Tecfre.com has undergone numerous redesigns, the latest being an year back. However, no matter how well I conceptualize the design in my mind, I was never able to give it a reality. So this time I decided to let the experts do the design while I sit back and completely energize myself to take tecfre.com to new heights. Arpit has really gone a great job with the design.

With so many upcoming events this month, there couldn’t been a better time to be back. The biggest of them are the new iPhone launch on Oct 4th and  Nokia World by the end of the month.

So lets get going ..

Please do leave a feedback below,  if you would like to say a “Hi” , or any feedback related to the blog , or any suggestion as such.

I will be covering more about Nokia N8 in coming days. So stay tuned .

The N life magazine

AIKON stores ( Nokia spelled backwards) are the official Nokia stores in UAE. N Life is a magazine that focuses on your needs and requests with information regarding new products,promotions, exclusive offers, features, training tips and much more. This 24 paged magazine is designed magnificently and the it contains great amount of details regarding the latest smartphone offering by Nokia.

They even featured a tweet of yours truly

You can grab a copy of N life magazine in one of the following way

• Visit a Nokia UAE’s official store and pick one up for yourself.
• Visit Nokia UAE’s facebook page and download it.
• Click the scribd link and get it yourself in a pdf format.

Nokia N8 vs Nokia C7

As you can notice the price difference is not that much between N8 and C7. Nokia N8 sports 12 mp autofocus camera whereas Nokia C7 sports a 8mp fixed focus camera. For me camera is very important, so I have decided on Nokia N8. If you still want to a side by comparison( courtesy GSMarena ), here is what they have to offer : (click image to expand)

Decided ? Then let me know your choice in comments

Now worry not. SPB TV has gone FREE for all Windows , Symbian , iPhone and WebOS devices. SPB TV is a revolutionary app which provide nearly 100 channels , subscription free. Major features include

• A wide selection of public TV channels
• Quick channel preview
• Integrated TV guide
• Quick channel selection
• Channels from more than 17 countries

WEB TV was one of buzz word attached to Nokia N8 and best of all, it was absolutely FREE. SPB TV,now free, used to sell for around USD 9.95 before. I tried it on Nokia N97 but surprisingly the overall experience was not that much pleasant. I have a 8mbps internet connection from Etisalat and still the broadcast playback was not at all smooth. Some channels wont play at all, and some will stop in between. Check out the video below.

SPB TV Official Video

SPB TV is available in OVI store and Apple store for Free. You can also download it from SPB website. Leave your feedback in the comment section below.

Combining stainless steel and glass in a sleek, full touch design, the Nokia C7 features a 3.5 inch AMOLD display and looks absolutely stunning! The estimated retail price of the Nokia C7 is EUR 335 before applicable taxes or subsidies, with pricing and availability varying from region to region, operator to operator.

Nokia C7 has industry class design and comes loaded with 8 MP camera with HD video recording. Nokia mentioned that the devices announced in Nokia world 2010 will be available by end of the year. With the numerous delay in launch of Nokia N8 and as per Nokia’s philosophy, everyone expected that these devices will start shipping in last week of December 2010 and available in retail outlets by 31st December 2010 ( hence letting Nokia keep the promise of making devices available before end of 2010).

With such an early release of Nokia C7, it makes us believe that Nokia was simultaneously working on C7 along with N8. Also, it has given consumers a power of choice between Nokia N8 and Nokia C7. With Symbian^3 fully complete we will surely see that Nokia is now going to flood the market with Symbian^3 devices. The decreasing delta between announcing the device and making it available to consumer is 100% in favor of Nokia. If Nokia is able to sustain this, then time is not far when we will see Nokia again at the top of the smartphone market.

Nokia C7 Video

I am still waiting for Nokia N8, and will always prefer it over C7. What about you ?

What’s in the box ?

Nokia E5 comes in an all dark blue color box, which now seems to be a Nokia standard. We have seen the latest Nokia N8, C6  and touch and type phones being shipped in the same color box. The packaging is standard and you will find the following in the box:

• Nokia Wall Charger
• Wired Stereo Headset
• Nokia branded Mini Usb data cable
• Handset and Ovi quick start guide
• Warranty card

The content of the package may also depend on your local market.

The Hardware

Nokia E5 comes with 600 MHZ ARM 11 processor, Symbian OS v9.3, Series 60 rel. 3.2 . It has 250MB of internal memory and 256MB ram, which really makes it really snappy during usage. Nokia is known to make great hardware and E5 is no exception. The build quality is excellent and the phone feel really good at hand with no slippery surface.

The front panel

As you can see the front panel is finally very clean compared to Nokia’s older E series phones like E71, E63, E72 etc. The screen size is 2.36” with a resolution of 320px X 240px. I have been using a Nokia N97 and hence the screen size is really small to my likes. Below the screen you have left and right menu keys. Same metal piece form Call and End call key ( which is also used to turn on the phone ). Home and Messaging button are soft press button which is really neat. The keypad is made up of cheap plastic and give a queaky sound when you rub your fingers on it. The keys are small and the keypad take some time in getting used to. I have fat fingers so many times I ended up pressing two keys simultaneously. Once you get used to it, I don’t think it will be much of a problem.

The D pad was bit a disappointment for me, I was expecting it to be a touchpad as seen in E72, even I spent some time hunting for the settings thinking that touch pad might be turned off or so. The directional D pad is little hard to press when trying it with one hand while navigating numerous menus. I really wonder why Nokia decided the other way after the same was implemented in E72. I do keep swiping my thumb over the D pad thinking how awesome it would have been if it was implemented here. However, if you have not used an E72 before, you wont miss it anyways.

The second disappointment is the missing secondary camera. Considering the fact that this is a 3G phone, I was expecting a secondary camera for Video calls over 3G network , or via an IM app like Fring or talkonaut. I actually interpreted the light sensor in the front with the secondary camera, later realizing its absence.

Microphone is placed just below the spacebar.

The Sides

Nokia E5 is quite a simple phones at sides. The left side of phone is free with any buttons other than the one to open the battery cover.

The right side is has volume rocker, which can be used for zooming in an out also. This key is also little stiff and a pain to press.

Top of the phone house a micro USB port which can be used for charging the device via a PC or a compatible USB charger. Next to the microusb port there is a Nokia’s standard 2mm charging port and a 3.5mm audio headset connector.

The back panel

The back panel showcase a fixed focus 5megapixel camera with single LED flash. The photo capture is not all that great, but during optimum lighting condition the results could surprise you for sure. Next to the camera there is a loudspeaker which is very very loud and very clear. Its easily audible in a noisy environment, but I personally don’t prefer to keep the ringing volume at high level, due to the loudness. The batter cover is made up of stainless steel Nokia E5-00 engraved on it. The back feels really nice while holding the phone, and also gives it a bit of a facelift too.

Size Comparison with Nokia E63

Nokia E5 is little slimmer than Nokia E63, but lengthwise both feel almost the same. I liked the D pad of Nokia E63 much better than E5, which is way softer than E5 for single handed use. However, the clean look of E5 wins many folds over E63. Check out the comparison shots. I thought of comparing the size with N97, but that would be  a weird comparison due to different form-factors. 

Conclusion

Nokia E72 is still costly than Nokia E5. Nokia E71 could be almost the same prize and E63 is way cheaper than E5. However, I am kind a confused about the positioning of E5. It could be said a big upgrade over E63, but missing front camera push it one step back. However, with huge internal memory , greater ram and faster processor it can very well challenge Nokia E72, but lack of touch sensitive D pad and autofocus camera again push it one step back. Having said that, I think Nokia E5 is a unique device and very rightly priced for people who are looking for cheaper blackberry alternative. The device feels premium at hand and great availability of apps via Nokia ovi store is always an add on.

In the next part we will review the software part of E5.

Nokia E5 video

So if you are planning to buy a Nokia E5 and still have any doubt, do leave your questions or feedback in comments and I will try to answer all of them.

Earlier this August, whole UAE business user circle went under a shock when TRA announced that Blackberry services will be suspended from 11th October 2010, even for the people who are travelling via UAE. Blackberry encrypts the data which is only decrypted at Blackberry’s Canada data server hence making it impossible for UAE authorities to monitor the content. After this announcement local mobile service providers announced lucrative alternate plans, but still blackberry users prayed for some solution to the existing Blackberry services.

So all the blackberry services which include

• BlackBerry Email
• BlackBerry web browsing
• Social networking
• Instant messaging services

will continue to function as normal.

As blackberry services survive, all the alternate plans offered by the mobile operators stand cancelled.

As mentioned before, this announcement has brought a lot of smiles and a sigh of relief to many. Are you among those happy people ?

Nokia N8 camera is the best. I said it now and am ready to say it again and again. You may say, “fine kanak but what’s the proof as I have read multiple articles and some of them say “its nothing special””?” With regards to that, let me direct you to the blind comparison test done by GSM arena.

What did they do ?

GSM arena took three cameras

1. Nokia N8

2. Samsung pixon 12

3. Sony DSC-HX5v (Cyber-shot)

and shot around 7 to 8  photos and labeled them  A,B,C without letting people know which picture is actually shot by which camera. They asked people to vote. I had a closure look at the snaps, arguably I found C to be the best. No one remember the second best, so my whole concentration was to find out the best according to me.

Now why did I say that C is the best? Have a look at the images below, ( please click on the image for better resolution ) ( for all other pictures please visit GSM Arena ).

If you look at the picture closely to the bottom right, the small green trees look more detailed in Pic C, whereas in the other two it looks smudged. Also you can easily make out the lines in the wavey white roof very easily in pic C.

Now look at this pic, just under the Donalds text, you can make out the hammered screws very clearly in Pic C.

Above two pics are low light pics at ISO 400 and ISO 800. You can very easily make out that pic C is clearly the winner.

Now these are very minute details, and can only be analyzed when the pic is zoomed to its 100% level .90% of snaps look good at very low zoom level, just like snaps look good on small camera lcd screen but turn out horrible when seen on a PC.

Results please

So, I decided my winner i.e camera C and if it was not going to be Nokia N8, the title of this post would have been other way round. I eagerly awaited the results and finally GSM arena posted the results today. First was the real identity of the camera and a sigh of relief and enormous joy, CAMERA C WAS INDEED NOKIA N8 .

Next was the people’s preference and out of around 200 votes casted , Nokia N8 grabbed the highest around 161 votes. This means that I was not alone in selecting the pics from Camera C and they were indeed, The best.

So what’s there so much in Nokia N8’s camera and why some people trashed it? The only reason I could think of was individual preferences. Some people think that their individual preference is a reflection of the actual preference of the masses which sadly is not true. They think that the more green the grass is, much better is the pic. Nokia’s imaging guru and the man behind Nokia N8’s camera , Damian Dinning has very clearly explained about individual choices of images ( via twitter @MichealxHell)  :

Ok , so N8 has clearly nailed it here, and I don’t think I am left with any doubt for not buying a Nokia N8. What about you ? Are you planning to buy a Nokia N8 ? Does these benchmark test mean anything or you still think that N8 camera is “nothing special” ?

via : Gsm arena

Update : GSM ARENA Nokia N8 preview is out. check it out here

Moving back in time, once there was a post on tecfre.com, “Get over it Google Android, You will never beat iPhone” . Fast Forward 2.5 years and here we have  statistics by Nielsen, and guess what does it reveal ? Android has finally taken over iPhone OS in US. We are so used to seeing iPhone effects , but this was certainly unexpected from Android. However Android lead is only based on past six months data and overall it is still behind iPhone OS.

Have a look at the above statistics based on recent smart phone acquirers its just so much visible that Android has banked much on Blackberry’s share.

But considering the all time OS share, Blackberry still in in lead, but the downward momentum can be clearly seen.

iPhone vs so so so many Androids

We all know there is just one iPhone but market is flooded with Android devices. But apple is also increasing the number of devices using iOS with its new iPod touch range. I dont think android will be able to keep up its pace, just for one reason that there are just too many of them and sooner or later people will start looking for alternatives. Once Nokia Meego OS option is available to public and if its as promising as it sounds right now, I am sure its going to be even tougher for android.

via: Unwired view

How busy you can be that you need a visual reminder for turning off water taps? Water is precious natural resource and  its even difficult to imagine life without it. These decorative lights looks stunning and the usage of LED lights make it more power efficient. Do you know the amount of water wasted due to running taps while brushing teeth totals around mind boggling 35000 litres per year/family. I think best place to fix these lights will be just beyond the wash basin. They come in three different styles :

• The standings
• The Chandeliers
• The wall

California-based designer Tanya Clarke is the daughter of environmental activist Tony Clarke, the author of Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water. Tanya’s own contribution to water awareness is Liquid Light – Industrial Light Installations, a series of custom-built fixtures that "create a visual reminder of the precious commodity that water is and our need to protect this natural resource.LED lights , recycled plumbing and hardware , hand sculpted glass drops and found objects are incorporated to contribute to the zero footprint movement in the form of Liquid Light."

If you buy these lights, 5% of your purchases go towards the education and action on global water justice issues.

This is not the first time such kind of industrial design has been made. In early 2007 Rafel Morgon had a similar Light Drops model as shown below.

I kinda like these designs, wonder they will be at sale in Dubai. Whats your opinion ?