Archive for the ‘gadgets’ Category

Nate Lanxon over at Wired (UK) put forward his case for why the Nokia 3210 is the greatest mobile phone ever made. Many of his points about the 3210 certainly are valid and point to flaws in the current range of handsets by many manufacturers, Nokia included.

I personally don’t agree with Nate that those factors made the 3210 the world’s best handset. At the time when Nate was rocking a 3210 I was a dedicated Ericsson customer having first used an Ericsson EH 237 back in 1994. Their handsets had a superior build quality, usually based around a magnesium alloy chassis (apart from a PF768 I had in grey plastic) and an operating system that allowed you to modify your phone to your hearts content. I remember programming in The Prodigy’s No Good Start The Dance as my ringtone on an Ericsson I888 using a list of numbers I had found online.

The phones were also able to be accessorised with with high capacity batteries and offered early data connections via IrDA, ideal for my Palm PDA at the time. Ericsson also managed to do a decent vibration alert which served as an effective under-pillow alarm clock.

My last and best Ericsson phone was the T39. At 86 grams, the smallest lightest phone I have carried. It came with the slim and fat batteries, the fat battery providing a good weeks charge and was one of the first mainstream phones that allowed you to roam effortlessly. My previous I888 and T28 world handsets only allowed you to roam on 900 GSM networks in Europe and 1900 GSM in the US. Whilst it was small it didn’t skimp on features such as Bluetooth and voice-operated commands.

I would argue that for me the Ericsson T39 handset was the best mobile phone ever made. However I am willing to concede that at least one Nokia model could contest this. The merger between Ericsson and Sony brought about some mediocre product design: a trend that has continued to this day in terms of their industrial design if not their software on many of their models.

So I branched out to a Nokia 6310i. The Nokia 6310i has been popular with road warriors for a long time. It is robust, has a ridiculiously long battery life and was the acme of user experience design in the menu system. Because of its popularity, an eco-system has built up around accessories for the 6310i and refurbishment since Nokia no longer makes the phone. This was cross-posted from my personal blog.

Arun Sudhaman at PR Week contacted me last week with some questions on the communications challenges around the launch of Google’s Nexus One, the company’s first smartphone. He’s written an article on this topic in this week’s issue, which includes comment from other PRs.

Arun’s interest was raised by the initially cool reaction from the analyst community. This often happens when a product launches after months – or in this case years – of speculation. With pent-up expectation in the market, however great the eventual product turns out to be, there are commentators who write about how it could have been just a little bit better. When this happens, monitoring of initial reaction is crucial. The communications programme must adapt quickly and address any misconceptions that can quickly spread and threaten product adoption.

The Google brand is now embedded in our daily lives and, for most people, means more than just search. Translating the brand into a physical product-in-your-pocket is something new and potentially risky for the company. It will have to quickly develop competency in consumer hardware communications and manage the huge global interest in its new strategy. Initial media coverage has concentrated on the handset itself. The first challenge is to communicate the benefits beyond a shiny new mobile phone and get the media to focus on the power of the underlying Android platform and associated apps.

Google still has a lot to prove. If it gets things right (and Google isn’t used to failing), it has a huge opportunity to grow a new hardware business to complement its online products. One thing is certain, the battle of the smartphone platforms has only just started.

Mr. S Claus

The Grotto

Lapland

11 November 2008

Dear Santa,

You haven’t heard from me for a while but I felt compelled to write to you this year. I’m probably a bit too old to be on your lists these days but if you read blogs or are on Twitter (@santaclaus) then these are my top five tech Christmas presents for 2008. Bar a few isolated incidents I’ve been good, but I don’t want to be greedy so any one of these gorgeous gadgets would suffice.

Thanks,Paul

1) G1/Android/Google Phone – call it what you want, but I HAVE to have one of these in my life soon. I’m a long-term admirer of HTC handsets and when you put that together with Google’s software it becomes essential. What really makes it stand out is the dizzying array of applications available at the Android Market In your face iPhone!

2) Guitar Hero: World Tour – don’t get me wrong, I do love scrabble, monopoly, pictionary and charades….but not as much as I am going to love this. For anyone that has ever strummed a tennis racket, sung into a beer bottle or been in rubbish bands in their teens (I’m guilty of all three) this is a Christmas essential. The gameplay has moved on, the setlist is the best yet and it is set to have families rockin’ this Christmas.

3) The Flip – as with many things in life, the simplest things are often the greatest and the Flip certainly falls into this category. It looks amazing, your gran could use it and it is perfect for sending video Christmas cards to faraway friends and family this Christmas. Is it the easiest-to-use gadget ever? Quite possibly.

4) Knight Rider GPS – I’m not quite sure why it took so long for someone to think of this but I’m glad they got there in the end. This Mio GPS comes with ACTUAL voice of K.I.T.T. so is a must for any children of the Eighties. Driving in London can be an intensely frustrating experience but the soothing tones of K.I.T.T. would certainly take the edge off negotiating Streatham High Road for me.

5) Sony Reader – I know opinion is divided on these, with many book traditionalists seeing them as the devil’s work. But I’m a fan. There are several on the market and this is my favourite. It comes pre-loaded with 100 classic books and is the perfect way to unwind in the post-Christmas Day lull.