Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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
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.)
While that might not be all that important, I am curious as to whether it's possible to get it to sync with linux and OS X. The next phone I get I'd like to be able to sync without being forced to use Outlook.
"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.
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