Tom Raftery’s Social Media

I received a present of a Nokia N810 recently from a client. This was in lieu of payment for some work I did for them.

To say that I am underwhelmed with the device would be putting it mildly!

The N810 is an internet tablet. It has a browser and a radio and GPS built-in. It accesses the internet over wifi or using your phone as a modem over bluetooth. Sounds cool enough, so why am I unimpressed?

A number of reasons. First off the maps for the GPS are terrible. They don’t include many Irish addresses (including Rushbrooke, the townland I live in) and the GPS application doesn’t plot routes either – one of the most useful functions of a GPS device, I would have thought.

Next is the low memory of the device. I was trying it out yesterday when I got a message that it couldn’t open the Welcome program because there wasn’t enough memory! I closed one of the running programs and the Welcome program opened no problem. I only had around 3 applications running at the time so I was surprised that this consumed all the RAM on the device.

The UI is really clunky. I mean really clunky! In this regard I have been spoilt by my iPod Touch experience.

It is slow opening/running applications and the browsing experience is painful compared to Safari on the iPod.

The display doesn’t change orientation if you turn the device through 90 degrees.

It is a brick – big and heavy. Am I likely to carry this and my N95 with me when I am traveling? I don’t think so!

Compare the size of the N810 with the N95 below

to my iPod Touch with the same N95

I have most of the same functionality with the combination of the iPod Touch and the N95 as I do with the N810 and the N95 for a fraction the pocket real estate!

And given that the iPhone Developer Kit is being released in the coming weeks, my iPod Touch is likely to become even more useful!

On the plus side it has an Internet radio!

Is there some useful functionality of the N810 that I am missing?

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Pilar gave me an iPod Touch for my birthday the other day and, wow I love it!

As you can see, it looks fantastic. The interface is unbelievably slick and surprisingly responsive. Using Nokia smart phones means I have become used to devices this size being slow but there is absolutely no lag on the iPod Touch.

The browser is fantastic, esp. for my feed reading. YouTube videos are way better quality than on the site. In fact the video resolution, in general is spectacular.

The only negative thing is that synching with the computer can sometimes take a while so don’t try to synch as you are about to run out the door!

Other than that I have now realised how much better the iPhone experience must be – uh oh!

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Nokia have issued a product recall for 46 million of its BL-5C batteries.

Seemingly a short-circuit, while charging can “in rare cases” cause the battery to overheat and “dislodge”.

The battery is used in the following Nokia phones:
Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60

Nokia have set up a web page where you can check to see if your battery is one of the 46 million affected batteries – however, the page is not functioning.

When I entered the 26 digit number from the BL-5C battery of my Nokia N70 and pressed Submit, as instructed, the page simply refreshed with no information on whether the battery needs to be replaced or not.

I assume that means the battery is not affected but a piece of text confirming that would be nice.

UPDATE: – This site is not related to Nokia in any way. Please don’t leave details of your battery here. I have no way of telling if your battery is faulty.

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Well, I handed back my review model Nokia N95 yesterday and already I miss it. Paul Giltinan from Choice Communications was good enough to lend it to me to try out for a number of weeks. Now though I am back to my trusty E65. Sniff!

Here are a few quick thoughts on the N95 and how it compares to the E65

Likes

• The screen
• The 5mp camera
• The built-in Wifi

Dislikes

• The keypad
• The battery
• The GPS

Slightly more detail:

The screen on the N95 is fantastic. It is big and can display in either landscape or portrait. The E65’s screen has the same resolution but is much smaller so it doesn’t look nearly as impressive.

The camera in the E65 is appalling, as I have already noted and while the N95 camera is slow (press the button, count to 10, *click*), the quality of the photos and video from it are impressive.

The built-in wifi is great in both the E65 and the N95. The screen on the N95 is big enough that you can actually browse web pages on it. The E65’s screen is a bit too small for that. Both phones are great for VOIP client software and where I live in Cobh, the call quality over wifi is significantly better than the expensive GSM alternative!

The Keypad on the N95 has a tacky, plasticky cheap feel to it that took some getting used to and was unexpected in a phone of its cost. The E65’s keyboard is more crisp and reassuring.

The battery life on the N95 has been panned but I didn’t find it too bad. It will quite easily go a full day on a charge so I used to simply charge it overnight and I rarely had problems. The times I did have problems were when I installed and used Fring on the phone. It completley sucked the life out of the battery (esp on 3g). If you have an N95, don’t install Fring, unless you have spare batteries or plan to keep it plugged into a power source at all times.

I never got the GPS software on the phone to see a satellite (or satellites) so I can’t comment on how this would work. Having said that, the fact that I couldn’t get it to see a satellite at all should be comment enough!

As a quick aside, I also tried installing the Jaiku mobile client on the N95 but for some reason it wouldn’t connect over wifi and wanted to connect over 3G. At the data prices in this country, I don’t think so. Uninstalled.

So would I, given the choice, put my money down for an N95? If cost were no object yes, but given that I already have the E65 and there is little between them in turns of functionality, there is no way I could justify buying one now.

Interestingly, the part of the phone which appeals to me most is the big screen and this is the feature of the iPhone which people seem to love too.

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Courtesy of Paul Giltinan of Choice Communications, I have a loan of a Nokia N95 to try out for the next couple of weeks – excellent!

The first thing which strikes you when you pick up the N95 is how light it is. It is quite bulky (99 x 53 x 21 mm), so you expect it to be heavier than its 120g.

The next thing which hits you is the quality of the 2.6″ screen. At 240 x 320 pixels and up to 16 million colours it is the same resolution as my E65 but because of the larger size, it just looks way better!

A lot has been written about the poor battery life of the N95 but I haven’t found that to be the case. That may be because the N95 and the E65 use the same battery and I am used to its short life (!) but I suspect it has more to do with my not having the Wireless Scanning enabled.

The one time the battery levels did drop sharply was when I was following my Twitter Stream over 3G (instead of the usual WLAN at home).

The GPS application which ships with the phone is of limited use as it can never seem to find the satellites!

I tried a Fring call using the Skype client on the phone today to Conn O’Muinechain but the call quality was appalling and we had to revert to a normal call. This is more likely a problem with Fring, or Fring’s Skype implementation than the N95.

The camera in the phone takes very high quality pics (see photo below) and video but be aware that the 160 onboard memory will run out quickly. You will need to supplement it with a Micro SD memory card (it supports up to 2gb).

The bi-directional slider and the way the screen flips from portrait to landscape automatically is very impressive.

Overall, the N95 is a lovely phone and if I could afford it…

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I bought my wife a Nokia N91 for her birthday last year and initially she loved it. It has got a 4gb hard disk which makes it idea for rich media.

She even used it to listen to a couple of podcasts (no, none of mine, she’s not that sad!).

However, it has now become a major source of annoyance for her as it freezes up completely at least once a day. The only way to get it going again seems to be to take off the back, remove the battery and re-seat it again!

Has anyone else had this kind of problem with an N91 and if so, how did you resolve it?

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