Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

During my readings today I stumbled across Engadget’s review of PowerGenix NiZn batteries. From a glimpse at the numbers in the review it looked like the batteries the batteries were a much needed improvement in the space of mobile gadgetry:

• 1.6V nominal Voltage
• 30%-50% longer usage on a single charge
• Better able to produce high current

While the review doesn’t specify, I’m guessing that Engadget was comparing the PowerGenix NiZn AA cells (known) to Energizer’s ‘Ultimate Lithium’ AA cells (unknown), in a Speedlight SB-600 hot-shoe flash (known). Anyone having used hot-shoe flashes knows just how demanding they are of batteries, and how quickly they can chew through them, so the test is good.

What surprised me is that they did not post the mAh rating of those batteries. Indeed, even after poking around PowerGenix’ website I could only find a mWh rating of 2500 mWh for a AA cell. Of course, wanting to compare to some of the high capacity NiMH batteries that rating was useless so I found a conversion:

mWhrs = mAhrs * Votlage * hrs (originating from P = I * V)
moving some of the variables around we get:
mAhrs = mWhrs / Voltage (since hrs = 1)
so:
mAhrs = 2500 mWhrs / 1.6V
mAhrs = 1560 mAhrs

That means that these batteries have almost half the capacity of NiMH (high cap NiMH ~3000 mAhrs). Now at first I found this quite confusing since 1500 mAhrs would not be enough to charge the flash 300-400 times. And then I realised that I’m in fact basing my comparison on a worst-case scenario for the batteries. First of all, NiMH batteries are afraid of fast discharge scenarios, and a hot-shoe flash is definitely a fast discharge, second of all, the hot shoe flash works much better with the higher voltage batteries (NiZn 1.6V vs. NiMH 1.2V). In fact, that assumption is built into the review as well, and I believe a different review would be required for longevity in low-current, low-power devices, perhaps a wireless mouse or keyboard.

So my conclusion is actually similar to Engadget’s: if you’re using the batteries in a high-power, high-current device such as a hot-shoe flash, then these batteries are for you. The otherwise, however, is unknown. While I would expect the NiZn to lose out in a low-demand scenario, such as a wireless keyboard, I just don’t know how well those batteries keep their charge. Case in point: my keyboard lasts months on four AA Eneloop cells, and at those time frames its the self-discharge rate that comes into play, not necessarily the capacity.

I guess every battery has its purpose, and this is a rechargeable battery that has long been missing from the options list.

-Nokia FanBoy

read:
PowerGenix
Engadget Review

[caption id="attachment_862" align="alignright" width="164" caption="BlackBerry Curve 8520"][/caption]I was taking a stroll through the mall with some friends over the weekend and I happened across a Rogers booth with some dummies displayed. And me and my friend started talking about the build quality of the two phones.

Immediately after picking up the BB Curve 8520 I felt like I was holding a cheap plastic toy. Sure it was lighter than the E71, but the cheap plastic made me want to turn away from it right away. Then having picked up the Nokia I felt like I was holding a real phone: there was no hesitation as to how long the phone would last, no confusion on the price range of it, it just felt like a solid piece of equipment that could take abuse.

My friend, on the other hand, had another idea. She felt that the lighter phone would benefit her more due to the reduced weight, and complained about the E71 as being “too heavy”. Of course this is also the girl that is regretting having picked a “pink Telus phone” as it is falling apart on her and generally not working as she would like it to.

Of course I understand that I was only holding dummies, and not the real phone. I would be the first to commend BlackBerry on their construction and durability (after all, my 8100 Pearl is still going strong after 3 years of constant use), however I believe that today’s feature phones should be constructed out of metal for its durability, and general appeal. But that’s just my two cents.

-Nokia FanBoy

Well here’s a video worth watching. Some Italian blog took 6 of the best devices of the year (except that Nokia seems to missing… grr…) and compared their displays under indoor, outdoor, and pitch black conditions. The iPhone does win out in outdoor legibility, and is very close to the top indoors, but when the lights go out, so does the impressiveness of the iPhone screen. I was, unsurprisingly, impressed with Samsung’s i8910 Omnia HD and i8000 Omnia II devices. They were at the very top indoors, and while they were a fair bit worse than the iPhone outdoors, they both fared very well. Nor did they disappoint in pitch black conditions, beating pretty much all of the others there.

Really, the clear winner of the whole comparison was the AMOLED technology. During any conditions it outperformed its LCD/TFT rival, displaying bright, more vivid colors, and giving excellent sunlight legibility. It would, however, be quite interesting how it fares against the Nokia N97, which I think is a big let down on the part of the blog, since Nokia’s are very well known for their excellent displays.

In the Apple iPhone vs. Samsung i8910 Omnia HD comparison photo you can also see how much of a difference a higher resolution plays on the display of the screen – 165 dpi vs 199 dpi, respectively. I first noticed this with my Nokia E60, where the pixel density was 260 dpi; images looked fantastic, text was easy to read, and best of all, I didn’t see any pixelation, it was like looking a high quality printout. I’m not sure if this effect is clearly visibly in the video, however the picture shows it quite clearly.

Another, although smaller, winner is the 16M color spectrum when compared to 65K color. You did notice the deficiency of the 65K color spectrum in color reproduction, however it was bearable, and I’m sure wouldn’t strongly impact most users. Surprisingly, this even affected the sunlight legibility, with the i8910 Omnia HD, for example, outperforming the i8000 Omnia II, even if just barely.

Personally, I felt that it was pairs of phones going up against each other:

• My personal battle of Symbian vs. iPhone: Samsung i8910 Omnia HD vs. Apple iPhone 3G S
• Windows Mobile devices: HTC Touch Pro2 vs. Samsung i8000 Omnia II
• Android devices: Samsung i7500 vs. HTC Hero

Of course you notice that the last two are also an HTC vs. Samsung battle, which Samsung does seem to win out using AMOLED and 16M color screens.

Well watch the video and tell me what you think. note: view in full screen to see in HD

-Nokia FanBoy

via: GSMArena (read)