Category: Nokia

Nokia N82 Bites the Dust – Cell Phone Snuff Film

Posted on by Sol Young with 3 Comments

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It’s a blast to ride a long board or motorboard to the office and around Philly. Sometimes you bail. If you’re always recording video, sometimes you bail while recording the whole thing… Stuff happens.

Nokia makes freakishly strong phones. Despite a slam and slide down a sidewalk with 160 pounds on it, the N82 still works.

Listen for the death scream at the end where my foot comes down hard on top of the phone and slides it down the sidewalk like a bar of Ivory.

Read on to see videos and pics of the aftermath…
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Posted in Motorboard, N82, Nokia, Skateboarding, Sports, Video

Parting with the Google Phone T-Mobile G1 – The Verdict – Top 10

Posted on by Sol Young with 9 Comments

After a week of using the T-Mobile G1 – the Google Phone – today I give it back. I knew before trying it that it was junk. Playing with it was still fun. There are great features on this phone, but for the most part it’s a phone to leave behind.

Last Shot of the G1

During the week I used the phone as my primary personal cell phone. Usually I carry an iPhone for work and a Nokia N82 for photography and personal calls. Having the iPhone and G1 on me for a week made for some great comparisons and a little benchmarking.

I do not recommend this phone. You should probably not buy this phone. BlackBerry and the iPhone are both superior in almost every aspect.

The Good

  1. Great (for plastic) screen. Bright, smooth movement, and fairly durable. The Flashlight application is bright.
  2. Terrific email client (see remarks about keypad below)
  3. Market (aka Android App Store) describes exactly what systems (GPS, PIM, 3G, etc) an application requires before one installs it
  4. Excellent USB implementation – The G1 reports as a removable drive when plugged in to a computer, and charges from the USB
  5. 3G beats the heck out of EDGE – It’s about 75% of the speed of AT&T’s 3G here in Philadelphia, but it’s 4x faster than EDGE
  6. Amazon MP3 store integration
  7. 3 megapixel camera has better resolution than the iPhone or current BlackBerry units, but is still antiquated enough to generate smile fatigue
  8. Hardware keypad is useful for customers who aren’t willing to type more quickly on a virtual keypad
  9. “Chin” section reminds us of the 1995 Motorola phones – Great way to reminisce
  10. Google logo on the back
The Bad
  1. Not stylish
  2. Twice as thick as it needs to be – Slide-out screen reveals unfriendly QWERTY keypad, the culprit of this waste
  3. “Chin” section is unnecessary and uses up an inch of length
  4. “Chin” section gets in the way in landscape orientation while typing
  5. Lack of multi-touch, poor trackball
  6. Can only type with keypad, requires sliding out.
  7. T-Mobile data plan is slower than AT&T (arguably this will change, but for now it’s 75% as fast as AT&T)
  8. Too many buttons – Looks like a repurposed Windows Mobile device from 2002
  9. Weak initial application offerings – lack of apparent payment system for developer compensation
  10. Android isn’t ready for commercial release – this OS has great potential but its lack of a svelt, smooth, and exciting experience exudes a lack of design
The Verdict – skip this phone – it’s a 1st generation device that is botched by poor hardware design and a pre-release operating system. A G2 or G3 version with a slim multi-touch interface and polished UI will be worthy of your attention.
Posted in Android, BlackBerry, G1, Google, Google Phone, iPhone, iPhone 3G, N82, Nokia, T-Mobile

100 Miles Stronger w/ Nike+

Posted on by Sol Young with Leave a comment

Today I hit 100 miles of running with Nike+. It shows how poorly I’ve been keeping up with running (Galina is in to 200+ now). It’s a nice feature they offer… Rewards keep participants interested. I’d still like to see more non-flash integration with blogs.

The stats for my first hundred with Nike+:

  • 26 runs
  • 3.81 miles per run
  • Average pace of 7’24”

I’m still tracking with both Nike+ (today’s) and Nokia SportsTracker (today’s). The SportsTracker, with GPS, is slightly more interesting because it maps your progress while on the run and offers live mapping. I’d still like to have SportsTracker integrated in a blog – it’s a pain to share otherwise.

Something else of interest during today’s run… Everyone on the trail was in a great mood! I offered, “Good Morning!” to eight people and received eight positive responses. In Philadelphia this is a first. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s a fluke. But either way, it’s awesome to return from vacation with a strong positive vibe.

Good Morning!

Posted in Blogging, GPS, Life Streaming, Nike+, Nokia, Running, SportsTracker

GPS Running

Posted on by Sol Young with 4 Comments

Link to today’s run

I love running. I skip wearing headphones or listening to music because I love hearing the world race past me. Things that interfere with the actual experience of being there aren’t interesting to me.

Nike+ on an iPod (a music player first and foremost) thankfully has the option to do a workout without music (and without a headset). I’ve been using this since Christmas 2007 when my wife gave it to me. It’s great! Nike has training programs you can follow to get you the next level.

Recently discovered when I got an N82 is the Nokia Sportstracker app. It keeps track with GPS and gives an amazing amount of live metadata. Not only are you able to follow your speed, pace, average pace, distance, location, etc, in real time, you can pump the data live to the web.

There are a couple things lacking with both systems: Social interaction outside their gardens. Both offer links to back to your workout pages, but neither supports easy placement of the data elsewhere (read: No RSS feeds of the content).

An RSS feed of the workouts would be an ideal next step for either company. RSS being available would allow WordPress and TypePad widget development much more easily.

It would also be slick to have Twitter and Facebook integrations (Nike+ has some Facebook apps written by third parties – I haven’t been impressed with these since they’re all Flash).

Running profiles:

Posted in Facebook, Geolocation, GPS, Life Streaming, N82, Nike+, Nokia, RSS, Running, Social Networking, SportsTracker, Twitter

N82 for my broadcasts – iPhone 3G for everything else

Posted on by Sol Young with Leave a comment

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I picked up the Nokia N82 yesterday from Import GSM, a great hybrid brick-and-mortage / online store. Think Dynamism for phones. It was my first visit, right at closing, and despite trying to get stuff out the door for the evening shipment the guys helped out with descriptions and subtle nuances between the N95 and N82 (special thanks to Eric – good guy).

Anyway, so why the heck would someone get a Nokia N82 when the iPhone 3G is getting released tomorrow? There are five reasons, one for each megapixel, and a lot of backup arguments. The iPhone 3G doesn’t hold a candle to the image sensor quality, flash, or lens quality.

This wasn’t meant to be an N82 vs. iPhone 3G post. They’re both the best mobile equipment one can get (imo).

The N82 is going to be my net enabled camera and broadcast machine. No more notebook + Canon SD-1000 combo!

The iPhone 3G is for everything else. I had the iPhone (1.0 / original / whatever). iPhones are the best for usability and communication. I gave it to my wife and she’s gone from check-email-and-browse-at-home to check-email-send-texts-and-monitor-weather-while-away. The wife-o-meter was pegged.

The Nokia’s OS, after 30 hours of tweaking, is finally usable for me. Very steep appreciation curve. I would only recommend such a phone to a power user needing the best tool for quality images… I can’t wait to start posting and qik’ing them.

Posted in Blogging, Broadcasting, Geolocation, GPS, iPhone 3G, Life Streaming, N82, Nokia, Philadelphia, Photography, Reviews, T-Mobile, Viddler, Wearing