Slashdot Mirror
Nokia Announces Hard-Drive Phone
blorg writes "The new N91 features a 4gb microdrive and a 2 megapixel digital camera, and plays music in MP3, AAC and WMV formats. With this phone, Nokia reckons it has an iPod killer and aims to become the largest seller of portable MP3 players this year, having already outstripped camera manufacturers in the photography market. However, as the BBC points out, people are not necessarily buying these phones for their camera or music features."
The only downside is the long extension cord.
However, as the BBC points out, people are not necessarily buying these phones for their camera or music features."
Really! This pub chef story was carried by the BBC World Service, this morning (California time) regarding a chef bitten by a spider and had the presence of mind to snap a picture or two of it, which helped identify which spider it was and how to treat the venom. I think this link carries and actual photo from the phone.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
How many ringtones can I download on this thing?
Montreal - Best city to live in!
Arrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh! So, I guess I see my chances of EVER just buying a phone slipping even further away. Sigh.
Press, press, press, press, press, press, press..... Send..... Shoot! Was just trying to call home, and created a playlist, no wait!, took an upskirt (illegal in WA) and sent it to Mom, no wait!, ordered pizza from Amazon!
Does this mean that we get to choose the music we get to listen to when we're on hold?
I've got a 40 GB iPod that I take with me when I'm planning on taking a long trip, but I don't carry it with me everywhere I go because I'd have to put it in my pocket and I don't want it to get damanged. If this thing is priced right, I'd buy it and use it as a second mp3 player. It would always be with me because I always carry my cell phone. For long trips, I'd grab the iPod, otherwise I could just plug into the phone.
With Nokia's history of exploding batteries, they could be closer to the truth than they realise!
Will this be anything like or as successful as their Gameboy killer?
At the moment, these devices that do everything don't really to anything really well. A stand-alone camera has better quality than the phone. ...but we are starting to see that change. As technology continues to develop, and manufacturers are able to pack more and more into a device, the quality of the combined unit might start to be acceptable for more and more people.
:)
I am quite looking forward to the time when I only have to carry one device around, and it will do everything! (including allowing me to SSH into my home computer)
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
But does it run Linux?
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I just want a phone with Bluetooth. That's it.
Peace
I also like that the phone has wireless support. This could replace my laptop. Hmmmm.
If this phone can be programmed with the J2ME, this will become a hit. I wonder how much RAM it has.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Wasn't the Ngage supposed to be a slam dunk GBA killer?
Sounds great until you see the price tag - it's nearly $800!
3 .phones.reut/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/04/27/nokia.mp
If the Motorola Razr is any indication, you can't get insurance through Cingular. My boss told me that Lockline refused to insure his Razr when he bought it.
Screw that!
The reason people like the iPod is because of the interface. You could legally (and illegal) get music before the iPod. Companies made mp3 players. But the reason people got the iPod is because it had a good interface which people liked. Then the hype came in and it became large. If you are going to make an iPod killer your interface has to be natural and easy to use. Now what cell phone has that good an interface? Sure, some cell phones have okay interfaces, but it has have as easy to use an interface as a walkman or iPod to be an iPod killer. Otherwise, it is just so much typical marketing fertilizer.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
We may not be getting the flying cars promised to us in the sixties and seventies by Hannah-Barbara and company, but the day of handheld devices that can do nearly anything is quickly approaching. As the BBC points out, this device, though not quite there yet, is a big step in that direction.
It is important, however, to reflect upon the advancements of the late twentieth century and how they've impacted our way of life. In particular, have TV, the internet, computers, and all the rest of today's modern miracles made us more virtuous? Have they made us less virtuous? What are the dangers inherent in having everything at our fingertips?
There's a great deal of social criticism these days about the so-called "Generation Now," the sense of entitlement and so forth. These matters are especially important for us, as afficianados of technology, to consider, particularly in an open forum such as this.
-- Molly Lipton, Born Again Technologist.
So we have a phone that can take pictures and play music. Possibly do video as well. Might as well add all the PDA capabilities of e-mail, address book, grocery shopping list, etc.
I'm all for the convenience of an all-in-one device but have we gone far enough into the technologies that everything works well/reliably? I remember the old 3-in-1 printer devices that weren't all that reliable.
If done well (and compact), gadget convergence would be a great thing. Might as well add a TV remote to it while they're at it.
"Nokia reckons it has an iPod killer and aims to become the largest seller of portable MP3 players this year, having already outstripped camera manufacturers in the photography market"
In other news, McDonalds has declared itself one of the world's largest publishing companies, since there are words printed on the wrappers of the millions of hamburgers they sell.
Quite a step up from the N64
...with all these gadgets and non-cell phone functions, what's the battery life on these things? i remember my old 'big' cellphone (it didn't even flip open, oh the humanity) that would last for days on one charge....my new one (yea it looks cool and all) lasts for maybe 72 hours before i gotta plug it back in. imagine having a HD sucking juice from it too...
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
people are not necessarily buying these phones for their camera or music features.
Maybe they're buying them to...talk on?
Give me a good, solid, long lasting phone with an easy to use interface. Leave the rest of that crap on some other device.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/7610
http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/3660
http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/3205
Wake me up when Nokia can make a phone look like this:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=hk&lc=zh& ver=4000&template=pp1_loader&php=php1_10235&zone=p p&lm=pp1&pid=10235
Yes, I know Nokia is the top manufacturer of phone and their phones tend to work better as phones than other manufacturers, but seriously, they need to hire some designers and usability experts!
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Uh, yeah I didn't get that call you see because unfortunately, I drained my celly battery listening to Kraftwerk.
cat
can we now download updates to it with out have to send it in for flashing?
There's been some studies in the US (sorry, no link) which show that folks will actually watch feature-length films on their phones. Until recently this was thought to be entirely ridiculous. Now, with a 4GB drive and some nice MPEG4 encoding, I could conceivably get 100 hours (!) of video content onto my mobile. (MPEG4, well compressed, uses about 40MB per hour of audiovisual content.) That's really something - more amazing than having 600-or-so songs on my mobile... And that's going to lead to some interesting content being developed for this platform... TiVo on your mobile, anyone?
I highly doubt that. While this phone looks to be quite a great product, its not just going to kill iPods overnight... Ok well lets consider this. Who is going to trade in their 20 GB, 30 GB, 40 GB, or 60 GB iPod for a 4 GB phone! Well hmm... I can run Linux on my iPod and I can store more music. The best part! I didn't have to switch my cellphone carrier for it either. So everyone will magically switch cellphone carriers and go through that pain in the ass for 4 GB phones. Ya right... So if you currently use Nokia phones then thats awesome and you should get this but I don't think the world is going to change because of this device.
I would like to buy a cellular phone (actually, I don't, but that's not the point). Just a phone. I don't want a camera, or MP3s, garage door opener, sex toy, videocamera, or on demand movies. Just a phone. Do you have one?
Thanks.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Since when was WMV a music format? I believe they mean WMA. That is, unless the phone plays videos as well (which wouldn't be suprising).
Nokia expects to become the largest seller of portable MP3 players this year.
Then why not make a really good MP3 player? I'm not going to drop another chunk of change just because Nokia crams another "feature" into a cell phone.
If I want a digital camera, I'll buy a good digital camera. If I want a PDA, I'll buy a good PDA. If I want an MP3 player, I'll buy a good MP3 player.
My Swiss Army knife has lots of all-in-one features, but I'm not likely to use it to open my soup or screw in a new door knob. I have real tools for that.
Well, that capability has been out for at least a couple of years. I've been using ssh on my Nokia 3650 for a while now. The version I use is Putty for Symbian, but there is another SSH client written for the Java VM that comes on most cell phones.
"However, as the BBC points out, people are not necessarily buying these phones for their camera or music features."
I didn't RTFA, but I'm guessing people are buying fancy new phones so they can be seen in public with their fancy new phones, so everybody sees how wealthy and important they are?
Now they can do for the camera and music industry what they've done for the game industry with N-Gage! I'm so excited!
Cos we all know how well the Ngage did in the portable games market.
Hint: not too well.
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
Bulky phone with poor battery life, not enough storage to be a serious music player, screen too small for a PDA, not fast enough to run games.
You can't buy a pre-paid SIM in the USA. The closest thing we have is pre-paid phone cards. You buy a $50 phone card, and then using your manufacturers pre-chosen phone, you call it in and add the money to your account.
Last time I checked, those Virgin Moble and TracPhone cards were very expensive, over a dime a minute. If you talk 10 minutes a day, every day, that is 300 minutes a month, or $30 bucks in pre-paid. Many monthly plans start at $30 a month and give closer to 1000 minutes.
I would love to see the pre-paid market get in touch with reality. No more crap like "you must buy a card every X days or lose your credits and phone number" or "we only have 2 phones to chose from".
If I could get a motorola flip phone and use prepay without losing my credites just because I don't use them all in 30 days, and not be threatened with losing my phone number if I don't buy more credits, I would consider pre-pay. Also, if the yearly contracts can get you 2 cents per minute, why do some pre-pay charge 25 cents per minute. It is dumb.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Cell phone makers don't seem to understand a major problem with throwing every possible gadget in the world into one's cell phone: battery life. What happens when there's an emergency, and I need to call someone, but my phone is dead because I've been listening to MP3s, playing games, and taking pictures all day? What if I accidentally forget to stop the music when I stop listening, and it plays all day in my backpack? I'd rather separate my "fun" gadgets from my "necessity/emergency" gadgets, just in case.
With respect, this is hardly true. Just because they shipped more devices than camera manufacturers doesn't mean they outstipped them in the photography market.
You can't really classify a camera phone as being in the "photography market". They are in the "camera phone" market, and there is a large difference. Anyone looking for decent optics, a zoom, good resolution and a raft other other features that camera phone's lack, will still need to buy a real camera.
Granted they may replace the bottom of the range camera's with very few features as it is, or even if they get good enough the really compact ones (saves you carrying two devices), but for those of us who want half decent photos not just "happy snaps", we'll stick to a real photographical camera thank you very much.
Will.
does it run java??
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
The problem is that for all of these, there are concessions:
- The PDA does not integrate well with lookOut (despite all your groans, thats what the business community use by and large).
- The music player is klunky and not yet big enough, and doesn't integrate with iTunes
- The phone has miniscule buttons
On the plus side - the camera is probably good enough and has enough storage, and the Nokia GUI has always been excellent.I'm starting to get a little excited because with this phone, Nokia is *almost* there.
Soon you too can play MP3 from your Nokia watch phone, which will also monitor your blood sugar levels from the embedded chip in your wrist, and keep track of your heart rate so you can pretend you're fit!
Seriously, this would be more useful.
[caveat - I own 1000 shares of Nokia ADR]
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The new N91 features a 4gb microdrive and a 2 megapixel digital camera, and plays music in MP3, AAC and WMV formats.
gb? Is that gram bits or gravity bits?
Ogg Ogg Ogg Ogg Ogg ... How many times do you have to say it for frig'n sake?!!!
:T:R:A:N:S:
the Beeb's analysis is flawed methinks.
4Gb is a sweet spot on storage, but more importantly *everyone* is already carrying a phone.
if the phone means i don't have to worry about keeping and charging an ipod mini then it's a winner for me and mine.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
I think that this is a cool sounding device but in my house a cell phone doesn't last longer than a year or so before it gets dropped, goes bad, or some other malady strikes it. If I dropped my 800 dollar cellphone/mp3 player/camera, I'd be irate to say the least. I'd also be interested to know what realistic battery life I could expect out of my phone when I've been playing music on it for half of the day.
Now that you can get a car with built in handsfree set that connects via bluetooth to your phone, it would be cool if the car radio could read the mp3 files on the phone's harddrive. That way you wouldn't have to remove the hd from a mp3 radio you otherwise could have (or not install in your new car), "transferring" song to the car would be easier and you would have the same index as on you phone making navigating/remembering the content easier.
Can't remember the transfer rate of bluetooth though but since the car is a small area, the signal strength should be ok.
It is a view with which digital music player maker Creative agrees.
"I'm not sure that this represents competition for us," said a spokesman.
"It is endemic of the trend to integrate devices that you lose quality. Separate, dedicated devices are always going to be better," he said.
Does anyone else see the shear irony of these words coming from a purveyor of MP3 players? Sounds like a maker of pocket knives pooh-poohing those Swiss guys with their inferior, do-everything knives.
Look, good enough is good enough. I've seen enough Nokia phones in the hands of women, who make use of the phone's features to say that Nokia may have a hit on it's hands. More people are willing to sacrifice quality for convenience, especially in the mobile world, frequent travelers will love this. I'm with Nokia, this will be a hit, it's just a matter of the price point and what competition comes along by the time that $800 price comes down.
Creative has a lot to worry about and Apple may not stay on top.
What gets me is the usefulness of the features, it has USB and Wi-Fi. You can get data and applications on and off. It's practically a PDA in it's own right. The premium is for the 4GB drive and the cost to package all these features together. It's nice to see convergence getting useful.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
"Largest vendor of MP3 players with a year"???
And they think Apple users drink Kool-Aid. That is some serious crack they must be smoking in the Nokia marketing department.
60GB iPod with great UI, integration to iTunes & music Store, 0.99 songs, tons of acessories - vs - 4GB phone, inferior UI, no computer integration, and $3 songs, no accesories. And the phone is twice the price!
I think they put the Words "iPod Killer" in the title just hoping it might cause someone to notice them in the crowded marketplace - but then the marketplace is also over-crowded with failed "iPod Killer"s.
Is it true that the loudest death knell for a product might be when the term "iPod Killer" is applied to it? If that is true this could be dead before it even gets launched.
A better business plan might be to build a device that expands the capabilities of the rapidly growing numbers of iPods out there. (530% profit growth over last Q2 - Wow).
Just like the N-gage was a game boy killer? Honestly, I can't even get a cell phone that is just a cell phone anymore. Instead of improving reliability and making better user interfaces, they just add more crap.
I have a Sony Ericsson T610 wich looks startingly similar to this new phone (Nokia N91), but with the addition of the iPod -esque controls on the slider. The T610 is easily the best designed phone I've ever had, and I can't help thinking that Nokia took a few design tips from S-E (and aPple). So, I'm psyched about it!
- Interface
- Style
- Marketing
Like it or not, Apple has the golden touch of style that Nokia never had, and it seems that Nokia has really gone off the deep end with some of their recent phones (lets not even talk about the DOA N-gage).Specifics? This thing has a joystick, 4 buttons around it (like my clunky T610), a play/pause, forward, back, stop, and (im guessing) a popout-button to shift the playpad down to get the number pad. I'm not going to go into all the possible confusion, but it looks busy.
As if that weren't all.. the color seems to aim for the stylish/classy 20-30s market, but the features (cameraphone, music) seem to really gear towards a younger market (think teens - 20s).
I wish them well, but from just looking at it, it seems a bit misguided.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I don't care about cameras, music, ringtones, etc. What I really want is a Cellular/VoIP phone that intelligently switches between the two depending on my location, day/time, etc, that always uses the same number.
The cellular phone aspect exists already (it's probably in your pocket right now), and Vonage is coming out with their own VoIP WiFi phone in a month or two. If they can combine 8 other functions, then they can combine cellular (CDMA, GSM, whatever) with Wifi VoIP. I could use this phone in the US and get amazing coverage, and then travel anywhere in the world and pay no roaming charges, just as easily as I could use the wifi aspect during peak times at home to save on cellular minutes.
I know they don't do this because their goal is to extract money, not proide us a service we want. Someday some company will, and we will hear a giant sucking noise as customers flee their current providers to get this. If Verizon teamed up with Vonage and did this tomorrow, they would gain incredible market share. Or Cingular with Skype. Or anything.
If they support AAC, do you think they'll offer a music management app. that removes iTMS DRM as it uploads iTMS purchses to the phone (doing something like FairPlay does), or will the phone support playing DRM-ified AAC files? Or do you think they'll play it safe and only support non-DRM AAC?
Nokia announced a whole new line of phones, the Nokia Nseries (press release).
In this series, three models were introduced:
Nokia N91 w/o FairPlay VS. Apple iPod w/ FairPlay
So which would you choose?
Mozilla stole tabs from NetCaptor. So what? Right?
Has anyone tried this? What was the reaction of the seller, who was no doubt expecting further income from a telephone plan?
Perhaps that is an indicator of when a mobile phone's 'other' services come up to scratch, when people buy them with a view to ignoring the telephone function?
I may want to buy a new phone soon. Are there any GSM phones out there, Nokia, etc that are just phones? Or what are the most basic stripped down phones that will run on the current network for those among us that don't want a flash drive, camera, bluetooth, internet access, wall paper, IM, java games, etc?
If they stripped out the extra features could they fit the size of the phone down to a Star Trek communicator badge yet?
Why do I not care for any games or apps or cameras or music being stored on my phone?
Because currently, and I'm sure this applies to a hell of a lot of travellers - I can't turn on my phone mid flight to listen to some music. Do phone manufacturers understand this in the slightest? What's the point of putting all my portable music into a device that I cannot use say in my car on a plane, probably the two most common places other than walking or exercising where such devices are used.
I own a Motorola RAZR V3 and have found it's nowhere near worth $500. The menu system and phone book are a joke, the battery life is negligible if bluetooth or any serious use of the screen comes into play. The interface is absolutely hideous. Internet via cell phone even to check on movie times is nightmarishly slow and pointless and probably costs more than calling a service. The camera often gets smudged by virtue of its placement and the photos arre hideous.
Anything else I need to do - I turn on my powerbook, latch onto a wifi connection. Done.
So what I'm left with is an expensive phone that has only served as a status symbol and little more.
For all the talk of iPod competitors, yes it is priced more - but furthermore no single device has music software and an interface anywhere near as good, and that's to say nothing of the preamp and headphones quality. My Razr can play MP3s, horribly, distortedly.
Phones are ubiquitous and not a single sci fi writer saw that coming - but here in the US we are lagging far behind some other worldwide markets in what can be done with such devices.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
I love how everyone says "it has AAC support" about their products, and yet all the ones I've seen are not compatible with the songs from the iTunes Music Store.
So what's the deal? Does this phone support "plain AAC" (which is basically worthless), or does it support "playing songs downloaded from the iTunes Music Store"?
The idea that technology, or more generally "progress," will lead to virtue is the entire impetus for the Enlightenment. Without that component so eloquently laid out in Thomas More's Utopia, the Enlightenment is nothing but the ugly, morally bankrupt slave revolt Marx saw it as.
You cannot have it both ways. Many here and in other internet forums would like to say that science makes virtue -- that truth, in the sense of science, is the ultimate good. You can't have that and claim that technology is value-neutral at the same time. In any case, it is intellectually dishonest to advance such a case anyway, as the Enlightenment worldview is fundamentally a set of value judgements set in opposition to what had been human reality before it.
My 7610 (Symbian/Series60) phone works great as a PDA. The PDA + Phone combo makes a lot of sense. The other stuff, less so...but it's still neat to have a camera on my phone (for snapping those quick pictures that you'll send to someone and throw away).
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
suweeeeet.
-Debug
... then I'm not interested, and I suspect that would apply to many other users as well.
Why do I not care for any games or apps or cameras or music being stored on my phone?
I don't for the same reason I don't want any of that stuff on my PDA. Because telephones have enough battery problems as it is, and it's aggravating and embarassing and even dangerous to have your phone not work because you were listening to NiN and John Denver.
My ideal phone is a 4" long fat old-fashioned Nokia with a monochrome display and hours of talk time. Too bad you can't GET one any more because everyone's making phones with cameras and hard disks and laser pointers and sex toys, or at the very least color screens you can't read in sunlight.
It's a phone. It makes phone calls. It doesn't need to do any of these other things, badly and expensively, especially when they make it less effective at being a phone.
Do you carry your box of tools around everywhere you go? What if you had a "universal" tool that *did* work as well as your separate hammer/screwdriver/wrench, yet only took up the same space as the smallest too?
Separate PDA, cellphone, and MP3 player? Sorry, not everyone wants to walk around with a utility belt. PDA, MP3 player, cellphone - that's three separate items to manage and keep track of.
Here's why this convergence is inevitable:
- Just entered a new contact into your PDA. Now you want to call them -- oops! That's a separate entry into your cell phone.
- You just saw something you'd love to take a picture of. You have your cell phone, but because your camera is a separate item, you almost never carry it with you. Too bad...
- You had a really great phone call with a college and now you'd really love to jot down the ideas discussed on the phone. Oops, you're not wearing your utility belt today and so your PDA is back at home...
Assuming continued improvements in technology, there's no reason why five years from now every cell-phone will have the power to run sophisticated PDA software, have a decent 3 megapixel lens, a storage capacity of 50GB+, and enough battery power to last as long as current cell phones. If that's the case, why spend your money on carrying around three separate items?
I wouldn't buy one of these for several reasons.
1: I drop my cellphone all the time. When I get mad, I throw it against a wall. So far Nokia phones have been the sturdiest, but with a hard drive in it, it wouldn't last me a week.
2: because it's got a hard drive in it, battery life would suck. I'm on call 24/7.
3: I've already got a phone.
4: I've already got a digital camera that does a pissy 5 megapixels.
5: I've got a mini-disc player which plays MP3, ATRAC, and I think WMA (but wfc anyway)
6: I've already got a portable device which plays movies/music -- my laptop. It's got 40GB of drive space.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
"...having already outstripped camera manufacturers in the photography market."
Hahahahaha. What a stupid sentence.
If you're on the road / down-town / whatever and you see something and would like to take a picture of it, you could..
:)
A. Go home, get camera, return, take picture
B. Whip out the camera phone, take picture, carry on
If your boss calls you up telling you that he would like to see you on saturday at 7pm for a meeting, you could...
A. Remember it, program it into your PDA when you get home
B. Write it down on a piece of paper, program it into your PDA when you get home
C. Whip out your phone and toss it into the calendar app
I have no argument for the MP3 player as I have none
However, if you're a music lover, then why would you run around with a yet-another-device if your phone can play back MP3s just as good as your run-of-the-mill mp3 player ?
Sure, there's interface (hello iPod), but most people really don't use the interface that often. Point in case: iPod Shuffle
Back to your real life example...
Say you're in the bathroom, you open a cupboard door, and notice the knob's a bit loose. You could...
A. Walk into your toolshed / hobby area and fetch yourself a screwdriver, fasten the screw, return the screwdriver
B. Whip out your swiss army knife and fasten the screw
Nobody's saying that these phones will replace DSLRs, a blackberry, an iPod, or your (semi-)professional craftsman tools.
But if my phone had all the tools of my utility knife built-in, I just might find reason not to carry the utility knife around in my pants.
I am anticipating this phone with crippled or removed functions. It's the best thing for me, apparently...
The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
Last year I bought a very low-end cell phone, and I'm mostly satisfied with it except that it can only store 25 SMS messages and there is no easy way to move them into computers. With such a large storage (actually one megabyte would be enough for SMSs) I guess I'll never need to delete them again.
Could be drunk, or could be the new editor who was lower on the salary scale than the guy they sacked. I've been hearing some sniping on the World Service broadcasts, little digs about pay and benefits as off-hand remarks. Probably as a result of the BBC doing major cutbacks, which were announced a month or two back.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I don't have a cellphone and nor do I plan to have one in the near future, but I find it...erm, interesting, that "Nokia reckons it has an iPod killer." I would imagine that competition for the iPod would be limited to, well, mp3 players, and that this phone would simply be competition for...other...phones.
I think the general consensus is that we buy phones for the talking-to-other-people quirks? I highly doubt I would want digital camera or mp3 features, as long as it can connect me to other people without me having to say "can you hear me now? hello?...hello?"
I'm tired of people recycling this garbage every time the issue of cell phones comes up. Think about what you're saying. You have a Swiss Army knife. You've probably been somewhere you needed a knife, or pliers or whatever. You whip out your multi-tool and get the job done. Sure, you could have done the job better if you had been carrying a power drill but that makes little sense, right? The whole point of having a multi-function tool is convenience. It may not be the best tool for the job, but you get stuff done.
I can think of several times where it would have been handy to have a camera phone. Usually it's some strange scene, like a funny sign. It would be cool to have an MP3 player on the phone if I run into an unexpected wait and feel like listening to some tunes.
To sum up, if you want to carry all of those devices around all the time, then do it and quit complaining when they add new features for cell phones. There are plenty of folks like myself that would like to have a sort-of digital Swiss Army knife that can do things like check a calendar or listen to some music in a pinch (but not quite at that price--ouch!)
harmonious design
Sort-of does does everything, but can you actually make and receive calls on it?
Oh well, what the hell...
One of the biggest questions I have about this idea of a combined high-capacity MP3 player and a phone is battery life.
My phone has a pretty new battery in it, and I usually don't use it that much. Despite that, it only lasts a few days after a full charge before I should charge it again (or risk having it die in the middle of the day). Sometimes, when I do use it a lot (3 or 4+ hours), it doesn't even last a whole day - it actually runs out of juice.
And now I'm supposed to want to drain the battery by listening to songs? I need the phone most of all as a phone - if it dies during the day and I can't use it for that purpose, why do I have it?
Maybe this isn't inconvenient for people who are getting in and out of a car all the time and can charge it while they drive, but if you live in, say, New York City, that's not going to work. And the alternative of dragging around an AC adapter does not appeal to me.
Unless the battery problem is solved, I don't understand how this converged-high-capacity-MP3-player-and-phone idea can really go anywhere.
as some have pointed out, convergence seems inevitable and the way we live today seems to go in that direction. as i've been saying all along, however, the US phone market is *not* quite ready for such devices because of a) price and b) lifestyle. lifestyle is what makes these devices HUGE in korea and japan. mass transportation, on-the-go lifestyle, dicates that these devices be made. as a previous poster said, unless you want to carry a utility belt with 3-4 devices on it as you ride the subway to work, well, wouldn't it be better if you had one device that did them decently? i can't find the darn links but from what my family in korea have said, the devices you guys are "wanting" ie 2-3 megapixel camera phones, pda and most of all, a intuitive UI, well, they already exist. heck, even t-mobile's http://www.tmobile.com/products/images.asp?phoneid =220751&class=phonesamsung d415 has been available in korea for 2 years already! as to whether or not the US market warms up to them? time will tell...
My first question is, will this kill the iPod, or will Apple get angry and release the iPod Phone which could kill off Nokia? I do not see any use for Cel Phones. I have never had one and will never buy one. I value my privacy too much for that. I do not own an iPod, but maybe one day if I desperatly need portable music the iPod will be my music device of choice.
here are some links i just found that illustrates my point.
r essRelease.asp?seq=20041020_0000074352
_ schv770.asp
5 megapixel camera phone
http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/PressRelease/P
7 megapixel camera phone
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0503/05030901samsung
How am I supposed to get my pr0n collection on that?
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Where I could see 4GB of storage coming in useful would be simply as a portable drive. Make that baby would like a standard USB drive and suddenly my phone becomes a whole lot more useful.
Of course, that isn't likely to happen since the phone companies will want to lock the phone so you have to transfer all files through the cellular network at big $$$ each... even my current phone though capable of USB transfer has had such features disabled.
Now I'm sure they'll begin to write viruses to format the hard drive, I just know it.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
No.
Stop whining and ride us to the revolution of the digital media. Please don't complain and ignore us for the fact that we have been promising it for the last five or so years.
We will get your money - one way or another.
Allyourwalletarebelongtous!
Marketing rules everyone. Nothing novel here.
Whatever happened to ultrafast 3G/EDGE networks and "home" storage?
iPod killer?
Price: 4x iPod mini
Battery life: listen to 2hrs of music at lunch, can't make calls at night
Yarright!
Meanwhile, I've met fashion victims ready to spend $$$ on a phone, as long as it's small and the battery lasts for 5 days--oh but Nokia doesn't make those anymore...
Why does every decently designed model out there has to have a damn camera and color screen and a camera and games and a hard drive and make coffee too?!?
Pokia gets it!
I guess that following the way you think, if you want to Send an SMS message, you will go and buy a good Pager or whatever was the name of those things.
Your argument is pointless, it's just a matter of time because this things will continue to converge and became smaller, cheaper and better with time.
My pre-paid phone is 33 CDN cents/minute (in canada), but as it's only useful to me when I'm on a trip, I only end up using it for long distance which is 66 CDN cents/minute (twice the rate). The time expires after a month too, and the smallest cards are 20$ IIRC. And that was the best deal when I got my phone; and it's locked too. AFAIK, There are still no better plans (with decent coverage).
It's not like I'm expecting my 1.9 cents/min VoIP rates, but this is just brutal (nearly 3500% more expensive!). I only use it for short calls (calling cab/lawyer/hotel at destination or such), or emergencies... Payphones, VoIP, collect call - everything else is much cheaper, and by a good margin.
That's not to mention the refilling system is a TOTAL nightmare. I've often had to fight over with the automated system for over an hour to add time to my phone.
What I want? Not a mp3 player/camera/game console/PDA/whatever else hybrid gadget - just a normal GSM phone and DECENT RATES without having to sign for a 30$+ monthly bill for something I use twice a year. I may feel like using it a bit more then, but that's never gonna happen.
///<sig
But if you don't take one of those plans that already comes with the subsidized phone, you end up having to buy a similar phone @ say, 350$ instead of 50$ *AND* have the exact same rates. There's no incentive to shell out hundreds more for the same phones.
I don't see how saving a few hundred $ is being brainless. It's more like there's no real alternatives between the bundled phones, or the expensive phones.
iPod killer? Let's take a look at the size of the harddrive. iPods can be up to about 40 gigs now (maybe higher?) and this thing is 4 gigs? I would not even call it anything close to being an iPod killer.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
iPod killer? Far fetched. The best I could claim would be iPod mini 4GB killer - and even then, that only depends on design, UI and tight integration with iTunes (haha, like Apple will let this one run through).
"including allowing me to SSH into my home computer"
Luckily, that is fully possible with that phone, and all other S60 phones from Nokia. Just download Putty.
Hey, new phones should have bottle openers! :)
Have certainly opened the odd can now and again with the Swiss Army Knife though, that is why you have them (apart from beer ;-))
Not Free SF Reader
I use iTunes, but I've never bought any music from apple. Instead I have a bunch of CDs because its an open format (yes, I know it supports the evil RIAA a little more than buying through apple).
Does nokia have a software backend to this thing that will make me want to use my music in this thing? I don't think I'm alone in my distaste for separate music apps for playing music in my home versus on my portable music player.
Let's see -- 4GB hard drive, MP3 playback, Wi-Fi and 3G support on the go, standard 3.5mm headphone adapter...
Is it just me, or is this the perfect device for listening to podcasts?
Think about it. If someone built an iPodder for Symbian -- and really, how hard would that be -- this phone could go out and get new podcasts at a designated time, then have them ready for your morning or evening commute, or whenever you listen. There would be a short burst of "data time" in fecthing the podcasts, of course, but at 3G or Wi-Fi speeds, it wouldn't be more than a few minutes at a time, and if the battery were as solid as a new iPod mini, it could stand up to a full day of listening and talking.
Maybe Nokia's on to something here...
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
This one may be a 5.0V, but nonetheless it will sacrafice size and weight (not to mention battery life) if it were used as a music player.
Only so many Watts of power can be crammed into an electronic device these days, and I seriously doubt that one could get even 6 hours of continual, uninterrupted music without a power adapter plugged in. The hard drive and the RAM just consume too much power.
I want bluetooth done right, my phone to be a phone, and nothing more.
Now that other companies are releasing similarly featured products I wonder when they'll figure out that they need to sell the whole widget: easy to use jukebox with easy to use player and style to boot.
I don't think Apple will stay on top forever, but they do deserve the lead. Take the controversy over the Motorolla iTunes phone. Apple wants to make a phone that hooks up to one's PC/Mac and interfaces like an iPod. This means you purchase your songs or add them to iTunes and download them into your phone. You would manage playlists exactly as you do with an iPod. The phone industry wants you to purchase them for $3 a pop over their phone service directly to your phone instead. Although I like the idea of direct to phone purchase and download, I don't like the pricing structure and I'm not certain those songs can ever make it off that phone without third party hacks. MP3 makers haven't figured out how Apple's been winning the game, and now the phone companies are just as clueless.
From a Business Week article:
You may not have to be a genius to see it, but am I the only one who sees the flaw with that argument? Those billion phones in use aren't going to be able to use these new music features. That means consumers will have to buy new phones, and that means those phones are competing with iPods, iRivers, etc for a whole lot less than $3 a song.Someone may figure it out someday, but until then none of these new toys are going to do much more than nibble at Apple's bottomline for some time. Still, I'm glad to see there's so much energy about this market out there. They should keep Apple on their toes for some time. And we all win in the long run with better products to play with.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
You might want to check out the pics taken by the N90..looks great.
here
Ok, I've been looking for a phone like this for a long time now. But couldn't find what I needed so I ended up buying all the stuff seperately.
:p, yeah yeah.. I know.. but I have the Dev environment to program MS mobile products so why not.
I think the $800 price tag is quite worthwhile, I'd buy it if it had a higher MP camera, with a higher optical zoom and a 6 or 8 gig HDD plus a USB connection, or had provisions for a USB adapter. And last but not least a windows OS
What I ended up buying was a
329: Neuros 30 Gb MP3 Player
289: 4 MP, 10x Fuji Camera
370: Dell Axim PDA
988: Total
so in the end the price is quite worthwhile for a start...unfortunately I still use my Nokia 5190 phone.. been using it ever since 1999 lol...
New excuse for homework being unfinished: I couldn't do the report because I was dictating it to my phone and the battery died after the first 3 words.
No sig for you!!
Here in the UK, ringtones are big business. Kids (mainly) subscribe to ringtone "clubs" that allow them to download the latest chart hits, novelty sounds, etc. as .mid (or whatever) to their phone.
But much of this is felled by the fact that you can't get a ringtone into your phone in any other way (i.e. sent by SMS, WAP push).
If phones like this come out where you can simply rip CDs, d/l mp3s and the like and USB them to the handsent, what happens to the "ringtone" industry?
Of course, I might not be understanding the full picture here as I've never downloaded a ringtone myself.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Will this be anything like or as successful as their Gameboy killer?
The difference is that ipod is very easy to kill. It's an mp3 player, there is nothing special about it.
A gaming platform is a different thing altogether, because it represents a different level of "commitment", and is influenced by such things as availability of games.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
what good is bluetooth if there's nothing you'd want to get out from the phone or to the phone?
I have a Nokia 6310i. I don't care about pictures, ringtones, music, or games. But I do use my phone as a GPRS modem via bluetooth for my Palm Tungsten T3 and Thinkpad laptop. Lets me download email and surf the web (slowly) without any cables required from pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't need bluetooth for transfering anything to the phone itself, but rather to use the phone as a conduit to the internet. I've been doing this for quite a while now and it's invaluable.
I'm definitely not the target market for this new phone. With a hard drive I gotta think the battery life is gonna suck and heaven forbid you drop it. If I needed that much storage I'd rather have an SD slot in the phone personally but I digress... My point is I just want a triband GSM phone with good battery life, text messaging and bluetooth for wireless modeming. No cameras, no crappy PDA features, no hard drive, etc. I'd like something like the Nokia 6810 but it's not sold in the US (only the 6800 and 6820 are carried here) and even it has more features than I actually need/want.
How long is the HD going to last in a phone???
I've have four Nokia phones as I got a new one with each job i took over the past 7 years. Each on has been dropped on the floor a number of times, and generally subjected to a fair bit of abuse. All four of them work, and I have never had a problem with any them.
I doubt a small hard drive could take this kind of punishment. One hard knock, and somethings going to break. I'd much prefer 1G of flash memory in a phone that I know will last me a few years.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
As used by Nathan Barley
You must think in Russian.
But will it feature sidetalking?
Do not read this sig!
It's got more chance of playing duke nukem than an ipod does.
Two boys holding hands or kissing. Judging from recent ballot measures passed down there, I can't see a picture of that scene going over too well.
Good point - but as you said, you do still have that swiss army knife. This is for all those occasions (like camping is for a swiss army knife) where all you want to carry is your phone (like going out) but it'd be cool to have some tunes on the way there and take a couple of shots of the party.
I'll grab one, in a year or 2 when they get a little cheaper & throw it all into a pda phone (checking ebay while you're out would be good too.)
My Nokia 6310 is a very good bottle opener. The strange thing is that the phone is acting flaky thoguh, cutting power every now then. Weird.
Assuming continued improvements in technology, there's no reason why five years from now every cell-phone will have the power to run sophisticated PDA software, have a decent 3 megapixel lens,...
Hmm, I haven't heard about these. Tell me more.
> I'm tired of people recycling this garbage every time the issue of cell phones
> comes up.
It is a bit tedious, isn't it. "All I want is a phone!". Well, you're on your own - the market has moved on. Most people don't want to - or can't afford to - buy a phone, digital camera, PDA, portable gaming console, radio etc, and if they can, they don't necessarily want to carry them around all the time. If you stick those features in a phone, it doesn't make them cost much more - after all, most of it - including the radio, incidentally - is just software. Anyway, if you DO want a feature-poor (or whatever the appropriate marketing speak for it is) phone, just get a shitty 10 year old one off of eBay. Personally, I enjoy all the features I mentioned about in my free (yearly upgrade) mobile phone.
Amusingly, you never (well, hardly ever) see people saying "All I want is a simple computer - no 3d, no sound card, no colour, no modem, just a small hard drive and some ram and a cpu so I can get my work done!".
To have all three of the above devices with me i need a bag.
To have one phone with me i need a pocket.
Anyway, the market has been going towards mulifunctional electronic devices for years now.
I've had one for about a year - with a large MMC card its a really good MP3 player (Yes - I wanted that functionality on my phone) and even some of the games are very good (Pathway to Glory is a brilliant strategy game). Yes I know it not popular and its got the weird side talk but as I mainly use it for texts that does not bother me. Also its got no silly camera which I didn't want. Finally the MP3 player is in stereo unlike a lot of MP3 phones even now. All that functionality and really cheap - Why wouldn't I want one.
To Slashdot or not to Slashdot. That is the question (that will cause me to fail an interview)
If you want to be mobile, you really need big pockets for all the stuff you listed. Face the future ;), in 15-20 years all the stuff is integrated to your clothing. I hope you can handle that better.
you buy a locked phone at massively subsidised prices (in fact in the UK you can get pretty much most of them including that funky new Motorola RAZR V3 in black for free), then you get it unlocked.
to do this, it'll cost you around 10UKP from a local phone shop, or you can do it yourself with a data cable. there are countless webpages that'll unlock it for you remotely: put in your IMEI number, your credit card details and it'll pop up the unlock code there and then in your browser.
then, when you've had your phone for a year and you've got gadget itch, you get another new phone free from your phone company, stick the old one on ebay, and make a profit.
in the UK the only people who buy unsubsidised handsets new are those who have loads of spare cash and gadget lust...
I went and got one of Samsung's camera phones a few months ago. My reason for getting it (even with the two -year contract) is that it I can hook it into my laptop and go online from anywhere I can get a cellular signal. My connect speed is somewhere around 300Kbaud (the older phones would have been limited to about 56Kbaud)
Wow... I read the 300Kbaud as 300 baud for a while there, and was going to joke that I didn't know they made accoustic couplers for mobile phones. I also remembered thinking that it wasn't such a damn stupid idea for occasional use on things such as (text-only) email and browsing with Lynx (though 300 baud would really be pushing things too far).
Since GSM is limited to (IIRC) approx 9kbps (and that's assuming you can inject the digital information directly as digital call data), I assume that you are using GPRS and getting it on your minutes allowance?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
The BBC article claims that this 4Gb device can hold "up to 3000 songs in CD quality".
Bollocks it does. My 4Gb iPod Mini claims to hold 1000 songs (I actually hit around 800, due to having some long stuff on there), and I don't know anyone that claims 128kbps lossy compression is actually "CD Quality". God only knows how they fudge the numbers to get that value.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
The poor little white plastic bastard can't take any more of this incessant pounding. Just leave the little guy alone!
> > What was Gen X? The "me" generation? And we're supprised that their kids are turning out to be jerks?
> Wow, this whole time I thought you were talking about the parents of Gen Xers.
Amen; IMHO this started with the baby-boomers, who grew up with self-absorption masked by association with watered-down, commercialised versions of the counter-culture. They grew up, and turned into corporate/consumerist hippie types that were way more commercial than *their* parents were, and sold their youth (AKA the 1960s) as some type of lost utopia to the next generation.
Gen-X is what you get when people grow up with that hypocrisy. Superficially cynical, it is part of the system; they may recognise the bullshit and hypocrisy, but it seems 'normal'; if they are slackers, it's because there's nothing worth believing in. They've seen the bullshit, but they'll buy into it anyway.
In short: Gen-X; self-aware enough that they want cynical advertising that says "you'll die if you smoke these", "this soft drink sucks"; advertising that doesn't try to hide what it is, they will accept. But too lazy, hypocritical, selfish or just plain stupid to be arsed working for anything better.
Personally, if I can find it in my heart to like advertising, I usually keep my liking of that separate from my perception of the product itself. In other words, show me the pretty pictures, and I'll agree that they're pretty, but it doesn't say anything about your bank/phone/shoes. Anyway, I think that the 'Gen-X' stereotype is to some extent, an American thing (for example... ask someone who lived in China of their perceptions of the 1960s; it won't have much in common with the US/UK '1960s'). Age-wise, I'm supposedly part of it (29), but the 'slacker' thing doesn't really tie in with me... of course, that could just be my personality.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Thankfully, it looks like this new phone has a headphone socket - a REAL headphones socket, not a stupid proprietory connection. My current Nokia has a MMC flash card MP3 player built in, but I've only ever used it once because you can only use their hands-free kit with it, which is a pain in the butt (and not very good quality).
Any phone that wants to provide a decent music listening system MUST have a headphone socket, and according the technical specs here, this does.
(warning - horrible Flash usecrime ahoy!)
Of course, quality will jump tremendously when we switch over from the RGRB CCDs to tri-color CCD's. Slightly offtopic, does anyone know the progress of this? When will we be able to get true 3-color CCD cameras? About two years ago I had heard this would be in about a year...
You are probably thinking of Foveon's X3 sensor. The first production camera with this sensor was the Sigma SD9 Digital SLR, way back in November 2002, but as of writing the sensor is only available in a handful of cameras.
The X3 sensor works with three photodetectors in a column at each pixel location, rather than a conventional sensor which uses a flat RGBG matrix and only measures a single colour at each pixel location.
Consensus is that X3 is definately better than a conventional sensor with the same pixel resolution, but not as good as a conventional CCD with the same number of photodetectors. So the 3x3 megapixel sensor in the SD9 (marketed by Foveon/Sigma as 9 megapixel) is unquestionably better than a conventional 3 megapixel sensor but not as good as a conventional 9 megapixel sensor, losing in particular in the resolution stakes.
It has also arguably been somewhat hobbled by a lack of mainstream support and a number of annoying quirks on the Sigma cameras (the SD9, for example, was RAW only.) This lack of support is understandable many of the big manufacturers have significant R&D invested in their (conventional) in-house sensor technology - and at the moment this tech seems to be advancing faster than Foveon's; I think we could be seeing another Transmeta situation here.
so this is going to sky-rocket just like the nGage did?
Songs must be quite short in Finland, or their CDs have pretty bad quality.
i dont think any of this really matters, Nokia are just being crazy tryna get into other markets cos people are no longer mobile phone crazy. everyone has one now, so less are being sold. just the crazys who must have the latest gadget to wank over. i have a 6630, purely because it was free, and the 1.3mp camera is handy now and again. but i would never use it to photo anything i was planning on really keeping, holidays or whatever. my friends are all the same. its nice to be able to take a quick snap... but this is just gonna go the same way as the N-gage.... and a 4gb hd? who cares? most people can throw a 1gb card in thier phone now and its not as igly or as brickish (ah my amazing ingerlish). Nokia should just accept that the phone market has hit a Platuee
jesus, i just noticed the grammer and spelling in that post. my god. apologies
with thiking like this, it is pretty easy to understand why US is where it is in Mobile phone technology.
Man you have some BIG pockets.
Adventure City Tours
Since cellphones capabilities will soon reach PCs (not todays PCs, but a couple of years back), it would be tremendously useful if cellphones had two small projectors, one for a virtual keyboard, and one for the screen. It would make mobile computing a reality.
Another explanation might be:
Our kids are growing up in a world where money solves all problems, and materialism is doled out in every finely-tuned propaganda-ridden commercial, every "business" news story, every TV show. It's no wonder our kids are selfish pricks when we ourselves are selfish pricks.
Is it any wonder our futilism infects our children to the point when they don't really care anymore, either? What's the point of growing up if it's just going to make them just like us? What's the point of that? Better to look out for #1. After all, that's what we preach in our business classes, our politics, our day-to-day lives.
Or, it could be that they're 15. That's a suck-ass age to be, in any generation.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
compact phone with amazing range
These two things tend to be somewhat opposing. When considering things you can do with the phone, range is ususally helped by (1) more power provided by a bigger battery and (2) a larger antenna. Neither of which help much with 'compact'.
What does help however is a better network; which is probably why I've only very rarely been out of coverage anywhere in Europe in the last five years (generally only when in a tunnel or on top of a mountain.) It wasn't always this way; the networks have got phenomenally better, and roaming is simple and automatic. My father, who lives in the country, has been able to shrink his phone from a 'briefcase' portable model with a 25cm-long antenna to a standard tiny internal-antenna handheld - all due to network improvement.
A better network also massively improves your battery life, as the phone can operate in a lower power mode; I get around five days to a week between charges (in fairness, mainly using text messaging.)
"No signal" seems to be a primarily American complaint. I know about the population density thing, but there seem to be major problems in cities too. (And one doesn't hear that complaint from Australia so much?) The "Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" quote from Verizon's CEO would be incomprehensible here, where many people have dumped land-lines entirely and just use their mobiles.
Indeed, some of us will wind up owning a camphone, not because we wanted the camera or imagine ourselves ever using it, but because it's becoming difficult to find a phone that doesn't have one.
Shit, you need a hard drive? Boyo, lemme tell you about these things they made once back in the day called dumb terminals. They were nice little boxes you plonked down somewhere and wired into a network, and holyshitdamn if you couldn't do everything you ever wanted to do on them, even though all they were were hardware telnet devices. All that huge space you needed for the actual computer -- the massive racks for the system itself, the tape drives, the massive 50-megabyte washing-machine of a hard-drive that would walk itself across the floor diring intensive read/write, the big 'ol air conditioning system -- all that stayed wherever the hell it was, conveniently not in your home, and you ust had this neat little box with the blinkinlights in it. All you needed was a 110 outlet -- 110, not 220 or something exotic! -- and a way to plug it into your network.
Fancy-shamzy gits with their hard drives actually -in- their computers. Pfaw.