CantthinkofanameforthisbloG

I am not a big fan of Blackberry especially not their earlier models. Due to an odd twist of fate (see ‘Quest for a Camera-Less Phone’) I ended up with a blackberry 8820. Since the phone has been around for a while and has been discontinued from production it’s a bit too late to come up with a review for this phone. However I am not one to let trivial facts prevent me from posting my thoughts. Lets dive right in.

The Blackberry 8820, like its poorer cousin 8800, is a pretty handsome phone. It looks very professional and has a good build quality. It’s full QWERTY keyboard looks a bit cramped with no space between the keys, but let me assure you they are one of the best I’ve used. Something about the shape of the keys and the placement of the ridges that make hitting the precise key you were gunning for. Typing long messages or emails are quite simple and the spell check is also fairly good (however I do miss predictive text). Menu options are quite basic I have to say I quite like the trackball navigation. It’s very accurate and takes up only a small amount of real-estate. It’s a pity that the trackball is such a dust magnet and cleaning it could be a pain.

The Blackberry 8820 has a single (mono) speaker on top of the phone. It’s a pretty loud and clear speaker and is more than sufficient for a speakerphone call or listing to music. The media capabilities of the device are rather poor. It can only play a thin list of formats so most of your videos will need to be trans-coded for the device. Audio quality through the supplied headphones and about average. They can go quite loud but bass reproduction is severely limited. There another major negative point to be noted. The phone comes with a 2.5mm audio jack as opposed to the standard 3.5mm jack. Also this 2.5mm jack only supports blackberry and Motorola handsfree sets and not the Nokia ones so availability of replacement headphones will be another pain point. I personally suggest option for a good pair of Bluetooth headphones. I use Motorola S9 stereo Bluetooth headphones. They are very comfortable, give a good bass response but need to be changed frequently (because I use them a lot).

There are a number of applications and games for the blackberry 8820 however very few of them are free. Another issue is that most of the applications need BIS to be activated in order to function properly. As I did not do so I cannot comment on the apps. On the gaming front, from what I can tell blackberry’s cupboard is quite bare. Yes this is a business-centric phone but that’s no excuse not to have some fun fast paced action games on the phone. No wait I forgot, the hardware can’t take it. Yes the hardware is pretty low spec. Essentially packman is about as good as it gets.

Customizations – there are a number of themes for the device however most of the good ones are not free. In conclusion this is not for the young media consuming music playing mobile phone customizing gaming junkie but rather for a simple professional who just wants email, listen to the occasional tune and not bother about touch screens or sliding out keypads.

There has been much talk about smartphones and their ever-growing capabilities. While Nokia has for many years now, dominated the smartphone arena, other manufacturers are quickly getting on board, and how. In the past year and a bit we have seen, apart from the usual suspects (Nokia, RIM-blackberry, HTC etc) we now have quite a few more smartphone heavyweights – Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Google and Apple. Even almost forgotten manufacturers Palm and Motorola have come out with some very high spec devices to possibly turn their fortunes. 

The number of smartphone operating systems have also mushroomed with the birth of Android, WebOS, OS X, Maemo, to join the ranks of Symbian, Blackberry OS and Windows Mobile. Now I will not get into which operating system is the best as quite frankly that is a topic of much debate. Here’s my two cents worth – don’t judge as operating system by its out-of-the box functionality alone. A good operating system should obviously come with tones of functionality and features but it should also have a well stocked collection of constantly updated 3rd party applications (a good number free). It should also have a large developer community to bring in fresh ideas, applications and games to the device. They say all operating systems are equal. I’d say some are more equal than others. 

Finally after rambling on for two paragraphs I am all set to dive into my topic of choice i.e. what would be the features I would look out for a phone in the middle of this year. For those of you still living in a hole that would be June 2010. I am choosing mid 2010 because most of the features I am about to talk about are currently available, just not on the same device :( My guess is that hopefully one of the manufacturers will pick up on this post and act upon it. These features mentioned below are not arranged in any particular order. The design I have in mind is a keypad-less full touchscreen phone like the iphone, Google Nexus One, HTC Desire, SE Xperia X10 etc. Though I like the tactile feedback of hardware keys, improvements in capacitive multi-touch and haptic feedback one can do without hardware keys (for the most part). 

1. Operating System:

2. Display:

3. Input method:

4. CPU/RAM/Memory:

5. Camera/Video/Audio:

6. Connectivity/Browser/Misc. features:

Issues to be concerned about – Heat build-up due to compact size and powerful (from a mobile perspective) electronics. Battery life for the previously mentioned reasons.

This is still a working wish-list and may/will be modified occasionally. Readers are welcome to comment of any feature I have mentioned or any feature I have left out.For more updates - watch this space !!

I consider myself a bit of a techie with a penchant for consumer electronics. It is this self-proclaimed status that often places me in a situation where friends, family, co-workers and random strangers seek my consultation on any and all electronic purchases. Noticing that I often repeat my suggestions I decided it would be far easier if I discussed some basic points in my blog and then direct all queries to it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sound of my voice, but to repeat the same set of suggestions tends to become a bit annoying. In this post I will go over a few basic specifications to look out for while buying a digital camera. Please note that I am no expert but am merely giving my suggestions based on my experiences and common sense.

The first thing a camera-buying hopeful always tells me is that they want to go in for a camera they saw advertised somewhere because it has 10 or 12 megapixel or 5x digital zoom, or has 100MB etc. if it very easy to get caught up in marketing hype but honestly what is it most of us need from a camera.

(i) Forget Megapixel – in my experience most of us take snaps and then upload then on facebook/picasa. Occasionally we print out a few but that too only in regular postcard size or smaller. If this is true with you then what good is a 12 MP sensor? At best you will be looking at the photo on your computer monitor so technically a 2MP image would be more than sufficient. For those moments when you want to zoom/crop the image perhaps a 4MP may be more appropriate. Another issue with high MP count is the image size, it is practically impossible to send more than a handful via email and that does take a while to upload in the first place.

(ii) Forget digital zoom – digitally zooming into your subject while taking the snap will actually cause loss in detail and clarity. The greater the digital zoom, lower the quality of your image. Read the following point on optical zoom.

(iii) Ignore on-board memory – When all cameras come with memory extension card slots coupled with the low cost of high capacity SD cards, why bother with internal memory of the device. when buying your camera ask the dealer to throw in a high capacity SC card (SDHC) or just buy one separately, they are fairly cheap and make transferring your snaps a breeze. Yes – transferring your snaps. Don’t bother with the proprietary data transfer cables and clunky pc-suite shipped by the manufacturer. Once done taking snaps just pop your SD card into a card-reader (either inbuilt into your comp, or just buy one – cheap). It’s much faster and a lot more convenient.

(iv) Look for optical zoom – an extremely important specification especially if you want to get closer to your subject than physically possible. Additionally quality loss is minimal with optical zoom as opposed to digital zoom. I will not get into the details of how this is established (just wiki optical zoom, aperture and telephoto lens). Also the amount of zoom you need will factor into the type of camera you need to buy. Typical point and shoot cameras have about 3x to 5x optical zoom. Bigger-prosumer-cameras typically have mega-zoom bodies i.e. a zoom anywhere from 10x to 26x. They are usually more expensive, heavier and pack a lot more features (close to DSLR cameras in features but with a much smaller sensor and fixed lens).

(v) Battery type – most compact cameras (point-and-shoot) come with rechargeable lithium-ion batteries which are pretty good however I still prefer ones that run on standard AA size batteries. My reasons are simple – if run out of juice and don’t have my charger with me (which happens to most of us) I simply walk into any nearby store and buy regular AA batteries. If you are going in for a camera powered by regular batteries then my suggestion would be to buy a pair of NiMH (nickel-metal hydride) cells and a charger. Also go in for the highest milli-amps your camera will support. This should give you an excellent battery life and the rechargeable factor makes it cheaper in the long run.

(vi) Form-factor and size – this could be an important factor to take in to account. Many times my lady-friends would only want to carry a ridiculously slam purse (something about looks over practicality) so a boxy prosumer camera is a no go. Guys also may want to just put their camera in their pocket while going out so here again form-factor plays an important part (you would not want to be charged with conspiracy to impress women).

(vii) Online reviews – owner reviews are an excellent way to learn the pros and cons of a camera well before you buy it. One site I often visit is www.dpreview.com. It provides useful reviews on most of the popular models and allows you to generate detailed tabulated comparison of different camera models.

(viii) Other less known tech-specs to look out for are: Image stabilization – this is an extremely important feature especially if you are planning to take snaps at on a high zoom level as hand jitter is amplified through the lens and the images would turn out blurry. Look for cameras that offer dual IS (image stabilization) as only digital image stabilization is not nearly as good as optical stabilization or a combination of the two. Flash recycle time – which is the time it takes to recharge the flash between snaps; shot-to-shot time – minimum time the camera takes to capture successive snaps; flash distance – most smaller cameras only have an effective flash distance of a few meters which may not be suitable if you want to take snaps of say people in an open-air gathering.

Hope this helps you in your camera purchasing ordeal and remember the time you spend ‘researching’ for the perfect camera will greatly add to your satisfaction once you buy it. Readers are welcome to leave their suggestions on what other features buyers should look for.

Cont.. Before you begin reading this article do read part 1 and part 2, mentioned earlier in this blog.

Day two of marriage counseling began with another rant by some religious fanatic on the ‘superiority’ on this particular religion over ‘all’ others. I did not even bother listening so I have nothing much to report. The post lunch session was on the medical aspects of marriage and was conducted by lady who was a retired gynecologist by day and an aging religious fanatic by night. The old lady started by drawing the male and female genital organs on the board (did I mention how much like a classroom this was). Now one would safely assume that a room full of soon to be married people will be fully aware about their anatomy as well as the anatomy of the opposite sex. Turns out one would be wrong. Yes there were a number of people taking down notes and copying the drawing in their books. Imaging these same losers flipping through their notes on their honeymoon to make sure they know where to put it. I mean honestly where do they find these people.

On completion of the anatomy class the next point of conversation was contraceptives and how they inspire the devil in our loins. You see boys and girls, this lady was another who subscribed to the philosophy that intercourse should only be performed in order to beget children. Therefore the act of using contraceptives was frowned upon. Now I’m not going to get into a discussion on this for I fear that there are many out there who feel the same to some capacity. Day two draw to a close.

Day three. This day was set aside for the examination of the legal aspects of marriage. Let me remind you about the environment. This was a claustrophobic room filled with about a hundred conventional couples (here conventional means male-female and no other combination). Bering that in mind this senior preacher in the religious institute decided to lecture us for about two and a half hours on the ‘evils’ of homosexuality. WFT, where’s the relevance you are. None whatsoever would be the response. This old fart went on forever on how the ‘love of a man should not be expressed to another man’ bla bla bla. Then he opened a scrapbook with newspaper clippings of various articles of homosexual-phobia and started reading each one out. If this was not painful enough he started telling us how societies abroad have brought in homosexuality to this country (which is a load of rubbish) and how legalizing such ‘unnatural’ activities will lead to the ultimate degradation of our society (more rubbish). Did I mention how much I hate bigots, religious bigots even more so. Some the guys priceless statements were – “mans inclination towards another man is accidental, it is abnormal. If it happens then the institute of marriage will be in the dustbin”. Another rather vague statement went along as follows- “the whole of life should not have any reserved places. It should remain open”. Now I’m not quite sure what the message was but I am assuming the word being spoken of was whole (i.e. with a ‘w’) and not hole coz then its just nasty. Some more random statements are to follow.

“marriage and only marriage allows the procreation of sess (sex) and sess should only be done to beget children. In that was we differ from animals.” (not really, if you think about it, I mean how many monkeys do you know if that wear a condom or dogs that go on the pill to avoid an unplanned pregnancy).

“Exchange of sexual love atleast once after mutual consent will ratify the marriage”. Gotta love theological terms, they’re just so clinical you cant take them seriously. So finally we draw to an end on the last day of marriage counseling and I have to admit, it was worse than I thought. My strong advice to all those on the verge of getting married, don’t do it man.. life is too beautiful to throw it away .. on marriage counseling.

Cont.. Before you begin reading this article do read part 1, mentioned earlier in this blog.

Day one of the counseling class began with the religious aspects of marriage. This was a FOUR HOUR lecture about the origin and evolution of … Religion!!! What nothing bout marriage, nope.. religion and a particular sect of religion, its merits over other ‘lesser religions’ and so on. This greatly irritated me on two counts. (i) this had absolutely no relevance to marriage but just appeared to be a pretext to preach, and (ii) it was wasting a perfectly good Saturday morning attending marriage counseling (this is an underlying theme of my rant throughout this post). My girlfriend had put her head on my shoulder and had long since drifted off into a world far more pleasant that the one I currently occupied. I on the other hand was unable to fall asleep. Perhaps it was the old man’s droning voice or the heat from a room packed with 200 people or the fact that I was ‘a perfectly good Saturday morning attending marriage counseling’.

After much pleading the guy let us off for a quick lunch. The girlfriend and I were strongly considering not coming back but assuming that it could not get much worse we decided to return. Big mistake. The post lunch session was on the psychology of marriage. Here a short balding man attempted to tell us that marriage will fuck you up emotionally but its worth is coz you get to have kids. (Not exactly the best sales pitch but I do give him credit for trying). The disturbing part was when he started telling us how his wedding night went. Now I’m sure the guy was quite excited bout finally losing his virginity but honestly we were not the least bit interested in how it went. I’m not going to get into details because frankly I don’t hate you so much. The summary of the lecture was that psychologically we NEED to get married else we cannot satisfy our sexual (or as he put it sesual) desires. The man refused to acknowledge that sex without marriage even exists. Finally after much argument he said that ‘sess’ could be ‘purchased’ but that is lust.

After that ‘hot’ debate he went on to tell us how he is a famous (if not modest) psychologist and how we should go to him when we have marriage problems. Now logically if he did his job right the first time we would not have any psychological marriage problems in the first place and secondly if we did have psychological problems with marriage then why would we go to someone who did not help us in the first place. But then again this is marriage counseling (on a perfectly good weekend I might add) so logic ceases to exist. To sum up this weirdo’s ‘teachings’ its something along these lines- “one must keep things exciting, try different ‘techniques’… like buying jasmine flowers for the hair; take bath together on one bathroom, bite, nibble but don’t cause physical pain” (yes that was randomly mentioned) and was followed by an awkward silence. Eventually this ended bringing day one to a much deserved end.

Cont. Part three. – Medical aspect of marriage and Legal aspects of marriage.

We had a plan, we would go late.. Really late. That way we would reduce the ill effects of this prolonged torture. The torture I speak of is a series of lectures spread across three days that purportedly prepare one for wedlock. There goes two perfectly good weekends that I’ll never get back. Now these are not just any ordinary lectures, no, that would be bearable. These were the most incredibly boring, highly annoying, ridiculously redundant one-sided discussions about the ‘gift’ of marriage. The end result of which had a fair number of us re-considering our decision of taking the plunge. Yes I am talking about the dreaded Marriage Counseling.

Marriage Counseling is this strange phenomenon where unmarried virgin holy men talk at you for hours imparting what little they know about marriage, sex, bringing up children and other significant events which are completely alien to them. Does anyone else see the irony here? Now don’t get me wrong, I am not one to shy away from ‘sex talk’ however when the ones spearheading the talk are:- (i) a short balding troll, (ii) a priest with a superiority complex (iii) and a frail old lady, things start to get a bit awkward. Added to that was a room full of about a hundred enthusiastic young couples diligently taking down notes like their life depended on it.

The first day of ‘marriage-prep’ boot camp began with the religious aspect of marriage. Apparently a number of marriages breakup because the woman claim to have found god and the men realize its not them. Moving on, the guy talks endlessly about religion, how one particular religion is better than another, how he has been studying religion for many years. How his religion was blab la bla. (Sorry folks, I fell unconscious by this point). When I woke up, which was a good one hour later, the man was still at it trying to preach rather that teach. Frankly it made me a bit sick. I’m not a religious man but I think its important to respect others religious beliefs. I just cant bring myself to respect someone who cant respect another’s religious beliefs any tries to portray his as superior. Anyway I’m drifting so back to the story.

The course was split into four major sections:-

(i) The religious part of marriage

(ii) The psychological effect of marriage

(iii) The medical aspect of marriage

(iv) The legal aspects of marriage

The entire session was spread across three full days of mindless boredom. For the sake of sanity I decided to split this article into two parts. The first (i.e. this one) provides the back-story, brief overview and structure of events to follow. The next part will highlight some of the key learning’s of the counseling sessions and would conclude with my take on the whole affair. So watch this space.

Before I begin let me tell you that I am much the mobile geek (and many a fried will testify to that). I have always had pretty high end phones and spent many hours installing third-party apps to extend their functionality. I always considered those owing a non-smart phone as lesser mortals. How ironic life be.. To my horror my current place of work does not allow camera phones in the facility. After fruitlessly trying to fight against the system I finally gave in and decided to buy a (dare I say it) camera less phone.

Now seeing as there is a wide diversity of mobile phones available in today’s marketplace I was sure to find some decent smart phone without a camera. Boy was I wrong! Not only are there no new camera-free smart phones but even the decent midrange feature phones all feature cameras. To make maters even worse, most of the budget phones also had a camera on board (albeit a rather low quality one but a camera nevertheless). I was faced with two choices, (i) either succumb to my situation and use an absolute base of the pyramid mobile one twentieth the cost of my current phone or (ii) return to the dark ages where people did not have mobile phones.

Unwilling to do either I decided to use my research skills to scour the virtual globe for any last remaining vestiges of camera-free smart phones. My extensive research led me to three devices which fit the bill of being fairly intelligent devices minus a camera. The phones were :- 

1) The Sony Ericsson W950

2) The Sony Ericsson G700 business edition

3) The Blackberry 88xx series

Device comparison:-

The SE W950 was, in my opinion, was the best looking phone of the lot. It was compact and was said to have good sound quality (after swapping the headphones) and had a touchscreen. The drawbacks of the device were its less than average keypad (practically no tactile feedback), no extendable memory (fixed 4GB flash drive), below average battery and a few software issues here and there.

The SE G700 business edition is essentially the same G700 without a camera. On paper it looked ideal. It was compact, had a good keypad and fairly good touchscreen. In terms of audio quality it was said to be on par with other sony ericsson phones. The drawback was that is I did not care for the looks and the battery life was less than acceptable.

The Blackberry 8800 was one of the most popular BBs in its day however now it’s pretty hard to come by. The phone has a very good battery life, typical blackberry form factor, good screen and best of all the ability to use blackberry connect. The drawbacks of this phone are its size and limited support for third party games (yes I am a child). Apparently the device does have pretty good audio quality however one would need to swap the supplied headphones for more powerful ones (not to mention to 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter).

With my new found knowledge I set out look for these devices and not the quest really gets difficult. You see, all the above mentioned phones have been discontinued and are no longer available in the market. I will have to find working second-hand devices or tap various retailers to in-turn search the grey market for these devices. I even spoke to one dealer who said he’ll try and have one shipped from the Gulf if nothing comes up here.

I still have not decided on which phone to opt for as it also depends on what price they are quoted at. By my estimates they all should be around the same price but finding them would be the hard part. So fingers crossed… lets see how this goes. In the mean time feel free to post any suggestions you may have, I’d be happy to get someone else’s opinion.

Cheers

Prithvi