Posted on

Samsung Galaxy S2 in US by July-August

Samsung Galaxy S2 is the most anticipated device among smartphone fans, even beating the expectations for iPhone 5. With Samsung Galaxy S2 already available in many countries and hitting top of Smartphone sales in UK,   US consumers are wondering when they will get their hands on the ultra fast Android device.

Samsung Galaxy S2 is expected to hit US shores before July end or possibly by Mid August, but not later than that.  Atleast one carrier most likely Sprint is expected to Carry the device ahead of ATT and even Verizon. One of the reasons for delay in Samsung Galaxy S2 is Apple, Apple who has taken up  litigation against Samsung’s devices , appears to be pulling the strings with ATT and Verizon ahead of its own next version of iPhone.

With earlier versions of  iPhones, Apple was always first to market as a trendsetter, but this time around iPhone 5 is under pressure from Galaxy S2. Most of the specs of iPhone 5 are expected to match the Galaxy S2 and any botch up will be bad for Apple. And Samsung is also determined to bring in its Galaxy S2 before the arrival of iPhone 5,  just to rub it on Apple.

Sprint’s version of Galaxy S2 is expected to be called Samsung Within and ATT’s version to be christened Samsung Attain.   Not sure whats with lame naming convention in USA, but we surely expect the dual core powered Galaxy S2 very soon.

Posted on

Reinventing Nokia – The Mobile Hardware Giant

No one would have expected to see Nokia  struggling by 2011. But then that’s what happened, after a huge drop in profits in the last few quarters and loss of its No1 status in Europe, Nokia is in shambles.

Few days back Nokia sold its Symbian Development to Accenture, and gone with the company are its developers and testers as well. But more importantly few months back Nokia announced an alliance with Microsoft and decided to dump Symbian for Windows Phone Operating System.

Nokia has always been associated with Quality and Performance of its phones. When most phones lasted few years, Nokia devices would last twice longer. And whether it reception, battery performance or ruggedness, Nokia was the Honda  and Toyota  of the Mobile world.  Nokia was also one of the early entrants  into Smartphone business, they have brought some of the popular Smart phones in the last decade be it the 6600 or N70, N93,N95 and E61 etc. But Nokia is a victim of their own success, content with a aging Symbian platform Nokia failed to get on the Post iPhone , touchscreen bandwagon.

Though Nokia released quite a few touchscreen devices, the operating system was clumsy and not user friendly, crashing smartphone OS was ok during the early days of Smartphones, but now  they cant be tolerated.  With highly competitive platforms in Android and iOS, Nokia  had all but failed in High End division. And low end market is populated with copycat chinese phones which perform more functionality than Nokia with half the price.

But aligning with Microsoft and dumping its Symbian OS is a step in the right direction,  Nokia still has the best hardware in cellphones, what it is missing is the software. With Microsoft deal it achieves exactly that, and now Nokia can concentrate on improving and establishing itself the leader in this segment. Microsoft is also reinventing itself in the Mobile space, one of my Gripe was the hardware on the windows phones, it used to be either Motorola or some unknown company. No major hardware player was associated with windows phones, but with Nokia,  Microsoft gets just that.

With Windows 7 phone platform creating so much excitement , definitely this is the best that could have happened to Nokia. With launch of N9 , Nokia did show a Meego (Linux) based device, but for next few years Nokia might just concentrate on Windows Platform and occasionally release Phones for Android as well.  And with a backing from Microsoft , Nokia will be finally able to break into US market, earlier due to carrier control in US  , Nokia never had its best phones in the  US market.

It would be just great for consumers with one more great option in terms of the phone hardware.

Posted on

Nokia E73 Mode Specifications, Review and Comparison

Nokia E73 Mode comes with an option of changing the mode of the phone from Work Mode to Personal Mode by touching the single button ie., we can switch between the business features and personal features within the single phone. It has QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad, five-way scroll key, with dimensions of 4.48 * 2.30 * 0.40 inches/ (113.8 * 58.4 * 10.2 mm), 16 million colors TFT active matrix display screen of size 2.4 inches and 320 * 240 (QVGA) pixels resolution, weighing 4.5 oz. 3G network with High Speed Uplink Packet Access of 2 Mbps and High Speed Downlink Packet Access of 10.2 Mbps.

The phone has 5 MP camera with 2592 * 1944 pixels resolution with autofocus and LED flash, 5x digital zoom, the video mode camera is of VGA with 15 frames per second, 10x video digital zoom, and the front camera is of 2x digital video zoom. It comes with 3.5 mm audio-video jack, Music player, Media player, stereo FM radio with RDS support. Internal memory of the phone is of 250 MB, 4 GB microSD external memory card, extendable upto 16 GB, and the Operating System of the phone is Symbian OS v9.3 S60 3.2.3.

The other features of the phone include GPRS, EDGE, WLAN 802.11 b/g, GPS, Bluetooth v2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate, A2DP, Messaging through Email, Push Email, SMS, MMS, IM, Flash Lite v3.0, PDF viewer, Nokia Office Tools, Digital Compass, Push to Talk,  ZIP manager, Quick Office viewers and editors, voice commands, games and etc., and it comes in only one color Titanium. The battery is of BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Ion standard battery with talk time power of 6 hours, standby time power of 22 days, video recording time of 6 1/2 hours, video playback time of 13 hours, music playback time of 38 hours, and video call time of 4 hours

Specifications of Nokia E73 Mode and Comparison with Nokia E72 :

Mode : Work/ Personal Mode

3G : High Speed Uplink Packet Access of 2 Mbps and High Speed Downlink Packet Access of 10.2 Mbps

QWERTY keyboard

Optical trackpad, five-way scroll key

Dimensions : Nokia E73 Mode : 113.8 * 58.4 * 10.2 mm

Nokia E72 : 114 * 58 * 10 mm

Display Screen : Nokia E73 Mode : 16 million colors, TFT active matrix screen of size 2.4 inches, resolution 320 * 240 pixels

Nokia E72 : 16 million colors, TFT screen of size 2.36 inches, resolution 320 * 240 pixels

Weight : Nokia E73 Mode and Nokia E72 : 4.5 oz

Camera : 5 MP camera with 2592 * 1944 pixels resolution with autofocus and LED flash, 5x digital zoom, the video mode camera is of VGA with 15 frames per second, 10x video digital zoom, and the front camera is of 2x digital video zoom

3.5 mm audio-video jack, Music player, Media player, stereo FM radio with RDS support

Memory : Nokia E73 Mode : Internal memory of the phone is of 250 MB, 4 GB microSD external memory card, extendable upto 16 GB

Nokia E72 : Internal memory of the phone is 250 MB, 128 MB RAM, microSD extendable upto 16 GB

OS : Symbian OS v9.3 S60 3.2.3

GPRS

EDGE

WLAN 802.11 b/g

GPS

Bluetooth v2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate, A2DP

Messaging through Email, Push Email, SMS, MMS, IM

Flash Lite v3.0

PDF viewer

Nokia Office Tools

Digital Compass

Push to Talk

ZIP manager

Quick Office viewers and editors

voice commands

games

Color : Titanium

Battery : Nokia E73 Mode : BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Ion standard battery with talk time power of 6 hours and standby time power of 22 days

video recording time of 6 1/2 hours, video playback time of 13 hours, music playback time of 38 hours, and video call time of 4 hours

Nokia E72 : BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Ion standard battery with talk time power of 6 hours and standby time power of 24 days