomes usable with QVGA. Look at this comparison picture from Jason Langridge’s blog which shows how better the browsing experience is on a VGA screen, even with the same screen size.

By the way, VGA is not the only option available. The iPhone sports a lower resolution than VGA at 480×320 which is still way ahead of QVGA in terms of usability. I think Apple found this resolution as the sweet spot as some people consider that VGA screens display tiny fonts which could strain your eyes. Some Windows Mobile phones like Toshiba G900 also sport screens with a whopping 800×480 WVGA resolution.

If you want a better mobile experience VGA (or higher) is the way to go. This could be one reason the N96 may not see the kind of success its predecessor, the N95 boasts of.

Bookmark It

This is probably the first time Apple is offering a product at a significantly lower cost than its rivals. The new iPhone, which will compete with the likes of Nokia N96 and several other 3G Windows Mobile phones which sport equally good features, applications and hardware capabilities. Compare Apple’s $199 iPhone 3G to an unlocked N95 8GB, which sells for $600 upwards. Some people may point out to the contract involved, but even if you go with another device, an unlimited data plan will still cost you almost as much as an iPhone data plan.

This will definitely make the iPhone a mass market device. As more carriers are picking it up, it will likely to become as ubiquitous as the iPod. Apple surely is on its way to achieve the target of 10 million phones this year. My guess is that they will handsomely overshoot this target.

Now, what does this mean for other mobile phone makers? Surely, just imitating iPhone is not sufficient anymore. They need to reduce prices and that too in a big way. This will definitely put pressure on the already wafer thin margins that many mobile phone vendors are operating on. The AppStore is likely to be an instant hit with tons of games and applications, which is another nice distribution model that will be difficult to emulate by others. Mobile vendors will now be banking on volumes to derive profits from Smartphone sales too. This is going to be interesting as smartphones will be available at attractive prices for the masses who had to be content with feature phones earlier.

I feel that there will be a new class of phones which could be called ‘Smarter Phones’ which will feature cutting edge technologies, staying ahead in the race. Expect such phones to come from Nokia and the Windows Mobile stable in the next few quarters.

Bookmark It