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New Nokia Phones With Full Color And MMS

Posted by Hemos on from the with-still-crappy-interface dept.

scrm writes "Nokia have just launched six new phones at the Nokia Mobile Internet Conference. All phones have color and MMS. Interesting is the 6800 that is specially designed for text input, and the premium 8910i with titanium casing, Bluetooth and J2ME apps. Will this company ever stop? (Nokia's press release is here, but the server is being battered right now.)" I've still got a serious lust on for T68i - it's iSync compatible and all that fun.

11 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Run by engineers by bunyip · · Score: 5, Informative

    Will this company ever stop?

    I read an article a couple of months ago where they described the engineering culture at Nokia (I don't remember where, somebody please post a link if you know).

    In short, they worship geeks internally, not CYA lawyers, suits and the like.

    So, I don't believe they'll ever stop *and* that's a good thing!

    1. Re:Run by engineers by thogard · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think they already lost the plot. Years ago they were working on good user interfaces and were much better than everyone else. It took Motorola years to get away from their "it started out as a "8 digit 7 segment display" mentality.

      Last year I bought the top of the line Nokia phone (8310). Its only slightly better than the older phones and its got lots of nasty bugs and stupid interface issues. For example if you send an SMS, the display mode goes back into editor. If you get distracted and don't know if you sent the message or not (or of the cell site rejected it for some reason), you can't tell if it was sent.

      You can't hook a data cable up to the phone. You have to use IRDA. When was the last time any computer except a laptop had IRDA? The last time I saw a new one was over 5 years ago.

      The problem this week is there is no local time offset. My phone company hasn't figured out day light savings started so my phone has the wrong time and keeps asking to update it. The problem is the message pops up at the wrong time and gets acked while I'm tring to make a call.

      No POP3 mailer with gprs? what were they thinking? I want my phone to always be connected using GPRS and check for new mail ever 30 minutes or so. It can't do that...

      You can't get to the main menu while on a call. Also some of the options hang up the call if your tring to get someone else number out of the phone while on a call.

      No call timers or call cost calulators. The phone has it but they allow the phone company to turn them off. Whats the reason for this? So I can't tell how much I use so I get a supprise bill? The next guy at work who delivers a supprise bill is going to find themself with no phone.

      You can't get a Nokai phone fixed. If there is any water damage, the local Nokia repair shop will charge you to say they can't fix it. Every other place will drop the board in a cleaning solution, replace the mics and speaker and send you out the door with a working phone. The local shop also said they would take "all care" to preserve the data in the phone and promply wiped it. That was a pain since the only way to back it up is with a PC that talks IRDA which I don't have.

      Nokia knows its money comes from the cell phone compaines and they've castrated my phone's features to sell out to Vodafone and the like. This is the last Nokia phone I'll buy for a long time. At work we've been getting Sony/Erricsons where are 1/2 the price with better features and they are better phones.

      Nokia hasn't been the leader in the market for at least a year and now it looks like they are tring to catch up.

  2. Found the article by bunyip · · Score: 5, Informative

    Their engineering culture pretty guarantees that this innovation will keep going.

  3. Sorry USers: by Joseph+Vigneau · · Score: 2, Informative
    According to the 8910i page:
    • Operating frequency: EGSM 900/1800 networks in Europe, Africa and Asia

    Same with the 6800 and 2100, too...

  4. T68 by timothy_m_smith · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have the T68m, the original T68. The phone is a real beauty, but be aware that it has poor reception. I have T-mobile and a friend of mine has ATT and the T68i and neither one of us has been happy with it. However, the usability of the phone is great and I love the 5-way mouse.

  5. Re:Nokia stateside? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    7250 (color, Java, camera and it's cool) is a triband phone so it will work in the US also.

  6. Don't get the T68x by cdrudge · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't bother wasting your time with the T68i or any of the earlier models in the same family. The reception is horrorable anywhere except right below the cell phone tower. Also, the screen leaves a bit to be desired.

    Instead, I would recommend the new Samsung S105. It doesn't have bluetooth like the T68x do, but it has MUCH better reception, a better screen, polyphonic ring tones, Tri-Mode GSM, and I think looks better (if you like flip phones). It's not perfect, but a big improvement over the T68x.

  7. They announced a today gaming device also by nchip · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nokia and SEGA also announced the N-GAGE device, running symbian and series 60. Looks absolutely stunning.

    Still very sketchy with hardware details, except that games are distributed on memory cards. And the only clue that the device is a phone and not just gameboy killer is the dial/hangup buttons!

    The other press release also reveals that it has bluetooth, rising some intresting possibilities to use this gadget.

    --
    signatures pending - ansa@kos.to - (dont mail there)
  8. T68i - Dont believe the hype! by salimfadhley · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've owned using a Sony t68i now for a few months - this has to be the most disapointing phone I have ever had the displeasure of using. I curse the day I ever allowed Orange (UK) to sell it to me.

    According to orange, more than 1/3 of the T68s and T68i's ever sent to Orange customers have been returned at least once. Orange no longer recomend the T68 family of phones to anybody who makes 400+ minutes of calls per miniute - it's not up to the job of being a business phone.

    First of all, the good points - this is a jewel of a phone. Tiny, pretty and colourful. It's designed with the looks to sucker in geeky types who like cute machines. Thats the good bit over.

    Unfortunately, this has to be the least reliable phone I have ever used. Before my T68i, I have owned bricks made by Motrola, and then less brick-like phones made by Nokia. Even my 1996 Motorolla MR1 flip-phone has better signal strength usability and reliability than the T68.

    The interface is pretty, but unfortunately the CPU and graphics chip are underpowered - the result is a strange laggy feeling where because the phone takes a fraction of a second to respond, it often leaves the user unsure as to if the button was pressed correctly... so the user ends up pressing the button again, and then fills the screen with redundant characters.

    If you allow somebody to sell you this phone, it's worth getting insurance with it (The same goes for the Nokia 8000 and 9000 series phones) - these all have very low MHBF (Mean Hours Before Failure) scores. I'm now on my 4th T68i - every few months I have to get it replaced.

    Faults have included, frequent crashes (Orange will admit off the record, that the T68 firmware was just not ready at the time it went to market). Transmission and reception failures - general poor call quiality and lack of reliability. Occaisionally I have had missing menu options, and sporadic and inexplicable freezes.

    Anyway, that should be enough to convince you - just dont buy this phone okay?

  9. Lock that communication down baby! by Mattygfunk1 · · Score: 4, Informative
    The following feature is really undersold. IMO Nokia's innovation will have them the number one phone manufacturer for a long while to come.

    Equipped with secure mobile connectivity, employees can then access corporate information such as customer contracts and agreements using their mobile terminals over a secured VPN connected to their corporate network.

    -----
    Prints & framing Miss Katrina

  10. Re:Nokia stateside? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Sorry about the anonymouse post. Too lazy to create an account...

    I can't comment on what phones nokia's gonna have for the states, but as for the whole J2ME game, it's not as useful/friendly as it could be:

    Experience - yes. I program J2ME games for these irritating little creatures. It's tricky - the java implemenations are often buggy, and sometimes just plain incomplete. All the devices have their own "features", often differing greatly between software revisions too.

    Yes, you can write your own stuff and upload it. Main issue is with actually doing the OTA transfer itself, at least in the UK - anything over 70k we have issues with, and some operators still can't get 30k past their gateways. They're not reliable, anyways.

    There are API's - on Nokias they mostly offer enhanced UI functions. Fast (in relation to normal routines, anyway) graphics code, sound access, windowing toolkits, SMS access. Most of the phones run J2ME in a sandbox with very high walls - phone calls and texts require user confirmation, no access to most phone functions/storage. Unfortunate, really, but also prudent as the opportunities for abuse are fairly high.

    What you want to do with the phone will probably be limited very heavily if you're writing J2ME - don't get me wrong, there's some cool stuff out there (I once saw a J2ME telnet client which I thought was a really cool idea. Pointless, but cool :), but there have been far too many times we've screamed "if only we had access to the hardware!".

    *sigh*

    Ah well. Here's hoping for good things (and cross-platformyness) from J2ME 2.0