Slashdot Mirror
Futuristic Nokia Concepts Reviewed
nitinah writes "Nokia design concepts is an ongoing initiative from the Finnish communications giant that invites designers around the world to create breakthrough cellphone designs. Phonemag has coverage of this year's entries, which includes the
Aki,
a wrist wrap device for programmed self expression that tunes its behavior and outgoing/incoming communications based on the moods and gestures of the user,
and allows 'talking' without speaking, just by gesture.
Another design is the Acibo, which features a mini buddy device that has an entirely voice driven all-in-one personal communicator which
can be charged by bio-energy. More featured concepts include a wearable, shock proof and waterproof device, the SURV1, a necklace based communicator called
the Global Nomad
, and a complete communication device called the Colores, with virtual storage to access all your personal information on the go."
Maybe you are no longer the target market for cell phone companies. At any rate, these things in the article are called prototypes, and they are absolutely necessary when you want compete in the market for gadgets that do more and more things every day. Nobody knows what kids will want tomorrow. But if you keep a fresh buffet of shiny new things for them to pick from, you are sure to keep their attention.
As for your complaints of the current phones on the market, "Phones that work. Phones that sound good. Phones that have decent battery life." From what I understand and have seen, nearly every phone in the store has those attributes. I myself have a brand new phone that I picked up about a month ago. It is a phone that you would not want. Two high resolution color displays, mp3 player with stereo speakers, 1 megapixel video / still camera.
"It works. " Check.
"It sounds good." Well, I have had no problem hearing people. I have taken it to a bowling alley, and people I talked to did not hear the ambient noise in the background. The speakerphone is also very clear and loud, and surprisingly lacks the echo that seems to be prevalent on most landline phones. I was impressed.
"It has a decent battery life." I use about 500 minutes a month. I have gone as long as 36 hours without plugging it in and making average amounts of calls throughout my two days. Also, I was testing the phone when I first got it. I watched a little over an hour's worth of video, listened to music for about an hour, and of course made some phone calls (didn't take note of how many) but in the end the battery was showing half full. Not exactly scientific, but batteries and power management are getting good across the board.
So, my recommendation is to buy the phone that you hate the least, and in a week you will be used to it. There you go.
I'm a minister!
concepts are like fashion crap you seen on catwalks, experiments. if I wanted a phone that didn't do anything else than make calls and get sms's, I'd still use my old 3110 - which works perfectly for making calls. the 3110 doesn't double as a mp3 player though, it doesn't take pictures(I don't carry my 'real' digital camera everywhere), it doesn't let me get into irc, it doesn't let me ssh, it doesn't let me read news for practically free(sms ordering news is just damn expensive). hell, the 3110 doesn't let me read slashdot while in a train.
anyways, even nokia makes still low-end phones that have intentionally cut features, like 1110, if you want to pay practically the same you would for a j2me phone with a color screen..
put it this way: why would you as a _geek_ want to pay the same for a device that only does one thing as you would for a device that has flexibility to do a lot of things - if you wish - and it still does the phone calls good. call quality in a well built network has been excellent since gsm came(first gsm network was launched in 1991), if your network is shit then it doesn't really help what the phone is. also if your operator ties it's plans to phones you don't like then it's your operators fault, not the phone manufacturers who just manufacture what is bought from them..
switch operators if your mobile doesn't work as it should and you know it's not borked.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
contrary to popular belief 3650's dial was actually VERY good to text on, with one thumb handling either side of the 'dial', it was so fast people wouldn't believe that you were irc'ing from a mobile.
if you dial long numbers by finger memory, and would need a traditional 9 pad for that, then you're in the minority of people nowadays. most of the numbers people call are stored in the phones phonebook(it looks just unnatural when people in tv shows or movies type long numbers into the phone when calling someone who's number they should have in it already).
but these are just *concept* models, not "real".
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I live in Finland - the country that Nokia is based in and a country that has been at the forefront of mobile phone development for at least the past 10 years. I have to say I don't understand at all the "I want a phone that is just a phone" or "I want a phone that works" type of comments.
I can't even remember when I've had a phone that didn't work. In the past 10+ years, the battery life on every phone I've had has been good enough that I have charged them about twice a week; that's 3+ days of real-life battery life that includes plenty of calls, text messages, etc. Reception has always been good and the only time I remember having dropped calls is when I've been in an elevator going down to an underground parking hall or something as extreme. Hell, even on my recent hiking trip in the mountains in Norway, there was reception half of the time. And that was far from any civilization! On the roads on the way to the mountains, there was good reception 100% of the time. Either way, reception is more about the deployment of base stations than about the phone. The last phone I had with an external antenna was 5 years ago anyway.
As far as functionality is concerned, I also don't get the complaint at all. There are plenty of models for all tastes. Let's look at Nokia, which this article is about:
Nokia 1100, 1110, 2650, 2600, 3100, 3120, 3220. None of them have a camera. You are free to pick one. Or if your carrier doesn't offer one, it's probably because nobody wants them!
Having said that, I wish people would get over the "phone" label. It's a device. Who gives a damn about what the name of it is? Not wanting a "phone" to have a camera or mp3 player is similar to saying that your don't want your computer to have the ability to play mp3's or view photos from your digital camera. It's a COMPUTER. It should only COMPUTE.
Seriously, it's a device and it has a bunch of features that makes sense to people in their daily lives. And you get whichever device (or none) that makes sense to you.
I have a Nokia 6630 right now and it's perfect for my use. It has 3G, EDGE and GPRS. It has tri-band GSM and it has Bluetooth. That means I can use it pretty much anywhere in the world! And with 3G/EDGE and Bluetooth, I can get Internet access to my laptop anywhere in the world too. I can sit in Starbucks in Shanghai and surf the net and read emails on the laptop while the phone is in my backpack, without ever touching a button on it. That's important to me, because I travel a lot and because I like to work in cafes, restaurants etc.
The phone has a 1.3 megapixel camera and a lens with less crappy quality than on most other mobile phone cameras. That allows me to snap pics of booths on tradeshows and MMS or email them to colleagues back in Finland. "Check out what company X is showing!". Or I can send my wife pictures of the beautiful lake by the sauna at the company off-site. "Wish you were here!". Obviously, it's not a replacement for my actual camera, which takes 100x better quality pictures. But the useage is different and I don't want to carry around my camera everywhere!
The phone has an email app. It lets me check my email when I'm somewhere where I don't want to take the laptop along. For example, I could be hiking in Lapland but I still want to check if we got that major deal that I was hoping would have been done before my vacation began. I don't use it much, but there are times when it's been a real life saver.
The phone has an XHTML web/wap browser. I use it to check the news, weather, TV-program listings, view webcams from Finland when I'm traveling, check what movies are in what theater and at what time, and even to order movie tickets once in a while. It's also good to do the occasional Wikipedia or Google lookup.
It has Symbian OS and Java, so I can play some fun games on it to pass the time on the subway or while waiting for a connecting flight. Or I can run some other useful apps, like IRC, AOL IM, MSN IM, SSH, BusWatch, WorldMate, Opera, etc. There's tons,