Posted by Scott Laird
Sun, 18 Jun 2006 15:07:44 GMT
I’ve mentioned a few times that I was an old AT&T Wireless customer, which means that I was paying Cingular a lot of money every month to be a second-class citizen. With an AT&T account, I couldn’t buy a new Cingular phone (they’re locked to Cingular’s network) or add features (like a wireless data plan) to my account without trading in my old AT&T account for a shiny new Cingular plan. And I didn’t want to do that for a few reasons:
I have a family plan, which means that I’d have to switch both lines at the same time. Which means that I’d have to buy a pair of new phones.
I had a reasonably cheap plan with AT&T, and comperable Cingular plans cost more and provide less.
Finally, switching plans means that I’d be stuck with at least a 1-year contract extension.
So, basically, it meant that it was a pain to change phones. If I wanted to get a new phone and have some sort of unmetered network service, then I was going to have to pay more for basic phone service and I’d have to replace my wife’s phone. Which is a pain. So I’d been putting it off until just the right phone came along.
Well, with the E61 on the way Friday, it was finally time. I needed to turn on a data plan for the E61, but I didn’t want to pay more for basic phone service. In general, normal customer service reps are helpless to do anything about this sort of complaint, so I decided to bite the bullet and threaten to cancel; the retention department at most carriers is able to make deals, but you need to be willing to actually cancel and switch carriers if you can’t make a deal. So I called Cingular’s customer service and asked the to transfer me straight to the retension department. Once I had a rentention rep on the line, I told her that I’d been with Cingular for years and I was going to switch to T-Mobile if I couldn’t get a deal.
Amazingly enough, she didn’t even blink, and offered me an extra 100 minutes per month for the same price I was already paying, and threw in a decent discount on phones. So, all in all, I’m happy. I feel kind of mercenary, but I figure I can live that if it saves me $400 or so over the next couple years.
[FWIW, I actually wrote this on the E61 and then mailed it to my Mac for posting. I need to find a decent web editor for S60. Any suggestions?]
Tags cingular, phones | 20 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Sat, 17 Jun 2006 05:10:08 GMT
I love FedEx–they somehow managed to deliver my new Nokia E61 today instead of Monday, so I have the whole weekend to play with it.
A few first impressions:
- It’s much more solid then it appears on the website. It has a metal case, and everything about it feels well-made.
- The screen is wonderful. It’s big, bright, and easy to read. While doesn’t have as many pixels as some of the other models in Nokia’s latest lineup, I have nothing to complain about. The text fonts for the browser and office apps are small enough that it’ll fit a lot of text on the screen.
- It seems to work fine with Asterisk. I was able to make and receive a few VoIP phone calls over WiFi without any problems.
- The built-in web browser works well enough. I was able to check gmail and look up a few directions without a problem. Strangely, the only site that hasn’t worked for me is http://www.google.com. I think Google’s trying to feed the phone a WAP page or something, while the phone is expecting HTML. It shouldn’t be hard to fix.
- Google Maps for Mobile phones works great. That’s half of the reason that I wanted a new phone :-).
- The audio quality is better then my old T616.
- The keyboard is good. I’m not used to the layout yet, and it’s weird having to hit a shift key to get numbers, but it’s better then Graffiti.
- I’ve had some weird problems when copying large files using the USB cable. For some reason, the transfer locks up from time to time. Unplugging the cable solves the problem without rebooting either end, but it’s annoying. I should probably find a USB-to-SD adapter; it’ll be faster.
I’ll post more later, once I’ve had a chance to really break it in.
Tags nokia, nokiae61, phones, reviews | 10 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:23:36 GMT
Long-time readers here know that I’m prone to getting all excited about getting a new cell phone, and then never quite pulling the trigger to buy one. My current phone is a Sony-Ericsson T616 from early 2004. I came close to buying the Treo 650 and waited for most of a year for the Nokia N91 to ship in the US. Then, when the Nokia E70 was announced, I stopped waiting for the N91 and started waiting for the E70.
The E70 just started shipping in Europe. It looks like a nice phone. The problem with the European E70 (and the N91 that’s finally shipping in the US) is that it doesn’t support GSM at 850 MHz, so it’s mostly useless on Cingular’s network. And it’s increasing looking like Cingular is the only US GSM provider with a decent data network. So, unless a US-specific 850 MHz version of the E70 starts shipping, it just isn’t going to work for me.
Right now, I’m carrying too many gadgets around–I have my phone, an iPod, a Palm TX, and (unfortunately) a 2-way Pager for work. I’d really like to roll the Palm and the phone into a single device, but I can’t cope with PalmOS 5 anymore. Similarly, I can’t cope with mobile versions of Windows–I tried it for a month with the Motorola MPX200, and it just didn’t work for me.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion, again, that I can’t cope with non-keyboard input methods. I don’t like T9, Graffiti, or any of the alternate input methods that I’ve tried on the Palm. If I’m going to enter text into a pocket-sized device, then it’s going to have to have a keyboard. I’ve found that the pain of writing with the Palm keeps me from using it, and that makes it mostly useless. And that leads to me missing appointments and forgetting tasks, and I can’t cope with either.
So, basically, I want a phone with a QWERTY keyboard that doesn’t run Windows or PalmOS, and works with 850 MHz GSM. I believe there are two phones on the market that fit that description–the Nokia 9300 and the Nokia E61. I’ve played with the 9300 before, and it’s just too slow for me–loading web pages crawls while it’s slow little CPU renders pages.
The E61, on the other hand, has almost the same features as the E70 that I wanted, except it’s Blackberry-shaped and doesn’t have a camera. It does have everything else, though, including 802.11 and a native SIP client that supposedly people have been able to get working with Asterisk. Someone at work just bought one off of eBay and is really happy with it.
So, after over 2 years, I finally ordered a new phone. My E61 should be here on Monday. I’m still trying to sort out Cingular’s data plan options, but I should have that dealt with by the end of the day today, and then I’ll be set. I’ll be able to drop the Palm and T616 out of my life, and probably be able to get by with a few songs on the E61 most of the time–it’ll hold a 2 GB flash card, and there’s a sync plugin for iTunes, so it’ll work with almost everything but iTMS songs. I’ll still be stuck with the pager, but that’s a whole other story for an other day.
Tags cingular, nokia, nokiae61, phones | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:04:10 GMT
All About Symbian claims that the Nokia N80 is shipping somewhere in the world, but they’re not exactly sure where. Presumably somewhere in Europe.
The N80 is a nifty little phone, with 802.11g, bluetooth, a 3 MP camera, and a 352x416 display, all bundled into a relatively compact package. It’s reasonably well-known that the N80 has some SIP abilities, but from reading the online manual, it looks like SIP on the N80 is really intended for UMTS video calling, not end-user VoIP calling.
Tags nokia, nokian80, phones | 2 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:53:23 GMT
It looks like the Nokia E-series phones are going to ship in Europe within the next couple weeks. It’s not clear when they’ll ship in the US, but it won’t be this month. Probably May or June.
I’m still planning on picking up either a N80 or an E70 as soon as they’re available in the US. It looks like they’ll be able to take 2 GB flash cards, and that pushes my earlier favorite, the N91, out of the competition. The N91’s 4 GB hard drive made it really attractive in a world of 512MB flash cards, but its lower-resolution screen and months of delays make it a lot less attractive then the newer N80 and E70 designs. Frankly, I just wish that one of them would ship–my T616 is getting really long in the tooth, and I’m getting fed up with the Palm T|X that I’ve been using for months.
Tags nokia, nokiae70, nokian80, phones | 3 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 06 Feb 2006 20:23:00 GMT
The FCC was polite enough to post the users manual for Nokia’s upcoming E70 phone on their web site, and it makes for fascinating reading. The manual doesn’t go into a lot of details about features, but there are a few fun tidbits hiding in there. First, the phone clearly supports SIP-based VoIP services. There’s a SIP configuration section in the setup menus. The manual explicitly states that the phone will attempt to make 911 calls via the cellular network whenever possible; I’m not sure what this implies about other calls–is there a way to explicitly choose which network is used for each call, or is it implicit somehow?
Surprisingly, the N80’s manual also lists a section for configuring SIP settings, but I didn’t see any details in the manual on actually making SIP calls.
Page 67 has another surprise: the phone includes an RSS reader of some sort. The manual explains how to subscribe to blog feeds.
There are a few more E70 documents on the FCC’s website, including internal and external pictures.
My current phone contract has expired, and I’m just waiting for the right phone to come along. I’ve been tempted to order a 6682 and be done with it, but the N80, N91, and E70 are all approved by the FCC now, and I’d be much happier with any of them then I’d be with the 6682, so I’m willing to wait another month or two. A couple shopping sites online claim that the N80 will ship at the end of February, but I don’t know how believable they are. No matter how you slice it, though, the US models of these three phones are getting closer, and Nokia is clearly making an effort to promote them in the US market.
Mind you, I doubt that T-Mobile or Cingular will actually be shipping any of these phones any time in the next month or two (or three, or four).
Tags nokia, nokiae70, nokian80, nokian91, phones | 15 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 12 Oct 2005 16:43:00 GMT
Nokia announced a new block of phones today: the E60, E61, and E70. Unlike the earlier (and still pending) N-series, these are aimed towards corporate users. All three run Series 60 3rd edition and include 802.11g and Bluetooth. They also come with a SIP client so they can interact with business VoIP systems. The low-end model, the E60 is yet another Series 60 candybar phone, like the 6682 and N70, but with WiFi. The E61 is a Blackberry-like model with a QWERTY keyboard and landscape display. Finally, the E70 is a “handlebar” style phone that flips open to reveal a keyboard, half on the left side of the display and half on the right.
After playing with the Nokia 6682 and 9300 yesterday, I’m starting to think that a keyboard would be really nice. I might actually be more interested in the E70 then the N91. Here’s how they compare:
Same:
- 802.11g, bluetooth, 3G
- Series 60, 3rd edition
- 2 MP camera
- Scheduled for 1Q 2006 release
- Similar sizes: (N91: 113.1x55.2x22, E70: 117x53x22)
N91’s favor:
- 4 GB hard drive
- 3.5mm headphone jack
E70’s favor:
- built-in SIP client (might be on N91 also)
- high-res display (352x416, 4x the pixel count)
- QWERTY keyboard
- miniSD slot (1 GB for $75, partially counters the HD on the N91)
- lighter (127g vs 160g)
I’m not sure if the E70 includes the video player that comes on the N91. It’s possible that it includes a 3.5mm headphone jack–the specs list a MP3/AAC player application. The pricing rumors that I’ve seen put the whole E-series around €500 or so, which means that they may actually be cheaper then the N91.
Of course, availability is the key. The N91 was announced months ago, while the E70 is new. However, the E70 isn’t quite as innovative as the N91, so there’s a chance that they’ll arrive on the market (in Europe at least) in a similar timeframe. I have no idea which one will make it through the FCC first. I’m not particularly concerned about US carriers carrying the phone, now that Nokia is selling directly to US consumers. With any luck, our local Nokia demo kiosk will have both and I’ll be able to compare them in person.
Tags nokia, nokiae70, nokiaeseries, nokian91, phones | 7 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Sun, 09 Oct 2005 04:26:44 GMT
I got dragged to Alderwood Mall (just north of Seattle) today and discovered that they have a Nokia Kiosk just southwest of the Apple store. This seems to be run by Nokia itself, not a carrier or reseller, and they had a wide range of phones available, including the 6682 and 9300–the highest-end phones that Nokia is currently shipping in the US.
I didn’t ask, but I hope they’ll have the N90 and N70 later this year. I don’t expect to see the N91 in the US for another 6 months or so, but maybe they’ll have it eventually; it’d be really nice to be able to look one over before I have to decide if I’m going to order one or not.
After playing with the 6682 for a couple minutes, I’d love to see the N90’s display. The 6682’s display was much higher-resolution then I’d expected, and the the N90 has four times as many pixels in about the same space (416x352, 2.1” diagonal). I’m really curious what a 260 DPI LCD looks like. Not that I’d really like the phone, but I’d love to see the screen.
Tags alderwood, mall, nokia, nokia6682, nokia9300, phones | 1 comment
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 09 Sep 2005 23:49:00 GMT
Engadget thinks that the Nokia N91 might be delayed into the first quarter of 2006. The latest round of rumors suggested that the phone was going to ship in December of 2005, but that really just means that one lucky guy in Finland will have one; I’d be amazed if it shows up legally in the US before March or so, and it may be a few month after that before either of the GSM carriers pick it up.
On the other hand, Cingular has been doing a good job lately with high-end Nokia phones–they’re supposed to start shipping the Nokia 9300 soon, and there are rumors about them and the N90 as well. So we’ll see how this goes–there’s a chance that they’ll manage to surprise us.
Posted in Phones | Tags nokia, nokian91, phones | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 16 Aug 2005 15:00:28 GMT
PhotographyBLOG says that the Nokia N90 has been named the European Phone of the Year.
This is obviously just marketing fluff, as the N90 has only been shipping for a week or so, but it looks like a cool phone, even if it is kind of huge. It’s pretty obvious that the N90 and N91 are Nokia’s current showpieces for what they’re going to be able to do with next-generation phones–the N90 has a huge screen and a decent camera, while the N91 has real multitasking, 802.11g, and a hard drive.
Posted in Phones | Tags nokia, nokian90, nokian91, phones | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 03 Feb 2004 07:29:00 GMT
The MPx200 is gone, and I’m back to a Sony-Ericsson phone. It’s a T616 this time instead of a T68, so it’s a bit bigger and faster, but the basic design is the same. It’s still a pain to look up phone numbers, and the UI is still way too back-button intensive, but it works.
On the plus side, it syncs flawlessly with the Mac, unlike the MPx200, where syncing was an adventure each and every time I tried it. I’m slowly cleaning up the damage that PocketMac did to my calendar–one entry moved from PST to GMT for no obvious reason, and a couple birthdays are missing. I’m still waiting to hear back from them on my bugs, too.
Posted in Phones | Tags mpx200, phones, pocketmac, t616, windowsmobile | no comments
