Pocketnow.com published a comparison between both phones, concentrating on home-screen functionality. They make some good comments. I hope both companies are listening. The video is below.
Phone
Nokia brings in Microsoft exec to replace CEO
Image by Microsoft via CrunchBase
“Espoo, Finland –Nokia‘s Board of Directors has appointed Stephen Elop President and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia as of September 21. Elop currently heads Microsoft‘s Business Division. Before joining Microsoft, Elop held senior executive positions in a number of US-based public companies, including Juniper Networks, Adobe Systems Inc. and Macromedia Inc. He holds a degree in computer engineering and management from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, which is his home country.”
See the official PR here.
Forget about getting a new phone – get your BrainCap today
During my summer holidays, I re-read Arthur C. Clarke’s books; 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001. The last one in the series, 3001:The Final Odyssey is arguably the weakest book in the series when you compare to its predecessors. But as always Clark gives us, also in this book, new technology wonders and marvels, he envisions to enrich our lives.
Most notably for my blog post today, in his book Clarke introduces the concept of a “BrainCap”, ‘a technology which interfaces computers directly with the human brain’ (Wikipedia).
Today, I encountered a similar device on TED.COM. In the video, Mrs. Tan Le, shows how far we have come in new computer interfaces. With a device costing no more than a couple of hundred dollars, she shows in minutes, what can be expected when we all would be wearing these devices.
Arthur C. Clark of course suggested that the devices would be implanted, but hey, he is a science fiction writer. Btw, he wrote the book ‘3001’ in 1997 and that is 13 years ago.
Anyhow, enjoy the video – it is about 10 minutes long and next to the awesome demo, the presenter also clarifies very well how everybody’s brain is different (sigh of relief).
Do you need to be up to date on Windows Phone 7?
Image via Wikipedia
I have wmpoweruser.com in my favorites. For example today they feature:
- Video: CNET looks at Windows Phone 7 Xbox Live integration
- Windows Phone 7 hits 8500 in the wild
- Video: Nova4Phone 3D engine for Windows Phone 7 shows what the WP7 GPU is capable of
- EA not ready to “get in the game” with Windows Phone 7 yet
- An Interview with WP7 Indie Developer Barranger Ridler
- Video: Microsoft talking about Windows Phone 7 at GamesCon
- Windows Phone 7 Xbox Hub Must/Will Not Fail
awesome site.
Summer is over. Time to start working again (with a new phone…and not what you might expect)
Image by bigdigo via Flickr
After some serious time off, I am now back into blogging. And I promise to start using Twitter a bit more. My daughter went abroad for a year, I started work with a 600+ inbox and am already preparing 2 whitepapers and a round table on cloud computing in the public sector. We concluded the mid-year review of the team (we did good, thank you) and I read Rick Merrifield’s book “Re-Think”.
And…I dumped my HTC Touch Pro. Instead I bought a Nokia E72 (and I could not resist putting a nice picture of it on my blog).
You will probably understand why I moved away from Windows Mobile 6.x; It is an awkward and certainly not finger friendly operating environment. I already enhanced it with SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 (very nice by the way – I can recommend it to all Windows Mobile 6.x users), but after almost 2 years the phone and battery were seriously worn out.
I have thought about waiting for Windows Phone 7, but who knows when that will launch in my region? Signs are not good.
So I spend some time looking at other possibilities. After almost 2 years of experience, I feel that a touch screen keyboard does not do it for me, I wanted a real qwerty keyboard and not a slide out keyboard. The phone had to be reliable in business use and the software had to be either awesome or very reliable. Given the current situation with trolling on intellectual property (think Oracle and Java), I had some doubts on Symbian; but you might think that I am completly missing the point here.
I have chosen Nokia, and specifically the E72, because I expect it to fits my needs. The verdict after 1 week of usage:
- Battery life is great. Without Bluetooth I get about 60 hours of usage during the week, with Bluetooth it is about 48 hours – that is 6 times more than my HTC!
- Very clever connectivity intelligence, automatically switching between different WLAN’s and 3G depending on availability and priority settings.
- App store is providing the right apps and tools.
- Free (turn by turn) navigation for car and walking. Excellent GPS receiver with quick response.
- Intermittent success in syncing email, contact and calendar with Hotmail and the corporate Exchange environment. I have not yet figured out if I am doing something wrong or if it is really unreliable. Manual sync works flawlessly, automatic sync only when it feels up to it…
- Terrible menu-logic. Nokia tried to make it simple. It is not. period.
- Keyboard. I think I can get accustomed to it – very nice to have tactile feedback.
- Voice quality. Excellent.
- Mini USB connectivity – off course Nokia has a different type of mini USB connector so I could not use my HTC loader.
- Phone Quality – not a single dropped call yet.
Now I just need to stop trying to tap on the screen – it is not a touch phone….
Your thoughts?