Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

And it comes at last! Google’s game-changing Maps Navigation software, that was only available for Eclair (Android 2.0) before, is now officially available on Donut (Android 1.6). Great news for those who’s devices don’t have stable Eclair code yet, like the HTC Magic!

-Nokia FanBoy

Official Google Mobile Blog

Well here’s some game changing news – Google is releasing a free, turn-by-turn, voice guided navigation client.

I’m sure we’ve all used Google Maps on our respective devices, and I’m sure we’ve used them with a purpose they were not intended for: navigation. A number of people have been complaining to me that Google needs to pick up the pace and release a navigation client a-la TomTom or Garmin. Well it appears they finally have.

Google Maps Navigation is coming out with Android 2.0, however knowing the online hacking community I’m sure earlier versions of Android will have it too. The new features introduced in the new software are pretty cool:

• Google search (obviously)
• Turn-by-turn directions
• Voice guidance, including street names
• Aerial map and satellite view
• 3D aerial satellite view
• Street-view of your next turn or destination
• Constantly updated maps (Vancouver was updated with Street-view during the summer)
• Taking into account of traffic conditions (sadly I believe Vancouver is out of luck on this one)
• Route caching in case you lose signal (but if you deviate off route, then you’re again out of luck)

Besides these, Android 2.0 will support device-wide voice commands, so finding a good coffee could be as easy as saying “navigate to a coffee shop near me”.

All of this is nice, and the features will certainly be game changers for many people (I know I’m going to be trying this out), however I’m a little worried about re-routing. For instance, I don’t like using Garmin because the re-routing takes so long that once its done I’ve missed the turn already, while TomTom and some others seem to be good in that sense.

There are also some down sides. For instance, if you do not have a data plan on your phone, then you’re out of luck since downloading and storing maps on the phone is out of the question. Sadly, this means that for me this can’t be the only guidance system either as I like to travel to the states and do not wish to pay the high data charges.

Most interestingly is the effect this is going to have on the GPS industry. With TomTom and Garmin stocks down already, this will be an interesting year or two.

Make sure to check out the video in the read link.

Update
Video of the interface in use, and official website:

-Nokia FanBoy

official website
via: Engadget (read)

So I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. I’ve used my Android-based HTC Magic for about a month’s time, and I’ve posted up what I felt about it in comparison to my Symbian-based Nokia N95 8GB. But now I went back to my N95 8GB and have for about a month’s time.

My first impression going back to the Symbian phone was really more of a “It’s good to be home” feeling. But after using it for a while I realised just how much more thought out the OS really is. Not only does it allow for some customization not available on the Android, but it runs better. Its much more stable, running for days, if not weeks, without crashing or having to reboot. There are no major memory leaks, and multi-tasking on it is a joy!

Besides that OS, the hardware is much more impressive. I rarely used my Magic’s camera, but the camera on my N95 8GB has such impressive quality that I never have to think whether I will need a camera wherever I am going. Text messaging on this phone is much more pleasant due to the addition of a hardware keyboard.

I must say, however, that Android does have its pluses, and so does the Magic. For one, the Android market is easier to use than the Ovi Store, even considering that the Android market has a terrible search. Also the applications available on the market are better – I downloaded some music players and, while they didn’t improve audio quality/support, they did add some interesting functionality such as immediate lyrics or song suggestions. At the same time, I really liked how HTC allows you to upgrade the OS via a ROM file. Different OS versions out there come with their ups and their quirks. While I didn’t like the fact that the quirks seemed to be quite large and annoying, I did enjoy being able to install a new firmware when it came out because I know someone had ported it (I am referring to my v20 N95-4 when N95-2 is on v30+).

Since I’ve been using my N95 8GB, Mike has been using my Magic and has found some even more fascinating programs. For example, he found a spectrometer that kept us amused for an hour, playing different songs into it and seeing the visual representation – it was quite interesting to see how much richer a voice is compared to an instrument.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction that Symbian is going in, and whether Nokia should consider other OS’s. To be honest, I think that there is a lot of potential in Symbian, and I hope that Nokia draws that potential out. But operating systems such as Android have already built on that potential and are already available, which will make things much more difficult for Nokia. I think that Nokia is doing well to stand by its operating system, especially considering how stable and efficient it really is, but it won’t be easy to win against the new hot shots on the block.

Also, things I would like to see on Nokia devices:

• Easily and safely exchangeable OS versions (a la HTC phones)
• Much higher support for applicatoins, more so those centered around entertainment
• Smaller, lighter, sexier touch screens (X6 is definitely an improvement)

Well these are my thoughts for a Saturday afternoon,

-Nokia FanBoy

How ironic that the same day I wrote my post on the state of Mobile Operating Systems, Entelligence released a very similar post. Must be something in the inter-webs.

Of course this article has a different take on the entire state, one which is quite interesting and totally worth a read.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)

I’m not entirely sure what I want to say in this post, so you’ll have to bear with me for a little bit.

In the past…
telling apart a smart-phone from a dumb-phone was quite simple. Smart phones were generally required for some features such as running multiple applications at once, being able to run Java apps, or browse HTML web pages. Even IrDA (infra-red) and later Bluetooth were generally left strictly for smart phones. Finally GPS came out, and that was deemed too expensive for mainstream phones, so smart phones were the only ones to support that feature.

But what has happened now?
Java is included on pretty much any phone you can think of, and through some simple multi-threading so is support for multiple processes. Most newer phones support HTML browsing, while some smart phones don’t support JavaScript, or web-based Java and Flash content, so that can’t be the differentiating factor. IrDA is no longer included in all but the smartest of smart phones, and Bluetooth is included in just about every mainstream phone. And GPS? Well even that is starting to get included on specialty dumb phones (that is if you can call a specialty phone “dumb”).

Where to look?
Maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong point of view, so lets what Wikipedia defines an Operating System to be:

An operating system (commonly abbreviated to either OS or O/S) is an interface between hardware and user; an OS is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer.

Ok… so not very helpful, maybe Smartphone?

A smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality (PC-mobile handset convergence). There is no industry standard definition of a smartphone.

So there is no industry standard definition, but reading on we see David Wood, EVP at Symbian Ltd., defining a smart phone as:

“Smart phones differ from ordinary mobile phones in two fundamental ways: how they are built and what they can do.”

And we finally see some defining characteristics of smartphones:

• Full-featured email (i.e.: ActiveSync, BES, etc.)
• Ability to read business documents (i.e.: PDF, MS Office documents/spreadsheets, etc.)
• Advanced contact management
• Standardized application development platform and interface
• Advanced hardware – GPS, accelerometer, QWERTY keypad, touchscreen, digital compass

Of course I would say that some other features are required for a smartphone to bear that name, however many of those are found even in dumb phones so they’re not really defining characteristics. On the other hand, GPS and QWERTY and touchscreens are far from being unique to the smartphone realm.

So what OS’s are there?

• Android (HTC, Samsung)
• BlackBerry OS (BlackBerry)
• iPhone OS (Apple)
• Linux (Motorola, Asus)
• Symbian (Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola)
• WebOS (Palm)
• Windows Mobile (HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Asus, HP)

Well at the very least here we can see that some companies are putting all their eggs into one basket (Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm, Apple) while others are trying “diversify their portfolio” (Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC). Which operating system is the best? I think its more a matter of taste as the features between them tend to differentiate quite a bit, however I do believe that some heave clear advantages over others.

It is also important to differentiate between smart phones and operating systems. A perfect example is Symbian S40 vs. Symbian S60. Both operating systems are build on the Symbian OS, however S40 is considered a dumb phone OS, where as S60 is considered a smart phone OS. In this post I will be talking about the S60 of operating systems.

This also brings me to my next point: I strongly believe that up until recently iPhone OS did not even deserve to be put into the smartphone OS category. While the iPhone may have had a large following (as any Apple product), and had some innovative applications, it lacked some of the most basic of concepts available on other operating systems, such as multitasking, task management, and access to the file system. Oh wait, those still aren’t available, guess its STILL not a smart phone OS (just let me cross it off the list…. done).

So where does this bring us?
So we have 6 operating systems left, of which 3 are mature: Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS; 1 is immature: Linux; and 2 are still in their infancy: Android and WebOS. I’m afraid that due to the sheer number of Linux flavours out there, I will have to fore-go that OS in my further discussion. However, do not see this as a negative for Linux, its a powerful OS, I simply do not have the time.

This leaves us with 5 operating systems, all of which have done something to revamp themselves in the last year or two, and continue to do so now.

The mature Operating Systems
Symbian, Windows Mobile (WinMo) and BlackBerry OS (BBOS) have been around for a long time, and have gone through a number of iterations, bug fixes, and varying flavours. Currently they are all facing the problem: how to take an operating system that was designed for a small resolution screen, for use on a phone with hardware buttons (or a mouse, in the case of WinMo), and convert it for use in a high-resolution, finger-friendly touchscreen device. The entire thought process has to be stopped, and restarted in a completely different direction.

We can see Symbian doing its thing with v9.5 S60. However they were not able to completely turn around as they were afraid to lose a dedicated following. Their fears were not misplaced, however they approached it from the wrong point of view. When Nokia 5800 was released, it was hated by those new and old to Symbian and Nokia, as the interface was inconsistent and many things in the OS still required that stylus. I should note, however, that a stylus is not a bad tool, as I believe it is the easiest way to input Asian words/characters/text (not sure what the correct term here is). Which is also why the 5800 and N97 alike have resistive touchscreens, and not capacitive ones that cannot accept stylus input.

While Windows Mobile has been going on and on about v6.5 and v7, we have little to see in the way of hardware; and manufacturers such as HTC have quickly caught onto this and designed their own shells to put on top of the existing WinMo 6.0 and 6.1 shell, which has not changed since the early days of the OS. It should be noted, however, that the number of these shells out there signifies that it is easy to design and implement; this is a brownie point for WinMo as highly customizable interfaces are important to keep the users entertained. Finally, I give credit to Windows Mobile (or HTC at least, not sure) how easy they made the flashing process for their phones. After all, a new OS means new features, new interfaces, and with an all-touchscreen phone, it practically becomes a new phone altogether.

At last we come to BlackBerry OS. I have only played with it a short while, however even this purpose-built operating system is being revamped for mainstream use. Of course since the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 came out in 2006, BlackBerries have been regarded more and more as a mainstream phone with a status symbol. I believe this to be mainly attributed to the reduction in the size of the phone than in the improvements of the operating system. The newest OS revamp, arguably the second, was caused by releasing the Storm – BlackBerry’s first touchscreen phone. The issue here, much like with Symbian and Windows Mobile, is that all that RIM did with this operating system is put an under-designed touchscreen shell on top of an operating system that was never meant for it.

All three of these operating systems are amazing at what they do, the problem is, that unless their designers scrap everything they knew about interfaces and start fresh, these operating systems will be doomed to fail.

The immature Operating Systems
This brings us to the newest, least mature, and yet the most promising operating systems in the market to date: Android and WebOS. Each system brings something new to the table, and generally does so quite well.

Android was Google’s way of driving the free and open culture, while at the same time strengthening the grip on all of your data. I’m not going to bad-mouth Google, I believe they’re a great company and have done some great things, it just scares me as to how much data they have on just about anyone in the world. (on to Android…) Android was designed from the ground up to be used with fingers, and not a hardware keyboard. Granted, the original release required a keyboard and would have been useless without one, however that was not due to poor design, but under-development due to time constraints. My Magic, for instance, is quite usable with just 8 hardware buttons and a trackball. The next positive aspect to it is the operating system’s embrace of today’s open culture. Because designing for the phone is so easy, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of great applications all vying for your attention. Besides that, replacing this operating system in my Magic has so far been a breeze and I hope other manufacturers support this. My only gripe with it is the rather simplistic task manager.

WebOS, on the other hand, I haven’t use yet. Although based on what I’ve heard about it, it too seems to be quite promising. For instance that live-card-based home screen is definitely an interesting concept, one which I would be quite interested in trying out. However the resource limitations of the Palm Pre means that we can only have a handful of application open and running at the same time. This would be fine if only I didn’t have a half-dozen applications running on a regular basis. Of course this is not a short-fall of the operating system but of the hardware, so it shouldn’t be judged quite so abruptly. While WebOS will support all of the advanced features, this OS is simply too immature to be able to tell where it will lead. For that we need to wait at least one or two more iterations of it.
In fact, not having a logo shows just how immature the operating system really is. Come on Palm, we want that logo!
 
 
 
 
Conclusion:
Besides iPhone OS not being a real operating system, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you hanging on this one. I guess you can think of each of the descriptions of the different operating systems and their own little conclusions, but besides that there really ain’t that much to say. Do feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them all.
My only word of advice: when you’re looking at which operating system to choose, ask yourself: are you looking at the OS itself and its features, or is the shell responsible for some behaviour/functionality? While this may not make that build of the operating system usable for you, it may prove that the OS itself is fine, and maybe only a new manufacturer is all that is required.

-Nokia FanBoy

So recently I decided to find myself a good Sense UI (HTC Hero’s version of Android) port for my Magic. The process was pretty straightforward and actually quite simple. I will have to post some of the steps and give my thanks to the appropriate developers, those guys really are amazing! I am using Fatal1ty’s Rogers ROM, v1.4.

I will say right away that the ported OS was a little bit more buggy than the original, so if you’re looking to get rid of those “Force Close” messages, this ain’t the way to do it. Also, it seems to be unable to work with WiFi, and I haven’t tested Bluetooth yet. So again, if those features are important to you, holding off for a bit might be a wise choice. Mind you there are a fair bit of improvements as well, and you’ll see those following.

Home Screen:

Well lets start with the main menu then. I’m sure you’ve seen renders of the screen, or screenshots using the SDK, however since I’m running Win 7 64bit all you get is photos, which should be a nice change .
The home screen is broken up into 7 screens, with the middle screen being the main one. Moving between the screens can be done by moving the current screen left or right, or by scrolling right or left (note that the directions for moving the screen and scrolling are reversed – don’t know why but they are). The screen position is identified by the white line marker just about the menu/phone tab at the bottom.
You start out with some basic configurations, and you have 6 “Scenes” to choose from: HTC, Social, Work, Play, Travel and Clean Slate. Each of the scenes has the 7 screens set up in its own way, with some emphasis on each of the parts. I decided to start with the HTC scene and customize it. Any customized scenes can be saved, and I’m not aware of any limitations.
The screen is populated with widgets, which HTC was nice enough to provide plenty of their own, such as music, weather, stocks, etc. I won’t go over all of them, but the following is basically an overview of the widgets that I use. Note that while HTC have done a wonderful job of making their own widgets, all originaly widgets still work flawlessly.
Starting with the home screen, when adding a widget you can usually choose which one you want to add. For example when adding the Clock widget there are some clocks which display times from different regions of the world. For some, the size also changes, such as in weather, you can add a small weather widget, or one that takes up the entire screen (see below).
Moving to the right, you will see the miscellaneous screen. Here I want to point out the GPS and Bluetooth toggles. You can also toggle Airplane mode, Mobile Network (2G/3G), and Wi-Fi. These toggles are in the HTC Widget menu, under Settings. They work quite well and I find myself using the GPS toggle quite often. Although I suppose what would be more useful is if I could state that program X can toggle Y when Z happens. That would prevent some programs from automatically enabling some settings, but at the same time would bypass some unnecessary steps.

The other widget you will see here is the People widget. I haven’t used it a heck of a lot, but I do imagine it would be useful for many people. The people that go into this widget are customizable, however it would be nice to see an automated, statistics-based method of adding people to the widget. For example, if I talk to some four people more than the rest, then add them to the list automatically.

Next up is the Music widget. To be honest I find the music application included here to be much more useful than the original one, but more on that later. The widget comes in two sizes, and here you will see the full screen one. The smaller one takes up half the screen, and allows the same functionality. Of course, selecting the widget brings up the music player.

The Weather widget is also quite nice. You can add multiple cities and move between them by flicking up or down on the big weather icon. The icons themselves move, and while I haven’t seen the “windshield wiper” from Windows Mobile 6.1 widget, I haven’t been through any rain either . Again, just like the music widget, this too can come in half-size and display the same information.

The Messaging widget is kind of neat in that it displays the latest message from each of the contacts. You can scroll between the contacts by flicking up or down on the message, same as the weather widget. The name of the contact, picture (if applicable), time, and message content are displayed, and you can delete the message right away (by clicking the trash can). You can also view all messages (by clicking the list button) or compose a new message (by clicking the pencil).

The Email widget is almost identical to the message widget except that it gives you more space for the email, and allows you to flag the email right away. As you can see, MS Exchange ActiveSync is fully supported, which goes for contacts and calendar as well.

There are many more widgets available, but I just haven’t had the time to look over all of them. I will, however, note that the Stocks widget seems to be very nice, and displays the stocks quite nicely. I’m sure someone out there has a screen capture of it

Screen Lock:
Although I do not have a screen shot of the new screen lock, I don’t think I like it quite as much the previous one. To unlock the screen you simply drag a tab down the screen. I find myself unlocking the screen without realizing it on a regular basis, since turning on the screen is as simple as pressing any button and then you just have to slide the tab down a tiny bit to unlock.

Music Player:
The music player is a nice improvement over the original one in Cupcake. The improvements are mainly: more touch-friendly interface, some nice UI additions, and a lock-screen addition.

When choosing between listing albums, artists, playlists, etc. you simply slide your finger over the horizontal tab bar (which I am covering with my finger currently ). You could actually click on the icons too, but this is so much more fun. This interface actually reminds me of the home screen slider on the HTC Touch Windows Mobile 6.1 build that I have – makes sense given that its the same company. Actually I’m kind of surprised they didn’t do the same thing on the home screen as this tends to be more efficient, but I guess they wanted a different look.

The artists list is very similar to what you would see on the original music player, except that HTC uses a white background and black lettering, which I find easier to read.

When viewing the playlist, or any list of songs, if the MP3 is embedded with album covers then those will be displayed on the icon on the left. The same goes for the list of albums.
The full list of tabs is: Albums, Artists, Playlists, Songs, Genres, Composers, and Purchased. I don’t really know about that last one, I guess it has to do with DRM, but I know that on my phone it says “No music found”.
Going back to the Now Playing screen for a moment, you will find two icons on the top: left – shuffle on/off toggle, and right – repeat toggle.
The nicest addition to Android, one that I, ironically, did not get a pictures of, is the music controls on the lock screen. When you start playing a song in the HTC Music Player and then lock the screen, the lock screen will show the album icon, as well as previous, pause/play, and next controls. Also, where before the volume controls worked at any time, now the rocker is only active when the screen is on (whether in lock mode or not).

Applications List:
The application list in Sense UI is mostly the same as in Android’s home screen, however here when you close the screen and open it again, you will find that the applications did not move to the top, but stayed in the same position as before. Also, to open this window is not a touch-and-slide motion as in the standard home screen, but a simply touch of the up arrow on the bottom left.

Flash in Browser:
Unfortunately, the flash that comes with the browser does not work all that well. I am not sure what the issue is, however streaming videos seem to not want to play. This really isn’t too much of an issue for me as I don’t really use YouTube all that much, more often relying on SMS or games to keep me entertained. However, I must say, websites in general display very well, I was quite pleasantly impressed. The only down side is that when I go to my online Rogers account, I am unable to download the PDF version of the bill.

Problems:
Since this is a developer build, and not an official HTC build, it is bound to come with some problems. For instance, where before the text messages would time-stamp exactly three hours ahead, now the time-stamp seems to change from 2 to 4 hours behind. Also, I have been having a lot of problems of people sending me text messages that I did not receive. Since SMS is my main mode of communication, this is a big deal for me and I will attempt to get Rogers Tech Support to resolve this issue for me. Also, WiFi (and I think Bluetooth) don’t work. This isn’t too terrible, however I am quite upset that I cannot control VLC with my phone; I was really hoping to play with that application.

Conclusion:
All in all, its an improvement, hands down. I am very impressed with the work the developer community performed with this build and my hat goes off to all of them. While the rom does have a number of flaws, they are counteracted by the improvements brought forth over the old versions. Some flaws are big enough to force people off of this build, however the improvements for others will make this a no-brainer. I will try to get the SMS problem fixed for mine, but will be on the look-out for a new version that will hopefully fix these problems if Rogers Tech Support can’t.

UPDATE:

Battery:
I must apologize that I completely forgot to include the most important improvement of all: the battery life. This one caught me by surprise the most as I did not expect this at all. Not only that, but it doesn’t even fit in with the specs for the Magic and Hero, as the battery improvements in Hero are marginal at best. But after installing this ROM my phone lasts some 20% longer. Granted, maybe half of that is attributed to the mere excitement of a battery life increase, but even 10% improvement is quite large.

Multi-touch Input:
Finally, the added multi-touch support for browser and gallery. This isn’t a major improvement, but it is a proof-of-concept and I think the most that will be taken away by this is that we can now expect 3rd party games and application to provide us with amazing and breathtaking applications for this. As for the browser and gallery, its a nice touch, but I would have rather seen it for Google Maps.

Hope everyone found this helpful, and drop any comments/questions you may have about this.

-Nokia FanBoy

My favourite website to go for reviews just got their hands on the HTC Magic and have posted a full-blown review. The main reason why I like going to the website is because they tend to provide, while slightly biased, very detailed reviews, including extra’s like 360-degree spin, high resolution photos, screen captures, and my favourite – the audio signal quality chart. They also provide highly detailed specs of every GSM phone there is out there, and allow for searching and comparing of phones. They also provide phone ratings, and even links to sellers.

Actually it was the audio signal chart that I wanted to look at most. GSMArena calls it Tolerable, and its exactly what I expected after using it to listen to music – virtually no lows, and good mid to high range, maybe dropping off a little early on the highs. Comparing to the iPhone 3GS, the numbers look quite poor, however when I’m listening to it in my head phones, most songs really are tolerable. I’m sure that those with lower expectation of audio quality would even be pleased with it.

I’m using Ultimate Ears: SuperFi 3 Studio, and sorry if it seems a little like a sales pitch, but the head phones really do sound amazing, especially when you get them for $34.99!

That said, the overall review takes a generally positive light of the phone, probably a little more positive than mine, and compares the phone to the iPhone 3GS, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and HTC Touch Diamond2. If you’re serious about getting the phone, have a read through the review, its good fun if nothing else.

GSMArena: HTC Magic review: Practical magic

-Nokia FanBoy

One of my readers, atul recently asked me question on upgrading their phone:

…planning to move from Nokia E71 (my 4th eseries phone) and have always used a Nokia since ‘92. Do u think it would be sane to move to HTC Magic or should I wait for E72?

This isn’t exactly a question that can be answered with a couple lines, but I liked the question enough that I decided to actually write a post about this.

Choosing between the E72 and the Magic there are a number of factors you have to consider, first and foremost that the two devices are in a completely different class altogether. The Nokia E72 is an Enterprise-class devices. What this means is that the design of the phone, operating system, and software was all done with the requirements of the business world in mind. That also means that the manufacturing process didn’t compromise on quality, however may not have put too much thought into the physical appearance of the phone (granted, the E71 is the first exception to the latter).
On the other hand, the HTC Magic is a somewhat more mainstream phone. Thus the physical appearance was more important than quality (mine scratched in a matter of days and slightly creaks on the sides).

Another part of construction you have to look at is the input method. If you write a lot of emails, the Magic, or any touchscreen phone, is not for you. At the very least not until they have displays that can morph to have actual physical buttons raise up and provide proper feedback. Of course even then, taking up important screen real-estate for a keyboard will never be as good as having a separate screen actual physical keyboard.

Taking a look at the operating system is also important. Symbian is over a decade old and in that has become extremely stable, even if a little outdated. Android, on the other hand, seems to crash applications on a regular basis (3-5 app crashes per day). At the very least, however, when an application crashes Android and other applications continue running. You also have to keep in mind that there’s a fairly large learning curve going from OS to OS, especially when switching from hardware keys to a touch-centric UI (trust me on this one).
Also don’t forget to consider the applications that you are using on your phone now. Going from E71 to E72 you’re pretty much guaranteed that all of the applications will work. Going to the Magic, however, you will need to find equivalents in the Android Market or the online community, and that can take a large amount of time.

Finally, the features of the phone itself are important. The main one, for me at least, is the battery life. The HTC Magic is severely handicapped by its battery, whereas the E71, and likely the E72 as well, is not.

So what does all that mean for you, my dear friend?
Well just think about what you’re doing with your phone now, and what you will be able to do with your future hone. If you’ve gotten used to the E-Series quality then I’m afraid the Magic, and other mainstream phones for that matter, may be disappointing to you. If you’re connected to a MS Exchange Server then I must tell you that Symbian is integrated much more tightly with it. Also, Symbian has Nokia, Garmin and TomTom mobile GPS applications whereas Android is stuck with just Google maps.
So think about whats important to you, and which phone can better support your requirements. Also, take a look at my post on Nokia E71 vs. E72 (Nokia E72 – worthwhile upgrade?), maybe an upgrade isn’t even really required.
Lastly, consider other phones, such as the Nokia N97, or even other operating systems, such as Windows Mobile.

If you have any more questions just drop me a line and I’ll try to help as much as I can.

-Nokia FanBoy

Hi Everyone!

Sorry took me so long to post again about my experiences with the new phone, however I was away on a vacation trip and unable to take the time to write the review. On the bright side, this gave me lots of time to play with the phone, especially considering most of my time was spent in transit!

I will not be going over many details of the phone, just some key aspects that stand out to me.

Battery:
Ok, I know that everyone will say that battery life has to be taken with consideration for usage, but I’m comparing the battery life to my old Nokia N95 8GB, and I’m disappointed! I mean I wasn’t using the media player, since I didn’t have a headphone adapter, I wasn’t using GPS since I don’t have a turn-by-turn system installed, but then why is it that the battery lasted so much less?!

I understand some aspects of why the battery was low. For example, the bigger screen with the brightness set to 100% does eat up a lot juice. Since the screen is twice the resolution of the N95 8GB it makes sense that it would consume more power rendering the graphics. The fact that the input is primarily via the touchscreen it probably consumes more power than buttons. And of course the faster processor would consume more power. But what about the fact that N95 8GB has a 16M color display, dual CPU’s, and a hardware 3D accelerator? That takes up juice too!

But personally, I think that the main drain on the battery is inefficient code. Just looking at how much my battery life increased when I upgraded my N95 8GB firmware (from v11 to v20) tells me that a large portion of battery consumption is inefficient code.

Screen:
Maybe I’m just spoiled by Nokia’s 16M color displays, but 65K just doesn’t seem to be enough. I mean sure, its color, I can’t see that its only 65K colors, but when I look at a picture on that screen and on my computer its clear as night and day!

On the upside, the higher resolution is nice, and the bigger screen itself is very attractive!

Audio:
It would be unfair to judge the audio capabilities of this device solely on its core audio player performance. To be fair, the Magic does not seem to be placed as a media device, as can be seen by the lack of 3.5mm jack, however I found the sound quality to be decent, at best. The biggest issue is, of course, bass. For someone listening to classical music with little bass instruments, this would be fine, however I like Jazz, Rock, a bit of Pop, and of course, at times, Classical. And the sound quality just wasn’t high enough for me.

What is an issue, however, is a lack of equalizer presets, which do not seem to be included with third party media players. This tells me that media players are only a front-end interface for the same back-end sound “producer”. In lament’s terms: don’t expect third party media players to improve sound quality.

Now, the really bright side to this is the innovative media players available for Android!

TuneWiki automatically downloads lyrics to your songs and displays them together with the song… Synced!!! Of course not all songs are available in their database, and sometimes the words are slightly mismatched, but this is just such a cool feature that I don’t care!

MixZing, on the other hand, suggests songs based on which song you play and what songs you have in your library. When you play a song it automatically creates a playlist for that song and throws in 20 suggested songs, which you can add or delete via a kind of impromptu rating system. The benefit is that the playlists created by MixZing are available from other media players on the device.

*** I was out of town for the last couple days, but now, as promised: ***

Camera:
After being spoiled by my Nokia N95 8GB’s camera, this camera is really quite upsetting. Before I got the N95 I was debating buying a high-end P&S camera, but decided against it after seeing the quality of the photos of the N95. Unfortunately, however understandably, this is not the case for this phone. After all, this is not a super high-end phone, like the N95 8GB was made to be, nor is this a camera centric phone, but it still would have been nice to see a decent camera.

One thing that I would like to see in the future is a better camera interface design. While it is nice to be able to see the entire picture without having to look past icons on the screen, those icons can be very useful. Especially if you know what you’re doing you can greatly improve the quality of the photo, or add an artistic flair to it.

Reception:
I was very surprised by the quality of the reception of this phone, this time comparing it to an old model by HTC: the original Touch (also from Rogers). One would think that a phone’s reception would improve as the manufacturer goes through generations of very similarly featured phones. Well I wasn’t sure what to think of the results…

Driving around the gorgeous Rockies poses a big problem for reception, however a perfect testing ground for comparing the sensitivity of the signal. This would show how well the signal strength will work in places like underground garages, elevators, etc. My expectation was to see a clear winner – either the Touch or the Magic, however that was not the case. As we were driving around sometimes the Touch would have 4 bars signal strength while the Magic had no reception, and sometimes it would be the opposite. Overall I believe the Touch, sadly, won out. But there could be a number of reasons for that, ranging from 3G nature of the Magic and EDGE nature of the Touch, it could be one was more sensitive on some frequencies while the other on others (the Magic did catch the signal sooner when we were entering a 3G area vs. EDGE area).

However, in the city, both phones performed equally well. While the Magic did generally show a weaker signal, neither phone had an issue connecting and keeping a call.

Telephony:
Ironically, this is the one part of my review I am not ready to talk about. Since my main mode of communication is via SMS, I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly review this part of the phone. I did, however, notice some issues of having the audio cut out every now and again, and talking last night the other person complained that the audio was cutting out on their end also. As there are a large number of reasons for this I cannot say if it is an issue yet, and will have to do more talking first.

*** Again, I will add more as I have more time ***

-Nokia FanBoy

Why is it that every time I get a phone it becomes outdated in less than a month? :’(
I got my E60, the E51 comes out a month later; I got my N95 8GB, and the N96 comes out! (although I prefer the N95 8GB to the N96 if you ask me); and now the Magic, and the Hero gets announced. It just never ends.

However, with the Hero, just as with the N96, I’m just not sure whether I would actually want to upgrade. I mean the specs are better:

• Multi-touch support
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Extra 96MB of RAM
• 5MP camera, but still no flash
• That fancy Sense UI
• Flash browser support out of the box

I mean don’t get me wrong, I would love to have all of those things on my Magic, but I would love to have them on the Magic! I don’t like that G1/Dream-style design, I like the curves of the magic, the way the trackball sits a little set into the face of it, like on the BB Pearl. At the same time, the Hero is heavier and thicker, and doesn’t even add a bigger screen or bigger battery to compensate!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that while the specs are nice, I would rather stick with my Magic, wait for someone to port Sense UI with the borwser support, and then load it onto the Magic. There would have to be a very lucrative proposition for me to consider upgrading to the Hero.

Read:
Engadget: HTC Hero hands-on
Engadget: HTC Hero … Leaks from HTC
GSM Arena: HTC Hero vs. Magic

-Nokia FanBoy