About Me

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I’m the quintessential free spirit living everyday to the fullest.Born at a time which qualifies me as a Cusp between a Gemini and Cancer,I show strong traits of both.Completely ruled by the moon,my mood swings are slapdash and worse than a woman having her periods.All said and done,considering it is only a mind-game,I’m quite sure I will be hitting a Menopause soon.I am an extremely feisty and a hyperactive individual full of Joie de vivre.I have many a blonde moment that invariably results in a Comedy of Errors and I never miss out on an opportunity to laugh; as Michael Pritchard puts it “You don't stop laughing because you grow old.You grow old because you stop laughing”.My passions are Speed,Challenge and Adventure of any sort and often, don’t hesitate taking a Road less traveled.I’m a bit of a Social Butterfly with a decent sense of humor and a heart of gold that almost always tends to rule over my brains.I do not care much about criticism and strongly believe in “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

Monday, January 26, 2009

The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music: Going the Touch Way!!!


I bought this phone only last Friday and I can’t stop bragging about it; so much so that I decided to bring out this Blog!!! This phone has been literally screaming “Zara, Zara Touch Me, Touch Me, Touch Me………..Zara, Zara Hold Me, Hold Me, Hold Me” ever since the unpacking. Frankly speaking, it has been about 4 years now since I bought my first phone, a Sony Ericsson w700i Walkman Class Phone. In the years gone by, I noticed several brands made their way into the market trying to capture the fancy of the new generation by promising them limitless capabilities. I for one have always been of the opinion that if a phone had to offer much more than being just a phone, it better have packed in more than just a teeny-weeny 2” display and the regular 3G/GPRS/EDGE capabilities. Of the many N-Series Phones released by Nokia, not a single one even came remotely close to my liking. You may call me a fool for having such an opinion about phones the whole world is going gaga about but it is the truth. It’s like asking an Architect to work with a Single Monitor sized 14 inches and come out with a Master plan for constructing “The Burj Dubai”!!! It just doesn’t make for an enterprising and productive solution.

I still remember the advertisement when Nokia brought out their flagship N-Series phone called the N-95 weighing in at over 120g boasting of a 5MP Camera, Dual slide, Internet + Multimedia capabilities and a tagline as “Is this what computers have become?!?!?” They certainly had not until Apple came out with the iPhone back in 2007. Steve Jobs in his speech during the Product Launch said something on the lines of “Instead of redesigning another operating system for the phone, we thought we will go with something the world has come to enjoy, appreciate and like so much. So, we decided to put the Mac OS X in there…… " and the crowd had gone into an absolute frenzy clapping and whistling away just like little kids who had witnessed the Miracle of their Lives!!! That coupled with the patented Multi-Touch interface truly was a technological advancement. For a long time I had my eyes fixated on this mobile, dreamed about owning this phone and playing around with its every single innovation.

The technology, the features, the brand name, the innovation and all the other good things apart there is and there always will be something way above all this called Money [Of which I don’t have lots by the way] and which is a very important criteria people think of before buying something and which companies IMHO should consider before they bring out their product pricing. I had to hold back my decision to upgrade to either the iPhone or any of the many touch phones only because of the manner in which they were priced……..Exorbitant!!! When the world was reeling in complete mayhem because of all the recession and the worst economic crisis since “The Great Depression” who better than Nokia could we have expected to bring out a killer of a phone? Yes people the 5800 is here and I’m here to tell you why I chose this over the Zillion other phones that have flooded the market today.




Pricing
:-
I bought the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music for a paltry 19 Grand. Going by the features it has on offer, they could so easily have priced it @ about 30 Grand and people still would have found this irresistible. All the other Phones in its league like the Samsung Omnia, HTC Touch HD, Apple iPhone 3G and the Sony Xperia are priced in the range of 30-40 grand.

Platform :- The Symbian OS that Nokia has come to use in the past years has undergone loads of development and being an open source OS, you could expect the world in terms of the free add-on applications that would enhance your experience with Smart Phones. After all, they are Smart because they can do loads of stuff. Imagine having to shell out money to procure a license for every small app that you have always wanted on your Phone! This apart, the World has come to know how the Windows Operating System for PCs that is also incidentally incorporated into HTC Touch Phones has come to work. Although intuitive, it has its fair share of problems such as freezing up every now and then and crashing occasionally with BSODs. And, honestly, haven’t we had enough of seeing Windows on PCs that we wanna see them on Cell-Phones again??? The Mac OS X on the other hand really takes the cake, I must say, in every aspect there is; beats the Symbian also in more ways than one but all this does not offset the expensive nature of this OS.

Design: - This plays a very important role for any gadget to be easily accepted by people the world over. A phone cannot be too bulky, should be easy to work with even if held in only one hand and cannot have too many moving mechanical parts as they have a tendency to fail over a period of time. A friend of mine told me about this incident when his friend, who apparently owned a Slide Phone, pressed a button to get the Mic to slide so he may answer the call when the entire bottom section fell off just like how a Lizard would lose its tail when attacked!!! I have always been a big fan of the Candy-Bar Design for Phones as mechanical moving parts are used sparingly. Nokia has taken care of all this on the 5800 and has still managed to come out with a model that feels solid yet light and robust yet being non-metallic. The build and design of the iPhone on the other hand is also fantastic but the only qualm about the iPhone is that it is quite wide so you would have to necessarily use both hands at all times and I seriously wonder if it would fit in the front pocket of a tight jean!!!

Features, Tips n Tricks I love about the Phone: -

(i) It has an accelerometer inside which helps shuffle the display between Landscape and Portrait Modes almost instantly by the mere tilting of the phone. That’s not the kewl part though. Imagine you receive a call when you are in the midst of a solemn occasion and your Cell-phone has a blaring sound for a Ringtone. Relax U don’t have to fret looking for keys to either send a busy tone/ answer the call; simply invert the phone to silence it and then think of what you are going to do with that call @ leisure. No one will ever know!!!

(ii) It’s got Wi-Fi 802.11 g. So, if you are close to a Wireless Access Point you are connected to the World Wide Web. The kewl part, however, is that the Web Browser that it has built into it is almost like the one you have on your PC. It is that good ……..offering various levels of zoom including a Full Screen mode on that 3.2 “display. Applications like Google Maps, Gmail, GPS Navigation and many more really come alive, look great and are not a big strain on the eyes.

(iii) If you ever missed your T-9 Dictionary keypad when you upgraded to a phone with a QWERTY Keyboard then this should certainly put a big smile to your face. The 5800 has not just 1 or 2 but 4 modes of texting. You could go with a Full Screen QWERTY in Landscape Mode or a Mini QWERTY in Portrait Mode. If you are one of those aficionados of the T-9 Keypad then you could choose that in the Portrait Mode again. And, last but not the least, you even have Handwriting recognition. This one is like saying ”What You Write Is What You Get!!!”




(iv) Coming to the Multimedia Capabilities, you couldn’t have asked for more. Look and browse Wallpapers and Videos just as you would on a normal PC. The screen is lavish and offers you 16:9 aspect ratio, 16 million colors and a 640x360-pixel resolution to gawk at. And, that’s not all…… you even get a mini stand on which you can place your phone, sit back and relax enjoying the preloaded content that has about 280 songs and some videos. If that’s not enough you can even download personal content and store it on the whopping 8GB that comes with this baby!!!

(v) The Home Screen can be your Virtual Playground. You can either have a plain/Basic Screen showing just the Date/Time and Connection related settings or you could have a Shortcut Bar to the 4 most used applications. You could also have 4 of your favourite contacts showing up on the Home Screen. All forms of communication with them including SMS, Calls and their RSS Feeds can be accessed in a single touch.

(vi) It comes with a host of accessories which include a spare Stylus, so if you lost the one that came with the phone originally, you still have another one that you can use. A tag with a Guitar plectrum in colors that compliment your phone and which, again, you can use on the Touch Screen. A Hands-free Set with a pair of ear-phones that sound beautiful to the ear.

(vii) The ability to install Applications comes as the icing on the cake. I have installed two free applications that Nokia had to offer on their Website called Wave Secure and SMS Timer. Wave Secure is a boon to countries in Asia where the theft rate is insanely high. This little application can lock down your phone remotely, wipe out data and notify once a new SIM is used on your lost phone. SMS Timer is an application to time the sending of your SMSes. You could compose the message now, but, choose to send it at a later time; a Handy utility for those who are committed and in a relationship. As of now, not many Apps are available for users to download and install as the Symbian S60 5th edition Software is relatively new and we obviously have to give Developers their fair share of time to come out with great user friendly apps. But, know for a fact that the endless possibilities have only begun.
Remember Touch is the way to go. The faster you get to doing this, the more pleasurable your experience will be!!! Are you TUBE(d) yet???