Nokia N95 (Phone Review)

This has without doubt been Nokia’s most anticipated phone model after it was unveiled in September 2006 and after using the phone you would realize why. This Symbian S60 3rd edition phone has almost everything that today’s mobile phone technology can offer.


Design

The innovative two-way slider design allows you to slide the front cover up as well as down to reveal two different sides of this power-packed phone. Sliding it up exposes the alphanumeric keypad and sliding it down, you will be presented with the multimedia controls. This dual functionality is useful but the front cover that houses the screen feels rickety while moving and may also move when you don’t want it to.
As Nokia’s TV commercial says that the phone is “not one thing but many”, its thickness is definitely not equal to that of “one” usual phone but “many”. It is one of the thickest modern phones without a QWERTY. But consider all it does, and the fact that it’s still pocketable and weighs only 4.2 ounces, and you can over look its 0.8 inch thickness.
It is comfortable typing on the spacious alphanumeric keypad but the media control buttons are a bit hard to press.


Features and Performance

As has been mentioned before but will continue to be mentioned by all reviewers of this phone, the features are more than what a regular user can ask for. To begin with is the GPS and the mapping application that bring this phone on par with the best GPS phones in the market yet. You can get color maps, route planning, and a healthy points-of-interest database. There's also a trip computer that shows you information about the total distance, time, average speed, and so forth. However, it takes quite a while to get a satellite fix and to get any kind of turn-by-turn directions, you'll have to download an upgrade to the device that costs an additional $91.93 for a one-year license or $11.81 for a month. Other wireless options include an IR port, Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Apart from these, there’s support for HSDPA/WCDMA 2100 band and 3G.
The speakers are quite loud for a device this size and the music player has support for MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+/WMA/M4A (unfortunately no luck playing protected tracks from iTunes). Audio player also includes FM stereo. Video player supports MPEG-4, H.264/AVC, H.263/3GPP, RealVideo 8/9/10.
Last but not least, the N95 is powered by Symbian S60 3rd Edition which is an incredibly versatile mobile operating system with a resource rich community allowing power users to tailor their handset to their specific needs. However, like in all S60 phones, the OS lags. Wether Nokia is to blame or Symbian has long been a debatable issue but that doesn’t matter here as the phone is no doubt sluggish for the price you pay for it. Other features include a speakerphone, speed dial, conference calling, voice-command support, a vibrate mode, and text and multimedia messaging. A drawback of all these power features is that the battery life is not that of a globetrotter but nightly charges will get you through the day. However, we were hoping for a battery life that’ll push the ceiling with this much-awaited phone.


Imaging

The shutter lag is horrendous, but after all, it's a 5mp camera with a Carl Zeiss 2.8/5.6 auto-focusing lens in a phone!! There are great customizing options like white balance, ISO light sensitivity, tones, exposure adjustment, cropping and red eye reduction -almost like an actual 5mp camera. The focal length is 5.6 mm and the macro focus distance is 10-50 cm. The video comes in at 640 by 480 at 30fps.. Not shabby. The pictures boasted vibrant colors and sharp lines and edges, and unlike some smart phones, the N95 didn't require you to have a super steady hand to get a clear shot. So the pictures are as good as expected from a 5mp camera except for a little level of grain bringing the camera rating to a 7 out of 10.


To sum it all up, the N95 is the most powerful phone out of all the N-series’ handsets till date but has a decent number of cons which are not expected from a phone nearly the price of a laptop.

Sony Ericsson W700i (Phone Review)

The first look at the Sony Ericsson w700i and you would mistake it for a w800i covered in gold. But you are not to be blamed and neither are the designers at Sony Ericsson because after all, how can one improve beyond perfection?
Although the W700i lacks the auto-focus feature of its immensely popular predecessor w800i and comes bundled with a 256 MB Pro Duo memory stick (the w800 comes with a roomy 512 MB stick), these factors are compensated for, by the titanium-gold body and the interesting price difference.

Features and Performance
Using this phone for over a month now, am bowled over by the “Walkman” efficacy and reliability of this phone. It can function as a standalone MP3 player with the phone turned off .Not only does it have a decent battery support of over 20 hours of music playback, the sound quality that the bundled ear buds provide is superb. Bass was rich and undistorted, even at high volume. There is also the Sony’s “MegaBass” mode for an enhanced music experience .Moreover, the ear buds are specially designed to shut out background noise. The in-built speakerphone may not be loud enough (like the much cheaper w550 or some models by different brands), but provides good sound-quality which is only better than that provided by the speakerphones of other brands' phones in the same (or even a little higher) price strata. Adding to the user-friendly interface is the ‘play/pause' and the 'volume' button on the left and right side, respectively. A "Walkman" button between the soft keys takes you directly to the "Walkman" media player that plays 3Gp video files as well. An interesting use of these buttons was that I was able to play and change saved tracks even while playing a game (without sound of course). Beat that! To add to the music functionality, the ear bud connectivity cable also includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack so you can attach your regular pair of stereo headphones or even your PC/Stereo speakers. Also, the music buttons on the sides can be used with the keypad lock on, if you have the cable connected. This feature turned out quite handy as I was able to change tracks and the headphone volume without taking the phone out of my pocket and without worrying about any key being pressed accidentally. On receiving a call, the music pauses and resumes afterwards on its own. The multimedia features include an FM radio; DJ software to play around with your photos, videos and audio files; and a voice recorder.

Imaging
Turn the phone on one of its side and it becomes a 2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. The flash is quite powerful and useful as indoor images often lack lighting even with the night mode on. Outdoor images turned out decent enough though the camera doesn’t allow zoom when the picture size is maximum (1600x1200). So, on the camera front, the phone is just average (greatly because of the absence of auto-focus).

Design
Moving onto the design...the titanium gold-silver combination makes it an eye-candy for many but the cheap stainless steel surrounding the back-camera loses its paint soon and spoils the look. The designers at SE could have used an alternate material like the one that runs along the edges. Alternatively, they could have hidden the camera behind a cover or in a depression rather than keeping it protruding in the rear which makes the tear-away process only faster.

Overall, this phone is a great buy if you can give up auto-focus for the bounty of Sony's prestigious "Walkman" trademark with the Midas look and Sony Ericsson durability.

Orginally written on Fri, 22 Jun 2007

Babel (2006) (Movie Review)

Reaching five minutes late to the theatre , i asked a teenage guy sitting next to me about what i had missed and he told me after a one-second thought , "Nothing so far" . That sounded only a bit reassuring as i watched a character walking through the Moroccan desert to sell his rifle . But as the movie moved on , i got more engrossed in it and realised that director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu had again skillfully played with multiple story lines ( "21 grams" in 2003) and time frames to bring out the basic human emotions that people from four different countries experience being part of totally different cultures .
In Morocco, Yusef (Boubker Ait El Caid) and Ahmed (Said Tarchani) have just been given a new rifle to help kill jackals praying on their families' goats. In trying to understand the weapons firing capabilities, they innocently shoot at a tour bus.On that bus, American tourist Susan (Cate Blanchett) is hit by the bullet and injured. Her husband Richard (Brad Pitt) attempts to get help for her, while in America, their nanny Amelia (Adriana Barraza) is watching their kids, but wants to go to her son's wedding in Mexico. Finally, in Japan, schoolgirl Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi)wants attention from men, but sadly is a deaf mute.
I read a critic's comments on a popular movie-review site saying that the "the Japanese story just feels totally out of place" but i believe it makes a lot of sense as it brings out a totally different aspect of human emotions that the Japanese schoolgirl experiences due to her unfortunate inabilties .
To sum it all up , the movie is an improved version of "Crash" in the sense that it spans over different cultures and places across the globe with a more realistic understanding of human emotions and events affecting them . Worth mentioning is the excellent background music and cinematography .