New Nokia Phone
John writes: "infoSync has posted the official information about the two new Nokia phones which is going to be unveiled today. Quote: 'The Nokia 7650 will be the world's first 2.5G Symbian OS mobile phone with advanced messaging and imaging capabilities ...' It looks like ICQ on the mobile phone is closer than ever!" Includes a built-in camera and various comments about this not coming to North America anytime soon.
One of the nice things about the GSM network is that the phone is separated from the account. Thus it doesn't matter if the phone is sold here as long as it works here. You could just order it from overseas and assimilate it with your SIM chip. The Nokia 7650 phone seems to be tightly packed with just about everything else, too bad they missed 1900MHz support. That foils everything.
Btw, I have a theory about the existence of the Nokia 8890. Nokia realized their non-USA customers probably wanted to travel to the USA, not that they wanted to deliver the USA a cool phone. That's probably the only reason we have it.
Anxiously awaiting the 9290.
In the last 2-3 years or so, all our lines are becoming blurred, and it't useful just to stop and look at how much has changed so quickly.
Just 7 years ago very few people had a moblie phone, they were huge bricks with a battery life of 20 minutes. The digital camera was unheard of, the internet was just entering the mainstream (everyone said it would never catch on), and nobody had a CD writer.
Now we all have our digicam-watches, TiVos, DVD/TV/sound system players/recorders, Internet fridges (order food online as you use it), and miblie phones that can do pretty much enything you want except act as a sextoy [watch this space!].
The boundries between different technologies are becoming nonexistent. Different technologies are more cross-compatible. We are rapidly acheiving a situation where everything can talk to everything else.
As this trend increases, the total personal device (phone/pc/watch/camera/whatever) will evolve. It will do everything, go everywhere with you. It will interact with all the other devices in your life, making things easier and more personal. The electronic walls will change shade as you go into a public buliding, billboards will only advertise things you want. It'll be a better world.
These phones are a step in that direction. Which is, IMHO, very cool.
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined. -- Homer Simpson
The 9210 communicator, runs the Symbian OS, Java and is generally absolutely brilliant. The only issue with it is size, which this phone addresses.
These next generation mobile devices are based around common standards and architectures, SymbianOS , Java & GSM. No Redmond anywhere to be found. Symbian is a solid proper RTOS unlike the PalmOS or WinCE. Consumer devices need to be reliable, robust and pre-emptible.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
This phone supports MID-P
I guess it'd be pretty easy to port a native Jabber client to symbian OS too...
that said, I don't really see the benefit in IM on a GSM phone - how does it differ from SMS exactly?
Messaging != Talking!
Think about it. The people designing these phones a few years ago couldn't anticipate the SMS craze.
But people actually want it so much they're ready to tap text messages on the hugely uncomfortable numeric keypad - not bleeding edge early adopters, but even grandmas and grandpas. It's a billion business here, and the threshold is soooo much lower than 1) get PC, 2) get ICQ, 3) sit around PC waiting for something to happen.
So there must be something to it. Messaging is closer to email in form, than telephony.
I believe the cultures of email and messaging will merge, become mobile and omnipresent, and just like cell phones, perfectly culturally acceptable to keep turned off when you prefer some privacy. (Busy, away, leave a message... same thing.)
J
Maybe because the US so damn huge that it would be unfeasable to set up a complete GSM network. Europe has a much higher population density, which is why GSM is more feasable there.
Somehow I couldn't imagine GSM masts all through North Dakota and Montana.