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Nokia's New All-In-One Phone
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on Nokia's new phone, introduced today and hitting the shelves in July. The N93, costing $660, will supposedly fill all of your needs for electronic equipment on the go. From the article: 'Should anyone miss the point, Nokia's press extravaganza in a spiffed-up Berlin warehouse ended with a video in which the camera slowly panned across a tableau of dusty, discarded electronic equipment -- including digital cameras and a cobweb-covered iPod. The message: Nokia plans to make these products obsolete.'"
As the greatest stupidity in consumer electronics.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
It may or may not be as much of a computer as a Treo or a Pocket PC, but it has many trademarks of a computer. Pictures, music, videos, wifi and even voip services are possible. This in particular make phones in direct competition with their carriers. Why pay $150 a month for cell phone service when you can get a "Multimedia Enabled" voip capable phone with a $50 dataplan and talk all you want through Skype or other similar services?
Bottom line? If we let carriers like Verizon continue to cripple these awesome phones, we lose money, ease of use and a significant portion of usability. But if we keep taking them to court and winning, we will have the ability to use all of the features the manufacturers intended and save money in the process.
Funnypics
Imagine a beowulf cluster of...AAGH MY BRAIN!
So this thing will have 2-60GB of storage in it?
And high resolution, non-shitty CCD+Lenses in the camera?
And last as long or longer than both devices, on the same battery?
Somehow I doubt it, and this is Nokia sticking their collective foot in their mouth again, just like they did with the ngage.
My Moto MPX220 has pda functionality, camera/camcorder, 1gb mp3/movie storage and a dual core process in a flip phone design. What's so great about the nokia?
So has there been any serious discussion about the fact that the screen is held to the body of the phone by a single strut? My inclination is to say that it looks flimsy, and while i'd be interested in the functions of the phone, i'd be afraid to do things like cradle the phone.
There are lives at stake here!
...and the article does not mention how usable the device is.
(fumble fingers here has a hard enough time using a plain vanilla Nokia phone with its chicklet keys.)
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
The problem with browsing songs on a cell phone is the lack of an iPod-like wheel to navigate with. Well you know how the iPod has tactile buttons under the scroll wheel? The cell phone solution to add twelve buttons instead of five like the ipod has. Put the buttons in a standard dial-pad orientation. Then replace the wheel shape with a rectangular touchpad. Print the image of the wheel and the numbers on top, and put a protective clear coating as the final layer. End result: A touchpad with cursor functionality if desired, standard dialing with the numbers in the right locations and tactile feedback, and iPod wheel navigation!
For naysayers out there who might complain the touchpad can't be made accurately enough for a cursor, fine. Forget that part. But the iPod wheel and dial-pad could be created today. It's just taking Apple's tech to the next step.
image of phone
one thing is for sure, Nokia are pretty consistant in making phones asthetically ugly as they can, still looks like a Motorall flip phone from the early 90's, its as if a good display, touchscreen , hi-res etc isnt important to them, unlike the massive surge of smart phones with hi-res screens, touchscreens to replace aging remote controls, handwriting recognition, etc etc
Cue the asshat that appears in every convergence thread to cry "I just want a phone to make calls and nothing else" in 5, 4, 3, . . .
everything in moderation
but here in U.S. I'd be happy to have a cellular telephone that can actually place an occasional PHONE CALL! Keep your camera/MP3player/PDA/whatever technology and just give me a trustworthy cellular network. Then we'll talk about extras.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm not normally pro-reguilation, but we need a few simple laws to fix this. Let's start with this:
I'd like to just outlaw contracts longer than 6 months and bundling phones with service, but the above will do as a start. Hell, a government mandated network standard (instead of GSM/CDMA/EDGE) could be an improvement, even if in the form of a mandate for the industry to pick their own standard with some regulatory backing to the mandate ($1,000,000 per day per company per metropolitan area if they go over the deadline to decide or the deadline to implement sounds good to me).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I guess there is obviously a market for this stuff but am I alone in prefering a few different devices that do what they are supposed to do well, rather than a single device that half asses everything. I gave up on the PDA because they kept trying to "converge" it making the latest incarnations mostly crap. I go out of my way for a simple phone, my big requirements are signal and sound quality. I guess I was brought up on the KISS principle, its hard to believe that im alone in that.
Purchasers will also get a free copy of Adobe (ADBE) Premier Elements 2.0 video editing software.
If you buy this multimedia computer (AKA not a phone) will it be able to run this software (as you would assume since its bundled)? Alas, apparently this does not replace your other computer that requires at least 4 GB of disk space. I suppose if someone figured out how to run DirectX 9 on this multimedia computer...
...ended with a video in which the camera slowly panned across a tableau...
If they shot this with the actual phone, then maybe it will make all that other stuff obsolete.
Excellent idea. Unfortunatly, it won't happen in the USA any time soon.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
Some times it seems like mobile phones break every 12 months to force people to upgrade, I certainly don't want to be spending $600+ on a device that is designed to break.
I've been waiting my ass off for the Nokia N80, out of the same series of phones. It shares many of the same features. While lacking the Carl Zeiss lens, it gains wireless LAN (802.11g). Combine that with a keyboard accessory, the N80 could be very handy for remote on-the-go system administration (via whatever Series 60 SSH client exists) or blogging while on-the-go with the built-in 3MP camera. For the geeks, the N80 seems a bit cooler and isn't quite as crazy of a form factor as the N90 (though sliders might still be a little off-beat).
Unless they somehow make a new battery that's dramatically better than the ones we have, people aren't really going to take these all-in-wonders seriously. I wanted to get a new phone last Christmas, that had an mp3 player and could play good games. Didn't want to have to carry so many gadgets in my pockets everytime I went out. So I got myself an SE Walkman phone. I won't do a review on that here, but to sum things up, the sound was ok, I could play games, make calls, etc. (Also had a camera and and FM radio btw.)
In the end, I had to make up my mind each day what I was going to use it for since I had to recharge every so often. (Much more often than what I would have liked.) A phone? A camera? Or a player? Maybe a little of each?
I ended up buying a small Creative flash player. A single battery lasted about 18 hours, could hold much more songs, etc. In practice, since I use it about 2 hours a day, I could go on a single charge for a week. (And no more calls or text messages interrupting my music or games.)
Instead of shelling out more than half a grand for an ultra-phone, I think money's better spent buying a regular phone, plus a dedicated gadget. (Player, camera, etc.)
(And on a slightly unrelated note, a lot of people still prefer regular calculators over the ones in their PCs.)
Seriously, have you tried finding a phone that is stylish, small, has good battery life, and yet doesn't cost an arm and a leg because all it does is voice/text?
Yes, there are plenty of small-ish, plastic phones that do this. But they lack the elegance of, say, a Motorola V3 or a high end Nokia or Sony.
I think there is certainly an untapped market for the following phone:
- metal body
- slimline and actually fashionable design (may I suggest sleek, matte-silver or black, no clear plastic or flourescent colours?)
- integrated aerial
- 4-6 day battery life
- medium sized colour screen
- adequate sized buttons for SMS
- speakerphone feature
- compatible with ordinary (wired) handsfree
- robust and preferably semi-hardened against water and dust
- FAST and bug free software
- price reflecting the functionality and manufacture cost, not the desirability of the device
Leave out bluetooth, photos, videos, IR, memory card functionality, internal hard disk or flash drive, huge colour screen and any other crap you might consider adding 'because it's cool' that would drive up the price.
I and many others will buy this phone.
Read Pynchon.
I don't see a photo of the new phone anywhere on the page.
Not with an attitude like that, it won't.
... Does it run Linux?
Just because it can't be explained doesn't mean it isn't true. Science fits into reality... not the other way around.
The high-end N93 will hit stores in July and retail for $660. (Wireless service providers may offer deals to get that price down.)
So the phone might cost around $400, or maybe as low as $300 if you're lucky. However, accessing the internet costs you a monthly fee and cuts into your minutes, unless you are on Wi-Fi (and then I'm not sure what it does). There is no mention of the DRM that the phone will be using, so getting music will probably cost at least $1 a song, not to mention downloading costs your minutes too. You could probably transfer the songs directly from your computer, but then you'd have to buy an attachment (and software?) to make the connection, which will cost extra. I'd bet the attachment will be required to transfer the pictures and video to your phone, unless you want to pay extra monthly fees to get picture and video messaging, which also count against your minutes.
It's great that the phone has all these features, but they aren't free. These features not only factor into the price of the phone, but also bite into your wallet as you use them. Guessing that it costs $75 a month for all the features, that comes out to well over $1500 dollars to use this phone for a year... How many people will think that its really worth that much to have all the features in the same place?
I have to disagree on the contract length thing.
I am very happy to stay with the same service if it is somewhat decent, my price never goes up, and I get a few hundred dollor discount.
What we really need is to be allowed to return our phones for a full refund including activation, and contract release, for a 30 say window after purchase so if the service sucks we arn't stuck.
I had cingular for 2 years and they were nothing but decent to me, but then I switched to T-mobile to save some money, they too are decent, but the network is not as good (but covers my house and 3 offices better than Cingular, just not anywhere else).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
and hope that by the time it dies there will be a killer handheld out to replace it.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
My initial thought was "Oh great, another Japanese-style bloat-o-phone" -- but after looking at the specs, I see the N93 is actually even more bloated and heavy than that (a typical Japanese bloat-phone is around 115g, and already seems kind of clunky and awkard; the N93 is 180g!).
... but it seems rather silly when it reaches the point where you don't want to carry it around at all because your pockets aren't big or strong enough. I rather like the ability to split up my gadgets as is convenient for the situation -- carry one thing in my pocket, another in my bag, leave another at home because I know I won't need it.
... but that N93 seems very far from that ideal.]
I understand some people like all-in-phone phones because they only have to carry around one device
[Of course some day all-in-one devices will probably become so small and functional that there will be little reason not to use them
We live, as we dream -- alone....
This device still doesn't match the HP Ipaq 6515. No built-in GPS, no MS Office, and it will probably be bigger than the Ipaq.
they'll just say that isn't fair, goes against a free market blah blah blah
The usuall BS lines, then when that fails they will file lawsuits, you know since judges shouldn't be avalible to work on cases with murderers, rapists and the like, they need to help the poor phone company that over charges their customers because the big bad government is taking their lunch money.
Awesome phone? Carriers will cripple it.
How did mobile phones in the USA become so messed up in the first place? The idea of not being able to buy any handset to slip my existing SIM card into is strange to me.
I know that GSM networks haven't been big in the USA but surely they are an option by now?
First, you enter any of these contracts completely by choice. If you don't want to sign up for a two-year commitment, buy your phone on the open market -- without their discount. It's an incentive, not an imperative.
You are already allowed to bring your own phone to their network. You don't pay more for a non-provider-provided phone.
If you want a phone that's portable between carriers, again, you're free to buy one on the open market. (AFAIK, not counting locked phones, GSM phones are more portable between carriers than CDMA phones. Analog is a few months from death, and I have no idea whatever became of TDMA or PCM.)
If you want a phone that's not crippled by Verizon (the worst) or another carrier, buy one on the open market.
Basically, the reason contracts are as bad as they are is that people are very attracted to the "free" phones, or the steeply discounted phones available from the cellular providers. That's the idea. But the free market is still out there. Quit whining about locked-down phones and insane contracts and spend the $200 extra for an unlocked phone. Or take their discount and STFU about it.
What I'd rather see is sanity brought to the plans. Having to "guess" at how many minutes you'll use in a month is a pretty lame way to force us to make a purchase. But all of the "pay as you go" plans cost far more for anyone but a mime.
John
Here's some images of this thing.
. php?showtopic=5892= 5892
http://www.dexigner.com.nyud.net:8080/forum/index
http://www.dexigner.com/forum/index.php?showtopic
Seems like they could have thrown in a keyboard for such a big phone. Seems more like a camcorder-phone than an all-in-one device.
This phone is seriously huge!
x .php?p=9/
x .php?p=7/
Check it out here: http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/nokia_nx3/inde
Also, the N73 was also announced, which is thankfully a smaller phone, still feature rich, and is quad band unlike the N93, and thus better for those of us in the US.
Check it out: http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/nokia_nx3/inde
Also, for those who are interested in phones check out howardforums.com It's the best message board for cell phones and network information.
The Pocket PC 6700 from Sprint and other carriers already does all this and it's based on Windows Mobile 5.0 instead of the presumably new or limited market share OS that Nokia will use. I just got one last weekend and so far I am very happy with it: Bluetooth, wi-fi, wireless broadband (Based on EV-DO: "3G" to some people), 1.3 MP camera & video. Mobile IE can handle most website okay, but the screen is a bit small. Any larger and it wouldn't be very useful as a phone though, so it's a good balance.
Sprint rather predominantly advertises the wi-fi feature of this device, so I disagree with the article that "telcos" are threatened by hybrid wi-fi devices. I bet they freaking love the ability to have someone using a device with their branding but not consuming their resources. Maybe when you throw in a working VOIP application it becomes a bit different, but for pure data stuff, they'd love that.
Nokia is only #2 in my book (to market anyway), the PPC-6700 has already done all this.
www.blueapples.org
The fact that you often pay nothing, or close to nothing for phones that cost $200-$300 unlocked may have something to do with the fact you can't transfer them? Why should the cell phone company pay a $300 bill so you can take the phone somewhere else...
~~ Please keep your arms, legs, and outright stupidity inside the ride at all times. Thank You ~~
The press release has enough buzzwords to give a corporate climber a bigger stiffy than Viagra. "Digital life", "global convergence"... Geez I better buy one so I'm corporately compliant!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Yes, but can it recognize more thn 99 songs?
No model so far that Nokia has released will recognize more than 99 songs. Pretty silly in the days of 1 and 2GB memory cards,....
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
That and GSM isn't particularly well implemented in the states. I have GSM and GPRS through T-Mobile and it comse up short next to CDMA phones. Not only is the coverage not as good, but there have been more instances of dialing up someone and having only half of the connection actually work (I can hear what they're saying or they can hear me but not both) and the sound quality is definatly not as good. I tried to read out a CD key to someone over my phone (that's what he gets for leaving the sleeves behind when he has to reinstall something on his laptop) and it was hopeless. Every time I read it out he got something a bit differenent because he couldn't make out the individual characters very well at all; even with me going "alpha niner X-ray...".
T-Mobile GPRS has terrible latency too, often on the order of seconds. OTOH, my wife's CDMA phone doesn't do data at all so there's really no comparison there.
I read the internet for the articles.
How about if it came with some kind of OS other than the crappy ones usually bundled with phones? I'd like to see a device like this with Windows Mobile or something linux based, that normal people can actually write programs for.
Nokia breaks the world record for worst cell phone battery life ever. Someone give them a blue ribbon or something.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Here is a better article with a picture of the phone, and the entire new line described. Plus, they are opening a store in Chicago. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1953830,00.as p
I would like to subit to add to your list: 1) Some way to encorage mutlinationatals to offer the same products in all countries. 2) plain english contracts written in at least 30 point helvetica- 3) flat rate phones-no more bull about how privlidged I am to have a phone that fits in my pocket. flat rate not to exceed 50.000000 USD OR 100yen wich ever is lower. 4) Allow customers to be Grandfathered into a better rated plan meaning if I start with a 40 dollar flat rate plan, and Cingular drops the same plan to 20---They better notify me or be mandated to pay differency back in no less than 31 day.
All this would assume regulations had teath.
Im sorry but until the all in one device can hold 40Gb of Mp3s then I don't care, until the all in one device can take 10 Megapixel pictures at 1600X1200 then I don't care, Until the all in one device isn't taking a gamble at the portable gaming insdustry then I don't care. Until the all in one device isn't an over-sized, expensive, clumsy, POS with lots of shiney half-assed features added on then I don't give a damn. I'm sorry but the reason the 40Gb ipod isn't smaller and more battery friendly is becuase it can't be. The reason the 10MP fuji fine pix isn't cheaper, and smaller is beacuse it can't be. The reason the DS isn't smaller is because nintendo hasn't released the 6th color yet. This is why no one is going to buy a $660 all-in-one esspicailly a nokia whom is know for their cheaper line. It just doesn't stack up.
It's not -1 Flamebait! It's +5 Funny. You just didn't get the joke...
The contracts aren't that big of an issue. I've got yearly contracts for my apartment, my DSL, my cable, why not my phone? The issue is with not specifying the actual prices of things, simplifying what you're going to pay as "extra charges" that "may apply", and while you think buying an unlocked phone isn't a big deal, I went to 6 or 7 mobile phone stores before I found a guy who could figure out how to sell me a phone plan for a phone I didn't buy from them. Of course, this was back when phones were all the same and you couldn't just hook them up to a computer to save your phone number list... these days with the "smartphones", GSM and SIMs you'd probably more luck in convincing a salesperson that you're going to use the phone you already own with their service.
My Treo 650 works for days without charge doing limite phone / pda / mp3s.
It definitely should handle a whole day of MP3s and phone. If not, you can swap a new battery and not lose anything if you need to.
Does all that other crap too, word, pdf, mp3, crappy camera, videos, 2 GB SD card,
No wifi, no stereo wireless MP3...
Had it all for a year so far.
I really think convergence is the future. It'll take some time, but someday compact cameras will just fade away, and ditto for dedicated mp3 players. I think the main things that are needed are:
1. Better battery life
2. Cheaper devices
3. Better ergonomics/interface,
4. And finally, a different sales model with cell service providers.
OTOH all you old-schoolers will be happy to know that in my mind, I still see dedicated cell phones hanging around for a while.
My treo 650 does all that crap. The 700p is coming soon.
- slimline and actually fashionable design (
Got it, I like the Treo look
- integrated aerial
I assume you mean antenna, the treo is integrated to the body, but it sticks out. Not sure what you want...
- 4-6 day battery life
Works that long if not talking much and not searching for a signal. Using PDA only I have gotten a week, If not swap a new battery without loss
- medium sized colour screen
320x320, I want bigger but it works
- adequate sized buttons for SMS
Thumbs are actually fine for the treo, and pretty quick too.
- speakerphone feature
Ok, but not great.
- compatible with ordinary (wired) handsfree
Yep, wired MP3 stereo or wired mic as well. Look on treocentral for a cool mic / headphone combo unit with integrated volume / hangup button and retractable spool.
- robust and preferably semi-hardened against water and dust
Mine got run over. The screen is mangled and I can only read 60%, but it works. Touch screen is fine...
- FAST and bug free software
650 could be faster, but I have not had a reset in months.
- price reflecting the functionality and manufacture cost, not the desirability of the device
as ugly as the crackberry poptart, decent style, metal housing, no moving parts, good bat life.
Treo 650 or 700p is the way to go. The camera is ok on the 650, but could be better.
Or use my phone independantly of my PDA, like when I'm playing tetris while talking to my wife.
Having said that, I'll bet they sell a truckload of these to early adopters, who will play with it a bit, then promptly throw it into a drawer never to be used again, eventually poisoning some landfill somewhere.
Why should the cell phone company pay a $300 bill so you can take the phone somewhere else...
They shouldn't and the way it works in the places I've visited is the handset is locked to a particular network for some months, some amount of prepaid credit, however many calls, etc and is then unlocked (usually at the customers request). At that point you can do whatever you want with it.
I know there is an up-front cost to get an unlocked phone straight off but at least that's an option. If your phone company only offers contracts that come with phones then you should be able to get it unlocked after the contract expires and sell it to recover some of the cost.
That and GSM isn't particularly well implemented in the states.... snip
Ouch, that really does make it sound like something is very wrong with the GSM networks in the USA.
How many GSM networks/areas have you used? Are all GSM networks in the USA this bad?
It depends on your carrier, and the software sucks...
Verizon will lock you out of your phone; if you go online and try to grab a copy of Motorolla Phone tools (yes, I know this is a Windows application suite), they specifically note that they have disabled thing, like the ability to download background images and ring tones, at the request of Verizon.
For other carriers, whether you can sync with Linux is a function of which SourceForge package you download, and how long your phone has been out. The best ones seem to be for Nokia phones (Nokia is popular in Europe, despite the exploding battery issue) and because the E.U. has a law permitting reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability, a lot of phone hacking happens there.
For MacOS X, iSync will handle your address book and data connection. If you want the camera portion of your phone to show up in iPhoto, it's not going to happen. If you want the background picture to show up there, too, and be downloadable to the phone, that's also not there. If you want to take an iTunes song and use it as a ring tone, that's also not there.
To be fair, this takes extra software on both the Mac and the PC - not just the Mac - and, again, your carrier can lock you out of it, if they choose to do so.
For third party applications for doing the transfers, you're normally talking about needing a WAP enabled phone, and your computer uploads the content to a web site, and then you pay text and data transfer charges to get the URL, then the content itself, down to your phone, unless you get software designed to talk to the phone over USB (also needs a data cable, anmd extra expsense - at least Motorola uses standard 5 pin minim USB 'A'/'B' cables for many of its phones).
I've personally purchased an application that is considered the best out there for image and ring tone transfers (it's basically a piece of crap, so I won't name names, but it runs on both Mac and PC, and it's considered the best of the lot, for both platforms); it wasn't useful for ring tones or image cut down until I downloaded 3 or 4 other packages from freeware/open source sites, and even then, editing was somewhat hinky.
The bottom line is that the phone companies (or should I say "phone company", now that AT&T has reassembled itself like a Terminator II) control the code on your phone, and as long as they do, they own what you can and can't do with the phone. And if next Tuesday, that means not syncing with Linux or MacOS X, then that's what it means.
-- Terry
The problem is that in technology 2 years is a VERY LONG TIME. I could buy a phone/contract today and it may have the best service in the area or the best network or whatever. In 6 months that my not be true. In 1.5 years that may not be true. Yet I'm still locked into my contract.
That's another one for my list that I just thought of:
I have been told by cell phone companies that if I bought a new phone I would have to a) pay to get out of my current contract with them, and b) sign up for a new 2 year contract.
I believe that the companies are predatory. They keep cell phone prices very high (low end cell phones cost $200?) I'm amazed they don't cost more! Then they offer these huge subsidies for the phones when you sign up for a contract which prevents most people from being able to ever afford them without the long contracts.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It's kind of like this, but black.
The texting man, it kills us.
What I'd like to see is Yearly/Monthly Fees,No per minute contracts. I'll keep waiting.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
"The N93, costing $660, will supposedly fill all of your needs for electronic equipment on the go."
Let's see:
simple -- no
cheap -- no
long battery life -- no
Sorry. Looks like it will fufill none of my needs.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
The only phone company where I live with GSM service requires a two-year contract, regardless of where you get your phone. Also they don't subsidize phones, except to give away the bottom-end model that they're trying to get rid of. Since they're the only GSM game in town, nobody else sells GSM phones, so you're pretty much SOL unless you want to order one online. Which I will do.. to replace the freebie I got. At least I can swap out the SIM card and there's nothing they can do about it.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I have been told by cell phone companies that if I bought a new phone I would have to a) pay to get out of my current contract with them, and b) sign up for a new 2 year contract.
I've only seen that be the case when the phone price is subsidized. If you're willing to pay full price there are a number of retailers willing to sell you phones with no contract implications.
It seems the problem is you went for the cheaper upfront price with the longer term contract. You made a poor decision, mathematically speaking.
No contract only prices in ads. Consumers must be able to get a month to month contract from the start. If there is any preferential pricing when you sign up for two years, it must be VERY CLEAR that the price is attached to the two year contract, and you must specify in the same print size what the cost would be for the same plan without a contract or a different length contract (1 year, for example)
All of the ads I've seen were very clear. Consumer stupidity (like ignoring all the writing in an ad) is the fault of the consumer. It's not like they trick you into anything. They happen to subsidize phone prices as an inducement. It is a money loser in the long term, but people don't think that way, so they pay. It's just good business all around, in my eyes.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
If you don't want to sign up for a two-year commitment, buy your phone on the open market
Where is this "open market" you speak of? Does it have a store in Fort Wayne, Indiana? If you mean online, what close substitute is there for inspecting a phone in person before I purchase it?
You are already allowed to bring your own phone to their network.
The carriers make it seem like the opposite. I know little about GSM; can you show me that this is true despite what the carriers say? How do I determine whether any carrier serving my area offers SIM-only service (that is, without phone rental)? And if I put the carrier's SIM card into my phone, won't that let the carrier lock the phone, or can the carrier refuse service to SIM cards inserted in phones that aren't locked? If I am clueless about GSM, what do you suggest that I read in order to become no longer clueless?
You don't pay more for a non-provider-provided phone [...] spend the $200 extra for an unlocked phone.
Am I supposed to not see a contradiction here?
Here's a picture of Nokia's all-in-one product.
Here are the specs on the older Nokia N92 model: http://www.nseries.com/nseries/v2/media/product/te ch_specs/en-R1/tech_specs_n92_en_R1.html
What is notable about this one is it supports DVB-H. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-H
and: http://www.dvb-h.org/
It's Digital Video Broadcasts for handhelds.
Microsoft Windows runs on stress and frustration.
"Open market" phones are no longer that viable on Verizon's netwrok. I have used them for years, and they have the best coverage anywhere I've been. For years, I rarely used a Verizon branded phone.
I was using a 6585 from Ebay for 8 months. I sent it in to Nokia to have the firmware updated, and when I got the phone back, I was told that it was not compatable.
Not compatable when I had been using it for 8 months, and it was giving me much better service than the one Verizon branded phone I had been using in the interim. When I pointed this out enough times, I was told that it was because my phone wasn't E911 complant. It was. Eventually, I got them to reactivate that ESN under a different model, that they carried. It took a month and over a dozen calls to customer service, escelating every time to get that done.
I have since switched to Cingular, in spite of lessor service and worse coverage and call quality, and have been switching between the phone they gave me and another that I used to use on TMobile.
I think it's really unfortunate that Verizon has gotten so overprotective of their hardware sales margains that they're willing to give up customers. I used to reccomend them to everyone that I knew because of superior coverage and customer service. Now customer service has tanked, and they don't get my reccomendations.
On the other hand, my favorite N-Series Nokia is gonna be the N-80.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
I think money's better spent buying a regular phone, plus a dedicated gadget. (Player, camera, etc.)
If you want to play independent games on the go, which handheld game player would you buy? Nintendo DS is locked, and Sony PSP is locked. Some people claim that smartphones purchased in an "open market" are not locked.
You have had it bad then, I have had no problem replacing a lost phone with and ebay phone in the past, or giving my phone to my girlfriend (had to unlock it though, which many electronics stores will do for a reasonable fee).
/month?
If you really want a no contract phone buy a pre-paid plan and subsidise with higher rates, or buy a phone full price.
And how much more obious can they be than $100.00 mail in/instant rebate with one year commitment to a plan worth more than $29.00
Most companies do advertise the full price so you can see how big the discount is.
and what provider gives a 30-day risk free trial?
I kow T-mobile gave me 14 days and I still had to pay for any messages and the $35.00 activation if I cancelled.
My 1 year contract saved me $179.00 on the phone (vs ebay pricing) I was happy with that, but I could have walked in with my own phone. I 3 months later got a promational plan that renewed my contract to 1 yeah and saved me $10.00 a month ($120.00). Unless another company beats that price by $10.00/month (20%) within 6 months I have saved mony with the contract and have no bad blood, but again, if I didn't want the contract it wasn't forced on me. If you have that problem shop around a little more, a lot of 3rd party stores (fairly hard to identify) make their money selling contracts and can be less than honest (but also offer better discounts/subsidies).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Time Division Multiple Access is a strategy for multiplexing radio access rather than a specific standard, though in the US the term TDMA is often used to refer to IS-136/D-AMPS. D-AMPS service is still provided in many parts of the country, by Cingular among others (my dad still has a D-AMPS phone).
Code Division Multiple Access is sort of a standard, except that it's not. Originally, there was IS-95 which everyone (i.e., Sprint and Verizon) supports. Unfortunately, they've put incompatible protocols on top of that such that they're unable to use one another's networks anymore - you cannot roam between networks with CDMA. I used to work at a place that sold cellular data modules, and provisioning CDMA customers always required a flash of the module firmware to support the network (as well as to set the ESN for the module). Of course, all the data functionality is not part of the IS-95 spec, so maybe you could get away with an unflashed handset if you were only interested in making calls. You'd probably lose most of the bells and whistles, though.
GSM is nice because it's made for easy portability of devices - you change SIMs and that's that. CDMA may be "better" from a technical perspective (it seems to attract fanboy zealots), but it suffers from real world implementation issues. Plus, you gotta pay the Qualcomm tax.
Actually, his description is mostly a T-Mo thing. I used them for a long time (T-Mobile GSM 1900), and hated them. I gave the phone to my g/f and got a Verizon (CDMA 800/1900) phone. I've since switched to Cingular (GSM 850/1900) for other reasons, and the coverage isn't nearly as good at Verizon, but makes T-Mo look like a couple of cans connected by a frayed piece of yarn.
Since most of the TDMA networks in the US are converting to GSM, things are improving considerabley, but they still have a way to go to catch up to Verizon's CDMA network.
Personally, I think CDMA 1xRTT and EVDO are much better technologies than GSM/GPRS after comparing data, voice, and call quality with good signal, having used them both.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
Buy the minimum and learn to send text messages most of the time. I have lived in Japan for over a year and have less than THREE HOURS of talk time on my cell phone. 95% of the time I need to communicate with someone via cell phone, it is nothing more than "Hey, I will be 10 minutes late" or "where are you?". No need to talk, and no need to bug the hell out of everyone in a 50ft radius.
The fact that you almost never see people yammering on their cells is probably Japan's second-best feature (behind the women, of course). God, would it be wonderful if Americans shut the "#$# up.
What will this be compared to nokia 770? http://nokia770.com/
Will it the Successor, or will it be smaller, less computer alike?
Will it be running Linux?
I like the way the people on Slashdot always complain about new multitalented phones. Don't buy them if they don't suit your needs or work properly in your networks!
Nokia and all other manufacturers have plenty of entry level, sub $100, "calls only" style phones in the product portfolio for you critical consumers to purchase.
I like my 9500, soon to be replaced with an E70 (I want more CPU power and 3G). Yes, I use the camera daily (sending MMSes to friends/moblog).. I listen to MP3s and C-64 SIDs often from my 1GB MMC card. I use it for GPS navigation with TomTom mobile when I'm driving in an unknown town. I use PuTTY over GPRS or WLAN for remote terminals every day on it.
They wouldn't make these if there weren't people willing to buy them.. And usually the will to buy comes from a need for some certain features.
-Jope
That's the same in Australia, too, but you don't find features disabled. You don't have to use the carrier service to get pictures of your phone, USB and Bluetooth services aren't disabled, etc, etc.
Sprint forces you to sign a contract to get their 'plan' not just the phone. You are also forced to use a 'Sprint' phone - whether you get it from them or eBay. The SIM cards are disabled and not used in US Sprint phones. There is no way around the contract.
They even require a new contract if you 'change' your plan at any time.
The big 3 US cellphone providers have the markets so locked down now, it's as bad as the oil companies. You have no choice. You are stuck buying their crap without the features every other country enjoys. You get locked into their networks and their features - no choice.
Wait til voip cell phones start hitting the markets as wifi becomes more available....
I'm all for reducing the number of bulges in my pants (is that an ipod+pda+cell+wallet in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?), but I'd rather have you know, separate devcies that do one thing well, rather than one that does everything piss-poorly or even averagely.
This is why I my iPaq isn't seeing much action these days. Sure, it has the potential to do a lot of things, but because it doesn't do most of them in a way thats really good, I don't end up using it. Music player? iPod. Phone? I'll take a phone over an iDen CF card. Digital camera? I'll take my DSLR (ok I don't really have one, since I already have a reg SLR) my point-and-shoot over a CF camera, or even any builtin ones. Checking email? Painful. Might as well pull out my iBook. Web browsing? Painful, might as well pull out iBook. Planner? iPod shows my planner, and might as well pull out computer to make changes. Contacts? Check.
Integrating all in one sounds like a good idea in theory. But like most things that sound good theory, its not that great in practice.
Combine this with Nokia's oher great integration stories, like the nGage and that featureless Linux phone... and.. well, not holding my breath.
in about six months.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
CDMA is the only one in your list which is a different standard..
f or_GSM_Evolution
GSM, GPRS, EDGE (EGPRS) are all same but with improved data transfer rates at the expense of using more channels. In addition, GSM, GPRS, EDGE and the now increasingly wider spread 3G/UMTS is what is used in Europe.
Find out more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_
Phone+contract bundling just got legal here in Finland (unfortunatly IMO), but at least they have to stat how much more you will pay with the 24 month locked contract in comparsion to basicly the same contract but w/o the phone.
Just got some adds and being locked for 24 months would save me just 35 (on a Nokia N70)- so I wouldn't go for that, I rather have a restrictionless phone.
spend the $200 extra for an unlocked phone
That's exactly what I did, even though I'm unlikely to switch in the next couple of years. I've gotten screwed by such things at least as much as I've benefited, and I'm fed up with the crap.
It seems as though there are a lot of negative comments here from people who just want a phone to be a phone. If this is the case then dont buy this phone! Slashdot release news about interesting geeky products, not boring ones. If you just want a phone that calls and SMSs then get the Nokia 1100 or 1101.
This phone actaully has a great spec. Lots of people don't seem to be reading the article. Battery life will be similar to the N91 for playing MP3s, i.e. about the same as an iPod. The MP3 player has a better interface where you can actually search without scrolling through all your songs.
The camera is no DSLR but that's not the target. It's a 3MP with a good lense. It would replace an average $150 digi cam.
The video recording also looks fantastic, with resolution and bitrate that will look good on a standard TV - possibly better than home (analog) video cameras. It has TV out as well.
It runs S60 so you can write your own programs or download other peoples. There's thousands, possibly more than Windows Smartphone / Mobile.
This phone has an undeniably great spec. If that's not for you then don't get it.
http://dave1010uk.blogspot.com/ - the st
A few months ago I was shopping for an all-in-one device. I settled on the Nokia 6230i.
It auto syncs my calendar via bluetooth when I walk in the front door of my apartment. It has an expandable memory card that I currently store 512 megs of mp3s on. Other standard features include java, camera, audio recorder, fm radio etc. On the other hand, battery life is pretty shit. I play 1-2 hours of music with it a day, and usually it needs to be recharged every 2nd or 3rd day. It does charge fast though.
I am pretty happy with it. Though if I were buying a mobile device today, I would seriously considering going with the Samsung D600.
Carriers do not operate in a free market (spectrum licences are limited), therefore you can't expect the free market to do it's usual magic for you. Companies that have limited monopolies granted by the government almost by definition should be subject to regulation about what they can and must offer. It's the only way to ensure they don't abuse the monopoly position they have (not monopoly with respect to other spectrum licencees, but with respect to every other person or company out there who is not a licencee and therefore not free to compete)
"Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia's director of design strategy, sometimes begins the day by diving into a Finnish lake still partly covered in ice," says the article. Well, I once dropped my anchor overboard and forgot to hold onto the rope, but I don't boast about it in Business Week.
Pining for the fjords
First, you enter any of these contracts completely by choice. If you don't want to sign up for a two-year commitment, buy your phone on the open market -- without their discount. It's an incentive, not an imperative.
Actually, that's not necessarily true. Some markets simply don't offer no-commitment contracts.
But the free market is still out there.
You're making a common mistake: you assume that if there is more than one source and if people have a choice whether and which contract to enter, the market is a free market. That's wrong. For a market to function like a free market, there need to be numerous other conditions. Usually, they won't be met unless there are dozens of competitors with similar product offerings.
Calling a market a "free market" when it is not is a way for companies to avoid the kind of government regulation that is necessary to keep monopolies and oligopolies in check.
And people thought the Motorola Rokr was ugly!
Karma Schmarma
nt
Personally I want a full qwerty keyboard built into the device. So I've been waiting for the E70 for months.
Very similar specs to the N80, and looks small and discreet for normal use.
GSM uses TDMA. Converting from TDMA to TDMA?
Im all for these things, phones are definitely going to replace iPods and digital cameras - the killer app is that you always always leave the house with your phone even if you're going out for 5 minutes, you always keep it charged and just about everyone has a mobile even in poor countries where they are struggling to have homes. Phones are more 'normal' to use in public - you cant pull out your PDA in a restaurant or bar. Phones are becoming worthless to thieves because of contract deals and it being harder to tell if someone is using a cheap phone or an expensive phone from a distance. Nothing else comes close to this and that's the real reason why phones will take over.
I predict that the iPod will be dead in a couple of years and Apple will have moved onto the phone market. iPod video might stick around as a larger 'travel VCR' and iPod nano might survive because its so small but im putting my money on the phone. An MP3 player that cant even check your email or take a picture? thats a dead concept.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
You could do that, or you could force the big carriers to rent their networks to 3rd party companies (virtual networks).
The problem in most countries there is very little real competition because the market is controlled by a handful of big operators.
In Denmark, where they forced operators to open their networks, the price of calls and SMSs dropped drastically. Also makes it difficult for the operators to engage in non-consumer friendly practices.
I remember reading that N91 have DRM for music files,
Being a 'do-it-all' phone that wants to be PC, i doubt N93 wont.
"There is no way to fix this in the US without pro-consumer laws. The market would sort it out, but the locks in place (including crippled phones, 2 year commitments, locked phones, etc.) prevent the market from being as effective as it should be."
Sorry, but "the market" is not something different from what you describe. "The market" is not the poor victim of the "locks in place". Those locks are part of the market. We should be able to note its shortcomings, and not think that the market is the cure for everything.
GD
If you're an HP calculator fan like me, you'll go nuts over Nonpareil. Actual HP microcode, believe it or not; and very realistic images of (almost) all of your old favourites. GPL code, runs on Linux/OSX/Windows, etc. Couldn't ask for more!
but a poor one, too.
Get a RAZR. They're easily had for free after rebate with a new 1-year plan. Ignore the bluetooth and camera if you want--it has very good battery life (5-6 day battery life), very good reception, integrated aerial, a speakerphone, large buttons, compatible with wired (and wireless) headsets, has a fairly large screen, is very slimline and is made out of metal.
Even if you don't want to sign up for a year, I really don't see the big deal in paying $100-$150 for a quality phone, especially when most people are paying $50+ monthly for service. There are plenty of decent I-just-want-a-freaking-phone cell phones out there... the problem is a lot of people see the word "camera" or "mp3" and they immediately assume they suck and/or are incredibly expensive. The fact is cameras are practically a standard feature on phones nowadays, and if you don't want a camera or bluetooth or an mp3 player or whatever then don't bother to learn how to use that particular feature! Yes, certain 10-gadgets-in-one devices do have shitty cell phone capabilities, and some of them are grossly overpriced, but they aren't ALL that way, and anyone who knows how to use Google or Amazon (user reviews are handy) should know this by now.
One thing people forget about these sort of gagets, is the quality of the firmware is as nearly important as the hardware itself.
The potential usefulness of those features (camera, MP3 player, camcorder, etc.) can be really made really bad by poorly implemented firmware.
Most phone manufactures have badly designed and buggy GUIs in these applications, simply because it's a huge amount of software to write and they don't have enough resources.
That's where Nokia's strategy is better than other phone manufactures. Becuase of their Symbian OS, they can allow 3rd party companies to develop specialist applications, i.e. Opera could write a browser for the phone, which would be far supieror to anything the Nokia could come up with themselves.
Jeezz, you live in America, `the land of the free?' I live in Holland, and except for point one we have everything you list here. Amazing.
-- Cheers!
Yup, did the same thing. Fortunately, I was off a Greek island at the time and it was only about 15ft of water. The deepest I've ever gone and never again. *reads it back* Kinda dull story. But you started it.
No - other carriers apparently have better implementations. I have Cingular. In the part of the country where I live it has the best coverage. I use their Edge network (sort of 3G) for net access and I'm very pleased with it.
I switched from a CDMA to a GSM carrier a few years ago primarily because I wanted to be able to use bluetooth to connect my phone to my PDA/laptop. The CDMA carrier I was using made that impossible.
In illa quae ultra sunt
I know Nokia's R&D gets paid by 16 year olds doing overtime at the local McDonnalds, but it keeps on amazing me how nobady develops the business marked. My phone can synch with Bluetooth and IR. Guess what? The average corporate desktop has neither. How about a intelligent USB craddle? When I put the phone in it, it not only recharges, but automatically forwards all calls to the desktop phone standing just beside it, and all text messages to my email inbox? How many mobile phone owners sit 8 hours a day at the same desk? Why does nobady cater for them?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Doesn't sound like an enticing proposition to me. That's not a free market. That stifles competition, because moving between carriers doesn't save you any money.
Do you REALLY think mobile network operators are making a loss by selling you both the phone and a 24 months service? The answer is a resounding NO. You are in fact the losing party in this equation, most people just don't realize it. Except in very rare cases (less than one percent of subscribers who are able to adjust their usage patterns to best match the predefined amount of minutes they get), people would be better off actually buying their phones assuming you could get a cellular plan that didn't include having to pay for other people's phones.
It's a pity most people take the bait that is ZOMGLOL FREE PHONE!1!1 and completely fail to calculate how much it really ends up costing. But I guess people just hate having to pay upfront.
You can get most of the facilities of the new phones now: I use a Nokia 6820 + Nokia 770 tablet combo.
The 770 has built-in WiFi and bluetooth. At home it connects to my wireless network, and when I go out, it can switch to my CDMA phone to access the Internet. So I get to carry a (relatively) small phone and the bigger 800x460 display tablet when I need it. And the 770, being based on Debian Linux, is open source.
The 770 has its problems, but I find the flexibility (and the ability to port my linux apps) beats dragging a PDA around when most of the time I just want to receieve calls and texts
I also don't have problems with my service provider: Vodafone even tested the bluetooth connection to the 770 for me when I got the phone (annual free upgrade, and I bought the 770 direct frm Nokia). I guess they have the sense to realize that they'll still make money from my data connections when I'm out.
For SMS usage, the mini-keyboard is more compelling on the E61 than the N93's video integration.
Still hoping they'll offer some sweet bundle on a 770.
Standing by for my overrated mod from the coolest editor evar!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
"You don't pay more for a non-provider-provided phone." and
"Quit whining about locked-down phones and insane contracts and spend the $200 extra for an unlocked phone." contradict one another and thus your argument makes absolutely no sense.
It would be a bit disingenuous for the government to auction off the airwaves for billions upon billions, and they "hey wait guys; we're changing the deal."
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
T-Mobile already does what you want. Why don't people like you freakin' STOP BUYING VERIZON PRODUCTS AND SERVICES and look at other companies instead of just assuming that everyone in the industry screws over their customers as badly as Verizon does?
If there was a government mandated network standard, I can promise you it would be like everything else in the US - it would be a standard that no one else in the world would support and would be technologically inferior because the businesses would cry "It would cost too much to do something better". No thanks, I'm grateful that there isn't a standard.
If you would just join the GSM world and stop worrying about CDMA providers and their crap, life would be a lot better for you.
My phone is a decent enough phone for me. It doesn't replace my digital camera but it serves to document things. It serves the purpose of a keychain flash device. It doesn't require that I stay within 50 feet of a charger at all times. It doesn't cause an embarassing lump in my pocket. It's perfect.... for me...
Funnypics
Funnypics
But I mean, like with camera phones, are people really going to want to use these phones in place of dedicated digital cameras and camcorders?
90 minutes of digital video on a cell phone. Come on, I mean, my high end Digital-8 camcorder can only store 60 minutes of video on its tapes. And when I transfer that to a computer, its about 30gb of data. New camcorders with hard drives have about the same capacity per 30gb of storage space. I could use a 1gb memory stick in my camcorder, and get about 300 minutes of video, but that is at 320 - 240 resolution and only about 12 fps. I mean, I have a Carl Zeis lens and 3 megapixel CCD and everything, but the digital video looks like crap, period! So, what kind of quality are you going to get out of your cell phone?
It will happen one day, you will get excellent digital video and still pictures from a simple device like a camcorder, but these phones currently are novelties for people that are more about style then substance. They want to claim that their overly expensive cellphone can take videos and still shots, as well as play TV and music, etc, etc, etc, but in reality they will seldom use these features except to show off.
I am not adverse to an all-in-on device, and I look forward to the day I can ditch my separate components and simply use on small component, but only at such a time when that small single component EXCEEDS the quality and performance of all my separate gear. I want 8 megapixel still photos with up to 100 times optical zoom, I want HD video in 16:9 with surround sound. I want the ability to store 6000 songs. These are all features I get from separate components, and while it might be cumbersome, it just means I carry a small camera bag with me when I go out on trips.
We are no where near there yet, not by a long shot.
I would save my money, and invest it in better quality individual components. I doubt there many people out their that require this much functionality in their cellphone, and those that buy it will only buy into the novelty of having a phone that does it all, even if its poorly.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
They do make phones like this. They are made by a company called Vertu (or veritu, whatever). They cost several thousand dollars each.
I hate the fact that all these cool phones have cameras. I want everything except the camera. Include the camera on the phone, or the laptop for that matter, and I have to check my phone at the security desk.
While I will not discuss Symbian vs WindowsMobile issues - since you do not even seems to know the capabilities of Symbian OS, it would be moot - I can assure you it is far from crappy. Multitasking, a decent TCP/IP stack, plenty of choices for coding - Symbian is primarily C++ based, but there is a lot of code in Java and there is a Python SDK from nokia as well. Before calling the OS crappy actually try to google a little to kwnow about what it can do.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
This thing will never replace PDAs - its screen is tiny. That means that visiting conventional websites, watching movies (I never do this on a PDA because even the largest screen is too small, but Nokia seems to think that it's cool) isn't easy, reading books/PDFs is also harder.
In fact I have replaced my hi-res (320x320) Zire 71 for a low-res (240x320) iPaq rx1950 exactly because iPaq's screen is bigger, (and yet the iPAQ seems to be smaller because Zire is much thicker and heavier). High resolution can't replace big screen size. Imagine watching Star Wars (or any other movie that looks good on a big screen) on a small yet ultra-high-res display.
While not quite what you describe, the Nokia 3650 has the number buttons arranged in a circle, like the old rotary phones. While interesting to look at, it is totally non-functional for T9 text input. You have to actually look at the keys in their 'smiley face' orientation, instead of the standard grid. This makes it really tough to type and drive a manual transmission in bumper-to-bumper traffic. With all my other phones, I don't have to look at the keypad to type.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
First, you enter any of these contracts completely by choice.
Ah, but who controls the choices available to you?
If the choice is crappy phone service or no phone service at all, sure I can maybe make some sort of principled stand, but what difference does it make?
That's the whole point of government regulation and labor unions and things like that - business groups are small and organize easily. The public and workers are very large groups in comparison and exceedingly difficult to organize effectively. Therefore, laws and regulations work to balance these forces out to make the market healthier.
Long live regulations!
There is only one thing to say here: "Jack of all trades, master of none". I don't see how any reasonably usable, compact device can properly do all things that a user might want. When you use a camera for taking really good photos, you want a real viewfinder that you can put your eye up too. The LCD displays suck for proper framing of a shot. To accomodate that, you can't use the form factor of a cell phone and ergonomically succeed. On the other hand, if you did get the proper form factor for a camera, it's very likely that you wouldn't have a decent cell phone form factor anymore. Whereas, most of us want digital music players to be pretty non-intrusive and preferrably totally hidden. The form factor to accomplish that can be closer to a cell phone but that's not ideal. The ideal is to make it as small as possible and once you do that, you're out of the cell phone and camera realm in terms of usability and restrictions on the UI. Here's when I'll be excited:
1. When the camera devices can use any/all of the following in wireless mode for taking photos and videos: my eyes, my contact lenses, my glasses
2. When the music player can bypass my ears and go straight to the auditory nerve (again wireless)
3. When the form factor of the device can shape shift to properly accomodate the function
4. When my eyes are the display device with heads up display functionality
Of course that's probably going to happen closer to the end of my life than now since I'm 36 and I don't see anything like that being mass marketed until 2040 at earliest.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) is a technique used to allow multiple radio transmissions to be used within a single piece of allocated radio spectrum. It is not a tower, nor is it a type of telephone. TDMA is a method in which each radio transmitter is given a specific length of time to transmit. In the case of GSM, the result is that many mobile (cellular) telephones can use the same frequency at discrete timing intervals. Not at all implying that GSM is in any way compatible with other types of cellular systems.
Again, not to be an arsehole, GSM uses TDMA - between the handset and the cell station specifically. My statement is correct. (Slightly unqualified in my last message, but correct)
I have worked more than 10 years along side the defence signals directorate as both a direct employee and in the Navy (Electronic warfare) so I do hope I am still able to speak with a little knowledge on the subject.
Cheers, no offence intended.
Taking advantage of people's stupidity is fine but there should be the potential for smaller competitors to come in and be less abusive, which as far as I can see from the US market isn't there. The other alternative is regulation, which certainly hasn't killed the thriving European market, quite the opposite in fact.
I've only seen that be the case when the phone price is subsidized. If you're willing to pay full price there are a number of retailers willing to sell you phones with no contract implications.
Good luck taking that expensive phone you just bought to a provider and getting it setup for service on their network!! (Which was MBCook's point I believe)
It seems the problem is you went for the cheaper upfront price with the longer term contract. You made a poor decision, mathematically speaking.
No, he made the only choice possible to get the phone he wanted with an acceptable level of service with a provider he liked. Many people would be more than willing to pay several hundred dollars more, if they could carry their phone from one provider to the next!! (Myself included)
All of the ads I've seen were very clear. Consumer stupidity (like ignoring all the writing in an ad) is the fault of the consumer. It's not like they trick you into anything. They happen to subsidize phone prices as an inducement. It is a money loser in the long term, but people don't think that way, so they pay. It's just good business all around, in my eyes.
While I'll whole-heartedly agree that the stupid should be punished...does it make sense that business practices must be predatory toward the customer? In what other industry would such behavior be tolerated?
I think the big picture here is that the current state of cell service in the USofA is about as antiquated as the POTS was back in the lates 70's - early 80's timeframe. Remember what it was like to get a new phone? I was but a small child, and I'll never forget my old man going to the lumber yard (of all places) and buying 'illegal' handsets to install in the house. Illegal in the sense that they weren't purchased at the "Bell Telephone" store!!
Crippled phones, locked phones, mandatory contracts for any new phone even if you purchased an 'authorized' phone (i.e. they'll let you use it, even though you didn't buy it directly from the provider)...All of these things put the current cellphone market on the same level as the Ma Bell Fiasco. Only one difference here. Due to the relatively smaller nature of capital investments to get a cell network up and running, there never was a natural monopoly like for POTS. But don't kid yourself by thinking the Baby Cell-Bells don't wield the same control as Ma Bell did back in her hayday!!
The stupid part is that these phones can't interface with computers well. All I want is one of these fancy phones that will interface well with my Linux PC.
/photos and /videos, respectively.
These are the things I expect from a phone:
- Appears as a USB mass storage device.
- Data like contacts, messages, and so on should be stored as CSV files or some similar sort of text files. I want them editable in a text editor.
- Photos and videos stored in
- Photos and videos in common (and preferably patent-free) formats. PNG and Ogg Theora would suit me fine.
- Bluetooth.
- A C or C++ cross compiler.
I think the Nokia 770 might be perfect for me if only it was a phone. If anyone knows of a phone that can do some of those things (a bare minimum would be appearing as a mass storage device...) please let me know!
I also don't see why digital cameras and other devices shouldn't all appear as mass storage devices. It is ridiculous to require some crappy half-hearted software effort (that usually doesn't work) from phone companies.
(offtopic)
Just look at some hi-res images, and see the screen images are simulated.. Does the law allow this?
(E.g. in 'photo' 5, the big picture displayed is a lot sharper than the description text. This isn't possible by antialiasing only.)
I think my Nokia 1100 is absolutely GREAT!
Come on, Nokia. Get with the program, make it quad band.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
iPhoto may not support phones, but Bluetooth file transfer on OS X will let you open the folders of the phone's filing system and drag photos and other files in and out. That's how I install applications, ringtones, backgrounds and the like on my Sony Ericsson.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
My Swiss army knife does.
That is all.
Hell, that's why all these guys like the do-everything phones--they make a BIGGER lump in their pocket!
The lock-ins in the US are not that bad if you take advantage of the system a little. I got my t-mobile phone from amazon.com for -$175 after rebates (yes they actually gave me money) and sold it on ebay unlocked for $100 after 1 year (T-mobile unlocks your phone after about 3 months). So I made $275 and paid ~$400/yr for the plan.
At the end it cost me about $100 for one year of cell phone service with more minutes than I used each month (it helps that most of my friends are on t-mobile and I had free t-mobile calls anytime).
After this I actually got a new t-mobile phone (again with large rebates from amazon) and had to change my number, but I could have just switched to AT&T or another GSM provider (Cingular?) and keep my number.
All I wanted was a quad band phone that wasn't from Motorola, because every Motorola phone I've had has fallen apart in less than a year. Took a long time before someone offered something that met the bill.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
GSM uses a combination of TDMA & FDMA, not just TDMA. I am not aware of any cell providers using straight TDMA.
Ahtisaari is the son of Martti Ahtisaari, President of Finland (1994-2000). The older Ahtisaari is also known for positions in corporate boards. (Corporatism must be either hereditary or contagious, then...)
y .mp3
He is probably still known as a pop musician, as he's a bass player and songwriter and composer. Particularly interesting is this old song of his:
http://ahtisaari.typepad.com/moia/files/Technolog
"People used to write long letters when they were in love now they use those mobile phones when they are in love take me away on this supahighway."
Just out of curiosity, how many different carriers do you have access to? I have the feeling that most of the people on this thread ( or at least, most of the ones replying to you ) live in the US.
I live in Canada ( British Columbia to be exact ), and I only have access to two mobile providers, Telus and Rogers Wireless. I'm currently with Rogers, but I want to switch over to Telus. At the moment though, this would mean ditching my $300 phone ( the Sony Ericson s710a ). The reason? Telus doesn't want to touch phone with SIM cards with a thousand foot pole. I could probably get the phone unlocked, but I've heard that really only works for Telus->Rogers switching, and not the other way around.
Stupid telco's and their stupid vendor lock-in.
God is dead -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead -- God
Zombie Nietzsche lives! -- Zombie Nietzsche
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this sounds crazy.
If i were to go out and buy a phone, i could get it with a subscription, usually 12months, and discount. But the providers are required by law to show the consumer the full price of the phone including the service cost at the time the subscription expires. So for a phone with a 12months Subscription i can easily see how much i really have to pay for that one year commitment.
In one store the SIEMENS ME75 phone costs $60, and including the the one year supscription the cost is actually $320, not including actual use of the phone. The same phone in the same store costs $190 without the subscription.
And there is no crippling of phones, and roaming or calling people with other providers doesn't cost me anything extra.
Where do you live?
-- Cheers!
oh, forgot that, sorry. I live in Norway.
...would NOT sort it out, as evidenced by the fact that it hasn't. The theoretical market in which all things work out to the best of all possible words has never, does not and will not ever exist. This market is not a free market, so all the collusion, political corruption, monopoly power and adverse selection that define it must be taken into account. Ignoring it and hoping to [g|G]od that "the market will sort it out" is a pipe dream.
If it requires more regulation in order to make a market freer, this should tell you something about the nature of markets.
BlueTooth syncing via drag-and-drop only works if OBEX - OBject EXchange - has not been specifically disabled, which it is on Verizon phones. This is because file exchange requires mode 22 on the phone, which by default likes to talk in mode 0 or mode 2, and take AT commands.
For phones which are composite devices (which is pretty much all of them), it also requires that the drivers recognize a change of actual device ID (USB or otherwise, if you do not use USB interconnect), which is not always practical (e.g. when supporting OBEX over USB, you usually have to write the OBEX code yourself, as it's not considered a line discipline or streams layer that's stackable on top of USB).
The drag-and-drop has an additional limitation, in that on a number of phones, you have to delete the index of files and let the phone rebuild it. If you don't do this, then you can't access the new files on the phone directly, since they won't show in the menus. Effectively, it means there's an implicit data interface, which is undocumented by the phone vendors, for communicating data changes to the phone.
That basically means you must inflict intentional "damage", and then depend on your phone's error recovery mechanisms to rebuild the index for you. This generally works, although there are known problems with some phones with some revisions of firmware from various vendors.
The bottom line is that mobile phone synching and integration is currently about as advanced as mobile phone UI itself, which is to say, not very.
-- Terry
It's too complex. As I understand it, the mobile phone network providers in Finland aren't allowed to sell phones. Everything else sorts itself out. They have some of the best prices on phones and service in the known universe.
Software-defined radios will also help. One piece of hardware, GSM, CDMA, TDMA, 3GPP 1x-whatever, load the profile and go. This will also improve competition. I believe TI has a chipset now available for ~$40. Let Moore work on it for another 18 months and we'll be ready for the regulation.
If any of the political parties want to make some hay this November, grab this ball and run with it. Set the date for January 1, 2008.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Yes. But does it run linux?
is a reliable basic gsm phone, in clamb shape with a fast to use interface.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't see a problem here. There are plenty of firms willing to sell me any GSM phone I'm willing to pay for. And I have two perfectly acceptable GSM carriers to choose from.
And I also have two unacceptable carriers to choose from. Verizon may have good signal strength, but they maintain a list of nickel-and-dime billing suckers instead of a list of customers. And as for Sprinxtel, well, I don't care because their network's phones are truly unique to their network -- it's vendor lock in because of the technology.
John
dchky why did you block my messages from you email system if you were to at least look at them you might realise that i am who i say i am and that all things said between us are and will always be kept private i will only stop trying to contact you if you could honestly answer one of my emails and tell me Nerys your sister that you no longer consider me your family then you wouldent have to keep re-aranging your system all the time. you are always in my thoughts and wishes. best wishes nerdus.
The price is ridiculously high for the features offered. I have a nice Chinese phone at $3. Hope they make a better thing than this Nokia toy at $60.
Prof(Miss) A Mani CU, ASL, AMS, ISRS, CLC, CMS, IEEE HomePage: http://www.logicamani.in Blog: http://logicamani.blogs
Fido is owned by Rogers, and I completly forgot about Bell. Although in the Lower Mainland, from what I can tell, Bell doesn't seem to be as big as Telus and Rogers.
God is dead -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead -- God
Zombie Nietzsche lives! -- Zombie Nietzsche
Why are you whining? If you don't like crippled phones from carriers and bad contracts don't take their offers! Carriers will probably give you the phone for a fraction of it's normal price and in exchange you're expected to comply, there's nothing wrong with that if you're stupid enough to go for it.
If you're smart you can find an unlocked phone. It's more expensive but you're free to use it however you want! When I hear how much americans are paying for cell phone plans I can hardly believe it!