by jaganath on December 24, 2007
Now that Nokia has updated its internet tablet to N810, it is time to have a relook at one of the earlier posts in this website. The N810 is a hefty update to the earlier version - bringing in a redesigned front, a GPS navigation system, a QWERTY keyboard, a faster processor and many other software improvements. The refresh on the front makes the device look much smaller than the N800.
With the inclusion of GPS and QWERTY keyboard, it now becomes very difficult to compare the iPod touch with this new device. The N810 now is not only a PDA and a media player, it is also a PND (Personal Navigation Device) and a very capable UMPC. It now makes more sense to compare this device with the ASUS EeePC than a media player with a browser like the iPod.
The built in Opera browser of N800 has been replaced with a new one which uses the firefox rendering code. (On a side note, this is where Nokia's inconsistencies come to the fore. They chose Safari(webkit) as the base for the s60 browser, but have used Gecko for the N810. It may be because with Gecko, they have a Linux port to start with, but in case of S60, they had to start pretty from scratch). Other improvements include Skype and Gizmo, which come preinstalled.
Anyone looking at buying the ASUS EeePC should give the N810 a very serious look. While much more compact than the eeePC, the N810 packs more with the inclusion of the onboard GPS navigation system. The EeePC has an upperhand interms of software because of the inclusion of an office suite. If you are not going to do much of wordprocessing and use only email, then the N810 becomes your automatic choice.
by jaganath on December 21, 2007
It is more than a year since Nintendo Wii gaming console started taking the gaming market by storm. As of date, all sorts of sport titles are available for the Wii, but none yet for Cricket. Cricket being one of the most popular sport in the world, it is a big surprise that no company, including EA has come forward with a cricket title for the Wii.
The motion sensing remote is more naturally suited for the batting action than any other game. In cricket crazy nations like India and Pakistan, the Wii cricket game will be a sell out, no doubt. Cricket - these days, is played all the year and so there won’t be any loss of interest among the gaming crowd. It is high time that some game creator takes advantage of this and laugh all the way to the bank.
Technorati Tags: gaming
by jaganath on December 20, 2007
Though the DVD based camcorders are great for shooting videos with an advantage of instant playback on any DVD player, they suffer from one major disadvantage: Poor support for editing. Almost every video editor on the earth supports the DV format, but most of them do not support a direct import from DVD camcorders. I have been disappointed with my purchase of the Sony DCR DVD 803E because of this. Neither Windows Movie Maker nor earlier versions of iMovie supported direct import from DVD camcorders. 
DVD camcorder owners will be delighted to know that iMovie 08 supports direct import of videos from DVD camcorders. Once videos are imported, then creating a new project is as easy as editing any DV movie. You can mix and match clips from different sources and create that nice holiday movie. To see whether your camera is supported, visit this Apple link. Even though my camcorder model is not listed as supported, iMovie still imported my videos like a charm.
Make sure you have finalized your DVD on the camera before you connect it, otherwise, iMovie offers you to format your DVD- which is a little dangerous option. Also, do not chose VR mode when you format the DVD before shooting, as iMovie does not support importing in this format.
iMovie also supports importing from hard drive based camcorders, which are becoming very popular these days.
by jaganath on November 29, 2007
The following ideas will help you getting on to the front page of a social networking website like Digg. Guaranteed.
- Create a calorie calculator application for the jail broken iPhones. (It will make it to the front page of Digg with a title like “Finally, AMAZING calorie calculator application for iPhone [PICS]”)
- Write a bitching article about Vista’s poor performance as against Windows XP and Linux (“One year on and Vista is going down the drain!!”)
- Write a news article on how Ubuntu Linux is making inroads in Ethuvanian computers. (“Ethuvanian government selects Ubuntu over Vista for the 11 computers they are buying this fiscal”)
- Publish the photos of a hard drive from your father’s computer. (“This is how a 64MB hard drive used to look like [PICS]”)
- Create a dock replacement for Leopard OS. (“The best looking dock for the Leopard”)
- Write a news item about RIAA and MPAA’s anti-piracy measures. (“RIAA wants you to pay royalty for the song you hum while using the toilet”)
- Write a useless article like this and post it to Digg (“Top ten Linux commands for newbies”)
by jaganath on September 20, 2007
Gnome 2.20 has been released. This will be picked up by Mandriva and Ubuntu in their upcoming releases. While browsing through the release notes, I found that Evolution has a small but very significant addition: Warning if you forgot to attach something to the mail. This happens to everyone and I had so many instances when I had to send an embarrasing follow-up mail with the attachment! Here comes the savior for many people. Evolution now detects if you have missed any attachments through keywords and provides a nice warning. 
But careful, never check that box below the message!!
A Tip: One way to ensure that you dont miss the attachment is to start typing the mail only after you have attached the document. If you make this a habit, you will eventually have less no of follow up mails sent.
by jaganath on September 19, 2007
Rumors say that Sony Ericsson could be launching some new Windows Mobile devices in the coming months. Once again, HTC seems to be the beneficiary as they are touted to be the ODM who will be manufacturing these devices. On the one hand, it is hard to believe that SE will take such a step considering they are the owners of UIQ, a Symbian based touch screen enabled operating system. On the other hand, it seems to be a logical step for SE considering that the business based phone offerings from SE are almost zero, barring the new P1i. In contrast, Nokia has been very successful with the e-series phones. A couple of Windows Mobile based offerings will help SE to quickly grab some share in the enterprise business market space.
This is also good news for Windows Mobile users, as they will see better quality cameras and music players in the SE based offerings. Sound multimedia capabilities is one thing that Windows Mobile devices have been lacking in. In any case, it is a win-win situation for everyone. Nokia, are you listening?
[via the::unwired]
by jaganath on September 18, 2007
The czar of mobile phone reviews, Eldar Murtazin, is now reviewing the iPhone in a series of articles. While no fan of Apple, Eldar brings in an unbiased look at the much hyped device of the century. Here are the links to the first two articles in the series:
- SMS Features of iPhone
- Phone in the iPhone.
by jaganath on September 18, 2007
HTC entered india with a bang a couple of months back. Hitherto available only through resellers like O2 and i-mate, HTC devices are now available as branded HTC itself. The company priced the launchtime handsets, the Touch and S710 very aggressively - in fact cheaper than the european market - which led to some remarkable sales numbers during the first few weeks. I heard that Touch is in great demand and dealers are running short of supply! Indeed it is a sleek device. Probably the best looking Windows Mobile device ever.
As a result of HTC's pricing, O2 and i-mate also reduced the prices, which means you can get a brand new WM device starting from about INR 12K. That is an amazing price point considering that you had to shell out atleast 25K a couple of months back to get a good WinMobile phone.
by jaganath on September 18, 2007
After the iPhone has been successfully unlocked by the community, the Indian black market is suddenly flooded with iPhones. I think the black market merchants were just waiting for the opportunity. What is disturbing is that these phones are sold at an astronomical price which may give a heart attack to even his Steveness.
The front page of rediff Shopping (a great source of illegally imported electronic goods) shows an iPhone for INR 59,999 which, according to todays' conversion rate is a whopping US $1450. Only a FOOL (a fool in capital letters) will offer to buy the iPhone at this price.
by jaganath on September 7, 2007
While the iPod Touch is predominantly portrayed as a multimedia device which can also browse the internet, the utility value is much more than that portrayed by Apple - It actually appears as a real threat to the N series ‘internet tablets’ from Nokia. The N800 tablet is primarily a web browsing device which also supports making VoIP calls using third party clients like Skype and Gizmo. If you compare both the devices, they are very similar in form factor, the Touch in fact much thinner and smaller than the N800. Both are Wi-Fi enabled devices with excellent browsers (Opera with flash on the N800 and Safari without flash on the Touch) and great multimedia capabilities. Though the N800 lacks flashy features like cover flow, it compensates for many of its short comings with an Open SDK and features like UPnP. Again, I am opening the classic debate of if only the iPod had an SDK…
The N800 has a much higher resolution screen (800×600, WVGA) and an onboard mic and camera for making VoIP video calls. This is where the iPod lacks clearly. With no confirmation of having a mic or Bluetooth (apart from some screenshots which purportedly show a BT icon) it is very difficult to get VoIP running on this device. It will be a shame if it cannot do this, because the iPod Touch seems to have the processing power capable of doing all that the N800 can do.
While it may appear that the iPod Touch has an upper hand in terms of storage capacity, don’t forget that the N800 has two memory card slots for adding additional memory.
For people who only want web browsing on the go, the Touch is a very good device. If it has BT and someone can hack it to support DUN, you virtually have full internet experience wherever you go. The touch is also a full $100 cheaper than the N800. But if you want to make VoIP calls and need third party application support, stay with the N800.
Related: The new Nokia N810 vs the iPod Touch vs the Acer eeePC.
