As I said in my X6 review, I thought I would test out the Camera on the X6 and compare this to the N900 (as it’s the only other phone I have right now).
You can see below how they compare:
As you can see the Nokia X6 seems to actually be better in pictures 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 where the images are a lot more clear, vivid and colours match to how they look in real life. I think image 5 is a bit of a tie, both seem to have come out very similar and the N900 is better in images 3 and 7.
I’m a bit disappointed in the N900 now but I suppose Nokia where not concentrating on the camera when they made it, but on the other hand I have to give Nokia credit on the X6, I think it is one of the best all round Nokia smartphones right now…if only they made one with this + the N97’s qwerty, they would have a truly great phone!
The Nokia N900 is a mobile Internet device and smartphone, from Nokia based on the Maemo platform, superseding the N810. It runs Maemo 5 Linux as its default operating system and is the first Nokia device based upon the TI OMAP3 microprocessor with the ARM Cortex-A8 core. Unlike the Internet Tablets preceding it, the Nokia N900 is the first Maemo device to include phone functionality (quad-band GSM and 3G UMTS). It functions as a 5 mega pixel camera, a portable media player, and a mobile Internet device with email and full web browsing. It was launched at Nokia World on 2 September 2009 and was released on 11 November 2009 in the United States and 9 European countries.
The N900 was launched alongside Maemo 5, giving the device an overall more touch-friendly interface than its predecessors and a customizable home screen which mixes application icons with shortcuts and widgets. Maemo 5 supports Adobe Flash Player 9.4, and includes many applications designed specifically for the mobile platform such as a new touch-friendly media player.
My plans is to get it next month most probably (Depending on financial status), and really looking forward to own it because had the chance to put my hands on it
it is really a big date for me! i have launched a “Hello World” J2ME program into my “POOR” Nokia 1681c phone.
this type of Nokia phone is based on “S40″ Operating System which is created by Nokia itself.
Here is a simple 1681c specification(full,1680 classic):
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Nokia 1681c specifications & functions:
Dimensions : 107.59X45.99X16.09mm.
Weight : 73.7g.
Volume : 66.55cc.
GSM Dualband (1800/1900MHz).
GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) Class 10.
2.0 WAP browser.
Support Java platform.
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service).
Nokia S40 v6.2 User Interface.
128X160 pixels 65536 colours CSTN LCD display screen.
Internal antenna.
Speakerphone.
Call vibration.
Voice recording function.
24 bit MP3/MIDI polyphonic ring tone.
Text input predictive software.
STK (Sim Tool Kit).
USB client.
Downloadable applications, games, pictures, animations and ring tones.
Store up to 1000 contact persons in phonebook.
32MB internal memory.
Alarm clock, calendar, calculator, memo, dictionary, Email, PC sync, wallpaper and games.
Up to 420 hours of standby time.
Up to 7.5 hours of talk time.
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According to the specification above, i have tried to find more relevant information about S40 platform in Nokia official forum, where Nokia has given a overview about S40 platform and how to develop on S40 platform.
As i do not have much experience on J2ME programming, it is quite difficult for me to find the right way to set up a Hello World program on the Nokia S40 SDK. Now i will write my experience down carefully.
1. Prepare Tools
As Nokia has recommended several tools needed on developement, It includes:
(a) Nokia S40 SDKs
“The Series 40 platform SDKs provide full emulation of the MIDP implementation delivered on Series 40 devices. The emulators also provide features such as KVM speed emulation, a comprehensive diagnostics window, simulation of key phone events (such as an incoming call), and the ability to override a device’s default behaviour.” from Nokia offical forum.
S40 SDKs download here
it should be pointed out that Nokia S40 SDKs have a lot of different versions.
i have chosen “Series_40_5th_Edition_SDK_FP1_Lite_v0_9_en.zip” as my SDK. You could change it yourself through this link. This is a good advice on how to choose a appropriate version of SDKs for your Nokia phone.
(b) IDE
Nokia provides support for the popular NetBeans and Eclipse open source IDEs. i have chosen Eclipse as my IDE.
In addition, installing “EclipseME” provides a set of tools for creating, testing, and packaging MIDlets for Nokia devices.
Eclipse download here
EclipseMe download here
For a simple “Hello World” program, tools shown above are enough.
2. Configuration
it takes me much time on how to configure the J2ME Project in the Eclipse. Then, i found a help documentation related with this subject. it is a documentation of S40 SDK named “SDK help”.
With “Building and running the examples using Eclipse” (C:/Nokia/Devices/S40_5th_Edition_SDK_Feature_Pack_1_Lite/examples/doc-files/BuildingEclipse.html),
i begin to realize the right configuration.
(a) setup EclipseMe into Eclipse
Here, we use the way named “Installing Via A Downloaded Archive Site” to install EclipseMe.
Detailed Information is listed here.
(b) create a J2ME Midlet Suite project
When “Choose the initial properties for the Midlet Suite.”, you click the botton “Manage Device…”.
Then “import device” in the directory (C:\Nokia\Devices\S40_5th_Edition_SDK_Feature_Pack_1_Lite).
At this time, you should remember carefully — Clicking the button “Refresh”. After that, all information on the device will be automatically imported.
You could reference on this page, although it is for S60 platform. The only difference is focus on the different type of devices.
3. Create, Build and Run “Hello World” program
paste “Hello World” program into “HelloWorldMidlet.java” file. Then build the project and run “Hello World” program. Then the console window will show some information for the emulation, which automatically load the SDK emulator to run this program. In the end, we will see “Hello World” shown in the phone emulator.
That’s great!
Before i started to create “Hello World” project, i have experienced on how to run examples in the Eclipse.
it should be mentioned that if you wanna debug with the emulator, you should “Open Run Dialog” and choose “Wireless Toolkit Emulator” and create a new configuration with the appropriate deivces launched.
Finally, i have fetched the two binary programs named “Hello.jad” and “Hello.jar” from “deployed” directory, and put them to my private web server. Then i use my Nokia 1681c downloaded them by GPRS and install it in my phone. After launching this program, “Hello World” Window is shown successfully on my phone.
New surprise comes from Nokia; one can call it a good news story about Nokia services strategy. According to Reuters the Finnish handset giant now has 86 million users for its mobile internet services, beating its own set target of 80 million users. This is considered only a small silver lining to a bigger cloud as the company is said to count every customer who was used a service just once over the last six month as active user and as estimated Nokia got 1.1 billion Nokia users worldwide today so this is a far cry from the critical mass. One more thing is that the company had still not confirmed the information it self. As known well that Nokia has big ambitions for Ovi and rest of its internet services division and by 2011 it aim to have more then 300 million users and make an estimated $2.89 billion revenues. Also there been some rumors and suggestion from its executives that Nokia might sell of its handset division and focus on services entirely.
In December alone Nokia said that it was getting about one million download per day and was ready to relaunch its store but so far the numbers have not added up. Its well known N-Gage and photo sharing site have been shut up so that all the focus be given to Ovi.
The Nokia E-lineup consists of Nokia E66, Nokia E63, Nokia E75, Nokia E52, Nokia E72 etc to name few. These handsets are exclusively invented for Executive class of people and feature amazing function for performing day to day activities of official tasks. Most of E-line up phones possess QWERTY keyboard for fast data input while sending E-mails, SMS and Instant messages. The E-series phones are integrated with good quality applications for fast data access EDGE, GPRS, HSUPA and HSDPA, which allow one to access the Internet at much faster speed. Few of them have five way scroll key and an Optical track pad. The E-series Nokia mobile phones offer good amount of storage area with MicroSD card slot which allows upto 16 GB of storage space. The music and video players are also of advanced quality, compatible with many audio and video file formats. However few of these handsets lack N-gage games. These phones come with excellent roaming configuration which lets them work perfectly while the user is on trip abroad. The GPS navigator also allows one to access the Nokia Maps while moving to unknown locations.
Nokia 5530, Nokia 5330, Nokia 5630, Nokia 5130, Nokia 5320, Nokia 5220 form the Nokia Xpress Music line up. These handsets are integrated with fabulous music a function which is why these phones are appreciated by music lovers across the globe. These phones consist of advance music and video player which can play many songs and video formats with ease. Xpress Music phones are smart speaker phones which have dedicated music keys.
Nokia is quite possibly one of the biggest success stories of the mobile phone boom. What started off as a relatively small company dabbling in bits and pieces, ranging from paper to rubber to electronic products is now a massive brand known purely, if not exclusively for its mobile phones.
Many people misinterpret Nokia’s success as simply being there at the right time, but that is a gross insult to the near flawless goings on of the company. Back when mobile phones first came out they were not only clunky but very unuser-friendly and certainly not marketed to the common person. Very slowly mobile phone manufacturers started noticing that it wasn’t just so called businessmen who wanted mobile communication, but everyone did. Nokia had been since the 1980’s developing commercial mobile telephones and in the early 90’s had developed the GSM standard, the standard all of us in the UK and Europe use to make calls.
Despite being the leader in the development of the mobile network technology Nokia never took their eye off the consumers. Often, a company that is the leader in the development of technology takes the arrogant approach of seeing the common man as someone unworthy of attention. Take IBM for example.
Nokia were the first mobile phone manufacturer to successfully make good quality mobile handsets with a mind on ensuring a clear and user friendly user interface. That is the reason for their initial success. The reason for their continuing success was because again they never took their eye off the ball, the everyday consumer. Products were developed with the consumer in mind, whilst other manufacturers were taking the arrogant approach of if they want it than they’ll buy it. Nokia wanted to know what people wanted, why they wanted it, how they wanted it, when they wanted it. Not only innovators in the technology behind mobile phones and the mobile phone network system but innovators in their approach to consumers.
Not only was innovation and consumer focus was at the forefront of Nokia’s strategy but also the development of the brand. The only mobile phone company to have a branded and copyrighted ringtone on all their handsets, people knew when they heard that ringtone, that person was using a Nokia, regardless of whether they could see the handset. A simple, yet immensely effective tool for raising brand awareness.
Many companies stay away from having taglines or mottos, after all it’s a dead moot situation if you develop a tagline that people just don’t identify with. Not Nokia though. As a result of their marketing pitches at the start of their mobile phone development they identified one goal, to connect people. Once they developed the GSM technology and the handsets for it, they certainly were connecting people. Personally, I can’t think of any other brand tagline that can outrank Nokia’s. Simple, relevant and self descriptive. To go with the motto ‘Connecting People’ they incorporated two hands touching in to their redesigned logo which you can see below.
This is their first logo which was designed in 1871 for the Nokia featuring a fish which leaves many people asking what on earth does fish have to do with what Nokia have ever done? Well, as you may know Nokia weren’t always the mobile phone company we know it as now. And no I’m not about to tell you that they were a fishing company! The name Nokia derived from the town where their first offices were based, yes, you guessed it, somewhere called Nokia in Finland! The fish is a reference to the river which was located nearby called Nokiavirta. At this point in time, the company Nokia were manufacturing paper.
Perhaps it’s the sentimental fool within me but I rather like this logo. Effervescently simple whilst incredibly identifiable as a brand logo. If this logo was used today in other industries I don’t think many people would be critical of its design, I can just imagine this logo for a camping equipment company.
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Next, Nokia moved in to manufacturing rubber which was to be their main business, but also moved in to the electronics and cable business. The fish logo however, wasn’t dropped until over 60 years later when this new logo was introduced in 1965. By this time, Nokia’s main focus was on the cable industry.
I really dislike this logo and to be honest I think it’s one of the worst I’ve seen from the 1960’s. It looks like a poor man’s mashup of Pepsi meets Nokia. Says nothing about the company and is so bland if you saw it you wouldn’t notice it. But hey, they were manufacturing rubber and cable, a personable brand logo wasn’t exactly vital for their success. No surprise though that this logo lasted just under a year
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Now, this is where I have a logo missing. I’m not the only one, but I seem to be the only one who acknowledges it existed. Most people when discussing the evolution of the Nokia logo will jump straight to the next one. The one before this logo was identical, however featured the text ‘MOBILE PHONES’. I do have a screenshot of it from a magazine advert where you can see the logo.
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The change here isn’t just the addition of colour, but the removal of ‘MOBILE PHONES’. By this time Nokia had either recognised or decided that they should or would be known for one thing and one thing only, mobile phones. The need to state what Nokia does was moot. The colour of the Nokia text is a light blue colour, soft yet clear. The reason for the colour blue isn’t immediately obvious, it’s a reference to their home country; Finland. Their flag features a cross of the colour blue. I’m sure if I remember correctly, but when Nokia first started colourising the text in their logo it featured a blue very close to the dark blue of the Finnish flag but over time changed to the lighter blue we see now.
The trident/fork icon used in the logo is a reference to mobile phone cells, the connection from your phone to the towers. The focus at this time on mobile handsets was reception, people were put off buying them because of a fear that there would simply be no reception for them to make phone calls. Nokia needed to remind people that not only were they capable of building handsets which didn’t suffer the “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW” syndrome of other phones but also that they were the ones behind the GSM technology. A job well done I think.
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Nokia then dropped the trident icon from their logo and stuck to just text, but not any old text, this time featuring their new found slogan “Connecting People” which I believed was coined by Ove Strandberg, one of the key players in Nokia’s success. The issue I have with this logo is that the two type fonts simply don’t go well together and the typeface for the ‘Connecting People’ text is bog standard Times New Roman. I’m not 100% as to how long this logo lasted but again, if geek memory serves me correct it was less than a year till it was redesigned to the logo we know today.
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This time Nokia hired a professional typographer to redesign the logo, Erik Spiekermann of Germany who is a pretty well known and well respected typography expert and designer. The “Connecting People” text is now complementary in design to the Nokia typeface. This is why you get professionals in!
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So is this the last of the Nokia logo rebrands? Will we see a completely new, more hip and trendy one? Well, my money is on a major rebranding within the next 5 years. Nokia has seen its sales stall over the past 5 years and I believe this is down to one thing and one thing only. The Apple iPhone.
Without getting in to a vicious diatribe about the iPhone I will instead criticise Nokia for obsessing over what the iPhone is and does. Nokia has been well known for it’s own unique designs and for leading the mobile phone world in innovation, not imitation. You know the ball they’ve been keeping their eye on? Well I think they’ve lost that focus and instead are obsessing over the iPhone.
I think their current logo is outdated and is in need of a change. It reminds me too much of the late 90’s and doesn’t inspire one to think of innovation, something they can’t assume people will associate with their brand any more.
With all the hypes about Nokia’s N900 smart-phone and Booklet 3G, I decided to check out their prices. After all, I develop using QT and I’m intrigued as to how easy it is to make applications for N900 using my existing skills (the netbook – I just want one that looks good and has some computing power).
Since Nokia originates from Europe, you would have thought that they would be cheaper in there. If not, given that the electronic market is pretty much global these days, you would expect pricing should be fairly similar across countries. But to my shock horror, here is what I found:
Using information given on Nokia’s own online stores in countries selling both the N900 and Booklet 3G, namely USA, Finland, Germany, Spain, and UK, the stated prices for the respective countries in their native currencies are as follow:
USA
Finland
Germany
Spain
UK
N900
569
599
579
599
499
Booklet 3G
599
799
729
699
699
Upon consideration of a higher-than-average US State sales tax of 12.5%, and keeping in mind that all prices in Europe are inclusive of such sales taxes, the prices in US Dollars using exchange rates EUR 1 = USD 1.4324 and GBP 1 = USD 1.617 produce the following:
USA
Finland
Germany
Spain
UK
N900
640
859
829
859
806
Booklet 3G
674
1144
1044
1001
1130
I find it amazing, even shocking, that for the same unsubsidised products with the same specs, European customers would have to pay up to 70% more than those living in the US. Given that Nokia originates from Europe, how can they justify these prices differences?
Thoughts:
The only reason that I can think of is marketing. Nokia is common place in Europe, whereas in USA it is still relatively new. Therefore, to get the brand really going in the US, they have to offer top-end technology at near-top-end prices. By pricing its products similar to the likes of the iPhone and the Motorola Droid, Nokia places itself at the top end with these competitors. Competitive pricing means consumers may be willing to make a jump to an unfamiliar brand. The still relatively high price point stops Nokia from cheapening the brand itself. However, in Europe, Nokia is well-established, and it seems like they are trying to elevate themselves from the others. The market is also saturated with netbooks. Noting that their Booklet 3G has something special to offer, they can thus market it as a premium product at a high price-point, therefore making the Nokia brand feel more exclusive, whilst not jeopardising losing existing customer base.
Is this a good strategy? In terms of smart phones, with the arrival of Motorola Milestone and Google’s Nexus One, as well as the iPhone no longer being bound to a single carrier, it certainly seems a strange move. Admittedly, the fact that the N900 can be seen as a mini-computer, it is really a toy for nerds and is somewhat justifiable if they don’t want to market it as a smart-phone. As for the sky-high pricing for the Booklet 3G in Europe, well, if they can make enough profit in the US market from it, I guess they can continue with their elevation strategies and no-one can argue. Having said that, an exclusive brand must also be approachable because there is a consumer-threshold where once reached, customers will simply start turning their backs and think they no longer want to be in that club.
Nokia is quite possibly one of the biggest success stories of the mobile phone boom. What started off as a relatively small company dabbling in bits and pieces, ranging from paper to rubber to electronic products is now a massive brand known purely, if not exclusively for its mobile phones.
Next, Nokia moved in to manufacturing rubber which was to be their main business, but also moved in to the electronics and cable business. The fish logo however, wasn’t dropped until over 60 years later when this new logo was introduced in 1965. By this time, Nokia’s main focus was on the cable industry.
Now, this is where I have a logo missing. I’m not the only one, but I seem to be the only one who acknowledges it existed. Most people when discussing the evolution of the Nokia logo will jump straight to the next one. The one before this logo was identical, however featured the text ‘MOBILE PHONES’. I do have a screenshot of it from a magazine advert where you can see the logo.
