May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss - my review

Arnab Roy (aka Greatbong) is a well known face in the blogsphere. His blog has won numerous awards and has been hailed 'blog of the year' twice. Now I'll be frank with you here, I was never really a fan of his blog. Never cared to subscribe.

But when the guy came up with a full fledged book, one just could not ignore him any further. Also for around 200 bucks, one couldnt really call it an expensive buy. Hence I got hold of it and gave it a read.

What did I make of it? Well honestly, the book is definitely worth a read. Definitely. Arnab has humour in his kitty and he uses that to his advantage. His writing style is casual and even though it may not be a literary work of the highest standard, it surely is something which one will treasure. While going through the first few chapters, I did feel that this was written primarily with the NRI readers in mind. But as I delved deeper I realised that it could be just as true for any Indian in any part of India. Flair is something Arnab has been gifted with and that confidence and flair shows in every page of every chapter of the book. Its not a novel as the author clearly explains. Its more of a 3rd person's view of the 80s and the 90s.

Although I found it quite readable, all the chapters werent of the same standard and my interest fluctuated wildly till I read half the pages (at which point I realised that I couldnt just throw the book away). But inspite of all that I would like to congratulate Arnab for a truly great debut. May we see much more of him in the future.

The N97 Mini - Exposed (Part 2)

(If you havent read the first part of this post, kindly go through it for a more detailed analysis)

That the N97 Mini is having a low quality battery is well known. However the thing is, the battery does get heated up pretty soon and due to the heat generated the phone body (especially the back) becomes insanely hot. A 30 min call from my friend resultedin the phone getting so hot that I had to disconnect to prevent my ears from getting burnt. Thats simply unacceptable on a 21st century device. Although heating is not an issue when one is using 2G or GPRS connections, during wifi usage the phone becomes a pressure cooker. Again, not acceptable on a device which costs around/more than $400.

I am an avid ebook-reader and I am appalled at the lack of ebook readers at the ovi store. Adobe pdf is an extrememly slow ebook reader and so is a bunch of other softwares.

All platforms have proper ebook reading softwares, Well thats what you are supposed to do if a phone with a large screen size. Now anyone please make Nokia understand this. Starving new phones of hardware resources can only erode fan bases. And thats what it needs to learn.

Thanks for reading, I'll be back with more.

The N97 Mini - Exposed (Part 1)

Starting today, I will give a detailed account of what I think of the N97 Mini, a phone which is being incredibly vigorously promoted as the next big thing by Nokia. Is the N97 Mini a good phone? Is it worth buying? I will try and put forth arguments both for and against the functionality of this device and let you decide.



1. What makes the N97 Mini special - Its probably now well known that even though Nokia manged to sell loads of N97s (the original N97), it really didnt fare well among users. Be it the less than sufficient processing capabilities, the 128MB RAM on a high end device, or the camera lens cover which actually ended up scratching the lens instead of protecting it. There was widespread outrage among users, many of whom had expressed it publicly on the web. It goes without saying that the N97 was terrible PR for Nokia, till then considered an innovative company at the helm of introducing ultra modern technologies to smart phones. The Symbian^1 which was then touted as the next big thing didnt help matter either. It reminded most people of their old S60 v2 and v3 phones and the UI was boring to say the least. Nokia had to do something to spice things up and restore 'order', releasing innumerable patches and updates for the N97 didnt work, and so it did the next best thing, reduced the memory and the size of the phone, packed in a weaker battery (1200mAh compared to N97's 1500mAh) and termed it the new N97 Mini. However it did something positive as well, it improved the build quality of the phone and made it look classier. Or so I thought.




2. Okay, but why does it suck then - Hey wait, I didnt tell you it sucks, not yet. Anyway, lets look at the context of the mobile phone arena and then compare N97 Mini's specs. The iPhone 3GS had been released and another iPhone was on its way which was supposed to have a huge amount of RAM and improved processing speeds. Google had released Nexus One armed with 1Ghz processor and an equally powerful RAM. And there was Nokia who was content with giving customers what they thought was the best deal possible, a 434Mhz processor and 128MB RAM in an attempt to compete. Spare me a second while I enjoy a hearty laugh. It had the same dated unusable insanely unprofessional looking (everything is being compared to iOS and Android here) and unevolving Symbian^1. And the price? Quoted price on most Nokia ads in India was/is Rs. 21000 (more than $400). I was one of the few who got mesmeried by the Nokia story (mainly because I had been a satisfied Nokia user till then). I decided to buy the Nokia argument of it being a better device. A decision which would come back and haunt me every single day henceforth.



When I first got my N97 Mini, I was really happy! The white phone looked beautiful and so did the keypad. I loved typing using the QWERTY and the phone soon became my treasured possession. I then started to put the device to the test and see if I could really be 'at one' with it. Shocks after shocks after shocks followed. It was soon clear to me that something was wrong, very wrong.



The phone wasnt lasting long enough, even on normal regular use which included listening to songs, browsing, using wifi to stream music and of course making calls it was hard to make the phone last more than 8 hours. In a bid to improve battery life and performance I changed from a snazzy looking theme to a toned down almost mellow inbuilt theme for my phone. Widgets, something of a huge USP for Nokia, had to be turned off, at least the online ones or else they would consume power and diminish battery life further. I had to reduce calls, reduce internet access and wifi usage to a minimum especially when I ventured outdoors without a charging cable in my bag. Yeah I know what you might be thinking, how was I supposed to use the phone without those features, well it seems Nokia cares little for its 'valued' customers and the sole reason for this uber crap battery life was nothing other than the underpowered 1200mAh battery. And that was just the start. Symbian^1 sucks just as much today as it did when the N97 Mini came out. The UI is outstandingly boring. You would need pure talent to create a boring UI like that. Well, at least they could have copied Apple or Android! That would have resulted in a better looking OS! Anyway. Next came the hardware which was so insanely dated that I could imagine my father getting this phone on his first mararige anniversary! Nokia has a strange fascination with dated hardware, it perhaps stems from a monopolistic attitude it has developed over the years being the no 1 smartphone manufacturer. Its like the company is telling its customers "haha you moron, this is what you deserve, cry as much as you want to, I wont give you a better device." Of course Nokia didnt say this, but frankly as a customer who had bought a new N97 Mini this is what I felt. The application manager constantly keeps crashing and notifying me to close running apps when no apps are running. Multitasking is a pain thanks to the incapable processor and RAM.




And then came the ovi store. What the **** is that? Well its an app store. You mean like an Apple App Store? Yeah, kind of. Are you sh*tting me? Ovi and Apple? That is like the biggest baddest saddest and poorest joke ever! The ovi store is so starved of apps that in a bid to create proper ones, Nokia introduced an App wizard for non programmers! Yeah you heard me right. Well that did help increase the number of apps but what that made the ovi store was an absolute piece of junk. Whenever I see apps mentioned on sites on the web, I'm pretty certain that its either for the iPhone or for Android. I mean there is no proper pdf file reader for symbian platforms! Adobe reader is almost unusable and so are many others. Its a pain to read pdf documents on the N97 unless you have hundreds of hours to spare waiting for pages to load.




I will be posting more such reality checks soon. I have been CHEATED, DUPED AND MISGUIDED by the company I once was a fan of. I know I have been rude at places in this post, but hey, I have spent my money (and a huuge amount of it) on the phone and I have not been delivered what I was promised. I have the right to complain and let others know what they are signing up for when they buy a N97 Mini. Stay away from fanboys, do your research well, especially before you buy a Nokia.

Take care folks, and thank you so much for reading. I'll be back with more soon.

Make the N97 Mini battery last longer

Its an open secret that the N97 Mini battery sucks ass. Its terrible to say the least, completely unworthy of the 'N' series tag. A 1200mAh battery is completely insufficient to run a Symbian^1 OS. Anyway, all curses and slangs aside, here are a few ways you can make your N97 Mini battery last longer:

1. Remove all online widgets: Yes I know that sucks and that Nokia has always proudly advertised widgets one of the strong points of the newer N-series devices, but fact is given the less than standard battery quality of the N97 Mini, you'll have to live without these online widgets. In short make your phone look naked, like this:



2. Make changes to the Display settings: This might inconvenience a lot of people but this has to be done. Change your display settings to as minimalistic as it can get. Something like this is less than tolerable but will make your phone last about 6-8 hours (thats a long time for the N97 Mini actually as you'll discover later in the post).



3. Switch off all connectivity options when not in use: This applies to Bluetooth, WAP services, 3G as well as WiFi. All of these draw insane amount of power from the battery. Remember this, if you switch on the WiFi on your phone manually, you'll have to switch it off manually as well, it wont disconnect automatically. In short, remember to disconnect WiFi on your device as soon as you're done. I had unknowingly used an online music streaming client for around 2 hrs and the battery drained to level zero in 2 hrs flat.

(Just for your info, WiFi connectivity is indicated by a small symbol on the top right corner of your N97 Mini display:



WAP/3G connectivity is indicated by another small symbol on the top left corner:



So make sure you aren't leaving these in their "on" state when you're done. I wont talk about GPS here since the N97 Mini does not come with a free GPS package, no sir, not even for a month. And since GPS rates in India are almost worth a new iPhone, I havent tried it out. But I believe the same rule of switch it off when not in use applies to it as well.

Oh wait, I almost forgot, using the WiFi for a long time, well 2 hours is all it can run anyway, makes the device suffer from SERIOUS heating issues. So make sure you have ice cold water near you just in case when you switch WiFi on)

3. Dont leave any games open: I know the N97 Mini does multitasking but its useless coz of the battery that has been packed in it. The N97 Mini seems to be screaming for more power and Nokia seems to have turned a deaf ear to all its cries. Anyway, if you're into multitasking, make sure you're multitasking with simple stuff like say, a music app and a calendar. Dont try multitasking with a game and a web browser or youtube app. The you're gonna be pretty much in for a rough ride. So, if you leave any games running in the background, you can be sure that the next time you look at your phone, it will have run out of power and switched itself off.

4. Dont run constantly updating online apps for more than 5-10 mins at a time: This applies to Twitter clients like Gravity and Snaptu. If you're using these apps, dont leave them running for hours. That way, you can be pretty sure of immense power wastage. I fell asleep the other day for around an hour or so and had left gravity running, to my utter shock when I woke up, the battery was nearly dead by then.

So, in conclusion what can I say?

Well lets say the N97 Mini looks better and performs better when its switched off.

Make sure you take utmost care of the device when its on, or else....bleeeeeeeeeeeep.

Macro Photography on N97 Mini

Surely everything about the N97 Mini cant be bad. Hence, I wanted to give a shot at perhaps the only positive thing on that phone, its camera. The phone has a 5 Megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss Lens with dual LED flash. Although the flash is less than satisfactory in case of night photography, the lens however is indeed a revelation, especially when it comes to macro shots (aka close up shots).

First up, the settings. I changed them to Close up and turned the Flash Off.






Here are a few macro images I shot with the N97 Mini (the pic following each of them, indicates detailed info about the shot and the lens used):

IMAGE 1:





IMAGE 2:





IMAGE 3:





IMAGE 4:





Tell me what you think of it.