11 posts tagged “iphone”

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Google Earth Blog / TechCrunch / Intomobile

My sister is currently in Hong Kong.  She's been there a couple of days now on business.  A little earlier it dawned on me that I could've loaned her a 3 Skypephone (or should that be a 3Skypephone?  After all this time I still don't know!)

With one of those she would've avoided paying for calls to us in England altogether and we could've done the same.  She'd still have had to pay to call her friends and colleagues but those would've cost the same as when in the UK using '3 Like Home'.

To be honest I'm not sure she'd have gone for it anyway.  Why?  Well, amongst other things, she's got an iPhone, a Blackberry, a DS Lite, a camera (had... it was stolen!) and a laptop!.  She really wouldn't have wanted to add another item to the mix no matter how small!

Instead, she's settled for the good old 'three-rings-and-hang-up' trick instead when phoning home.  This involves her ringing our parents house and, you guessed it... let it ring three times from the hotel phone and then hang up!  Then whoever is home rings her back.  Cheap landline international calling plan makes this possible.  It's crude but it works.  I still prefer the Skype method myself.

Check out this earlier post, one that I made last night: HP as well. So they dont just make printers!  I joked about the reasons for why the folks at HP (and previous to that, Dell) were visiting my blog.  Maybe they're gonna launch a rival to the Eee I quipped.  Why did I come to that conclusion?  Simple, my blog rarely has any mention of anything "desktop" (or printer related!) but has a lot to do with the Eee or Nokia.

When I awoke this morning and checked Google News (in my best news announcer voice... More cheapskateians get their news from Google than from any other source*!) I was surprised to see a bundle of stories regarding HP's er, "Eee Killer", the Mini-Note.  I had no idea!  Really. I haven't been following any of the Eee's rivals that closely - other than the usual candidates (Classmate, OLPC, Elonex One etc.)  I've gotta whole bunch of news articles, press releases and blog posts to catch up with methinks!  It is kinda difficult now that I no longer have my Eee PC, so what d'ya say HP?  Fancy giving this blogger a unit to trial?  You know you'll get full warts and all from me but if the device is as good as what I've been reading so far today, then you have nothing to worry about!

Oh, and HP?  When I had my Eee PC and was using it in public I had a queue of people coming up to me and asking me about it.  All, and I mean ALL were impressed including one of the stewardesses, sorry, female flight attendants who already had a more fully featured, and expensive, Sony VAIO.  People of all ages, colours, geeks, non-geeks, they all wanted to know more.  I've never had so many complete strangers come up to me before in my life!  And you know what?  Most of them left me with the impression that they were gonna get themselves one ASAP (good luck, I told them!) and that was after me listing the negatives as well as the positives of the tiny wonder.  If the Mini-Note is really that much better I won't have much bad to say about it, will I?

For good measure I'll add that, not one person approached me regarding the Nokia N95 8GB I had.  I didn't even garner a sneaky glimpser!   And the Eee got way more attention than my sister's iPhone when we went brandishing that around town weeks before it was released in the UK.

Here's a round of the stories about the HP Mini-Note I've been reading today: IT Wire - 'Note to HP: The Mini-Note PC rocks!' / Reg Hardware - 'Asus avoids Atom to get next Eee PC out early?' / Reg Hardware - 'HP launches Linux-loaded Eee PC rival' / Mobile Computer - 'HP guns for the Eee PC with the ultra-stylish Mini-Note 2133' / AP - 'HP Unveils Small Laptop for Schoolkids' / InfoSync World - 'Hands-on with the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC' (as you can probably tell I'm really excited about the news and, maybe, when my insurance comes through I'll be going for the Mini-Note instead of a replacement Eee PC.

*I know it's an aggregator and not a source and yes, only Americans will get that reference but they do make up the majority of my readership!)

First off, WOM World must love me, they send me devices and I write mostly negative things about those devices!  It's not that I don't like the devices but it's because I do that I feel I focus mostly on their negatives.  If that makes sense?

The N800 for all it's flaws is a capable device that has (or should that be had?) the potential to been an amazingly useful, flexible device.  If you, like me, have gotten bored of my usage of the word "device", all I can say is sorry!  It's late and my mind's-a-blank!

What's the one thing missing from the N800 that prevents it going head-to-head with the iPhone?  It's the lack of er, phone hardware in the device.  I have an understanding as to why Nokia omit the phone part and I know it's ground that's already been covered extensively by others.  Still, it doesn't stop me from wondering what a device like the N800 (or the N810 for that matter) would be like if they had, I dunno, HSDPA capability.  And if you've got the HSDPA for super fast mobile broadband, well you might as well use it for phone calls.

The N800 would also be a lot cheaper than an iPhone but that's a whole can of worms and I'm way too tired to finish this post off!  Ah, the joys of not getting paid to do this... ;-)

Oh, and yes, I know I'm not the first to compare the two products!

If anything, it's the name Nokia has chosen for the device/phone that's the worst thing about it.

'N95 8GB' when said in English is eight syllables.  If prefaced with 'Nokia' you can add on another three, making a total of eleven syllables.  That's way too many!  One thing I applaud Apple on is the iPhone name.  Hmm, well, 'applaud' is a bit strong - a child could come up with that, but anyway...

iPhone = two syllables and a name that's known to much of the civilised world.  It's also probably pronounced much the same around the world.  The numbers in N95 8GB will vary considerably from language to language and don't really lend to being anglicised.

Until I started blogging about the device I hadn't realised how much of a pain the name was, but when you need to keep referring to it you soon find out!  Abbreviating to just N95 isn't ideal as that leads to confusion with the original N95.  Abbreviating to 8GB isn't a good idea either as that could be about hundreds of different things (including another Nokia device).  The phone is also known as N95-2 but not really by the public.

I guess once I've mentioned N95 8GB in a post I can then refer to it simply as 'the phone' but Nokia calls it a 'multimedia device'!  Maybe I should just call it a handset and be done with it?

The following is about as unscientific as you can get.  A quick comparison of mobile phone reception at my parents' home.  Sim-free N95 8GB on 3 (UK) next to a jailbroken (unlocked) iPhone on Vodafone (UK).  My trial phone (the Nokia) vs my sister's iPhone.  Any guesses which phone she's considering next?

N95 8GB vs iPhone

In the process of finding out whether the MTV Shop in Times Sq does Comedy Central merchandise (I still haven't found out, does anyone know?) I stumbled upon something funny from Reuters.

Anyone that knows me or happens to be a regular reader of the blog will know I'm not too impressed with the iPhone.  To me it's style over substance and even the style isn't all that.  At least, not when you've played around with one for any length of time - It can be a very frustrating experience doing some basic tasks that even a tenner-at-ASDA (WalMart) jobbie can do with ease (seriously, I'm not kidding!)

So, where am I going with this?  Well, you know those huge crowds (and media circus) gathering outside the flagship Midtown Apple store for the launch of the iPhone?  It seems that there was just one or two people over at AT&T's store a few blocks away!  Both shops offering the eagerly anticipated and both having them go on sale at the same time.  Why the stark difference?  Like the phone itself... style over substance (in my humble opinion!)

Check out the Reuters piece for yourself and get a kick out of the contrasting pictures and the Nokia angle (I'll say no more!)

iPhone launch: a tale of two stores

...in fact almost any device with WiFi and a half-decent browser.

You'll also need a special device that looks kinda dinky (a bit like a Bluetooth GPS unit or mobile modem) and be in a country where there are DVB-H transmissions.  So not much use in either the UK or US!

Found via Reg Hardware : iPhone-friendly mobile digital telly tuner demo'd

Back to the 3Store (not literally, I'm sure the phones are fine!)...

I couldn't help but notice the guy that served me was doing a mighty fine impression of  Flavor Flav (OT but anyway... someone I know was recently in an elevator with Mr Flav and asked him what time was it.  Probably not the first time he'd heard it but it sure made me chuckle!)

So, why did the shop assistant look like a flamboyant rapper?  Because he was wearing an LG Viewty around his neck, that's why!  To be fair, he didn't look that bling or anything but it got my attention and that was the idea - it wasn't a personal phone.  Within moments of enquiring about it I was asked if I wanted to play with it.  If you've read even a few of my posts you probably know the answer!

Indeed it seemed like an excellent phone and the assistant reminded me about the excellent video quality (what with support for ridiculously high frame rates and high resolution) and I was told how to find and check out the videos on it.  The only problem was there were only videos in low quality, shot on the device itself and in 3gp format.  To really show of the device they could've done with some video demos off of the likes of Apple's, Microsoft or Divx's websites.

From what I saw it seemed like a nice phone.  For various reasons I'm sticking to Nokia.  However, if I were I was held at gunpoint and forced to choose between a Viewty or an iPhone I know which one I'd plump for, the Viewty!  IMHO the only things the iPhone excels at are the things the far cheaper Ipod Touch does.

Anyone reading a blog like mine is probably aware of this fact and Shiny Shiny has made a whole publishing empire out of this...

As I mentioned in the last post, I have a sister that has an iPhone.  In the last week my other sister also picked up a feature phone. It's not just a feature phone though, it's an actual smartphone.  What's she got?  She's got a mighty fine Nokia 6120 Classic.  It's a fraction of the price of an iPhone but so much better in nearly every aspect.

To top things off my ten-year-old niece now has a Symbian phone as well now - inheriting her mum's Nokia 6111.  First thing she asked me when she showed off her newly acquired phone was how to turn on the Bluetooth.  Why?  Well she wanted to be able to send pictures and messages via BT to her friends who also have BT-enabled phones!

Anyway, that's just the phone side of things, don't get me started about who enthuses the most about their flat TV, their DSes or who notices the Eee more!