Symbiosis60

So it's just a little over six minutes left. Flickr's from Stefan, Mark and Jeremiah are already filled with photos from the Nokia house. What will it be?? Of Course... N82. A Beauty is the word to describe it. From the way it looks the device appears like a kick ass business oriented phone but with features that will satisfy every geek..and Harajuku girls and Hello Kitty barring teens. The pressure is going up. So I'm off to the official unveiling (virtual). Will be back with more.

So the launch was a bit confusing. It looks like it worked only in Internet Explorer the way it's supposed to. None the less the chat with Nokia Product Managers was quite interesting. It really does seem that N82 is targeted as the picture taking device even though it has exactly same features as the Music / Multimedia oriented N95..but in a different form factor. From the chat and the comments from Stefan and Mark it appears that the device is built really well. No creaking sounds like on some phones. As much as I love the sliding form factor of N95, this is yet another "moving" part which has the potential to wear out. This is not the case on N82 - no moving parts - just a solid block.

At this point N82 is only available as UMTS 2100 Device so it won't work in the US on ANY 3G network. The fastest you will get is EDGE speeds on T-Mobile or at&t. Unfortunately I did not receive response to my question whether it will be announced for the US market any time soon. As I said earlier...as much as I like this device I think I will hold off for two to three months and see if there will be a US version on the horizon. T-Mobile is being held ransom by LAZY US government and their bureaucracy and the general laziness to vacate the spectrum T-Mobile bought during the Advanced Wireless Spectrum auction (AWS) which prevents them from flipping the on switch to their 3G network. Maybe then Nokia will pay more attention to the US Market if we will have more than one network....
Back to N82... I also asked Nokia Product Managers about the camera lag. Stefan and Mark again jumped in and said it was GREATLY improved over N95. I think this was a MUST-DO thing.. With LED flash the phone can turn on the LED lamp and let it blind people for 4-5 seconds which can allow for camera shutter lag. In Xenon flash case this would not work. Xenon flash flashes light for only a fraction of the second but with MUCH higher intensity therefore the shutter has only so much time to capture that light and make the picture look right. To put it easier.. in LED based flash the LED light waits for the shutter. In Xenon case the shutter waits for the Light source form the Xenon bulb - opposite set up. Thank God because of this implementation now we have a REAL camera for taking Good photos. Go to Mark's photo stream to look at some of the pics taken with N82. I especially like the photo of salad dish Mark took with N82. This shows the REAL quality of N82's camera.

As far as the price of the device - it's now on par with N95 (not the 8GB but the Standard version). It has the same features (plus Xenon) so it's good to see that Nokia did not go crazy and smack a $800 price tag on it. I'm almost tempted to even ditch the 3G features of the device and go for it anyway. Whenever I'm somewhere I'm usually within the reach of WiFi hot spot so I'd be happy for the time being...until UMTS 1700 would be released that is :-) ).

Next on the agenda was GPS. On N82 it's also A-GPS just like on N95 is. Nokia provides the "A" part of the GPS - the Assisted server. According to Stefan Constantinescu it took only 15 seconds to acquire the signal. AMAZING. Finally a gps or is it a-gps :-) that works right out of the box. As everyone (myself included) knows the original release on GPS (prior to enabling assistance server) on N95 caused the functionality to be a COMPLETE flop. Often I'd leave work and by the time I grabbed the gps signal it would take 5-10 minutes. If I was in a city or place where I did not know, I would have to sit for 10 minutes and wait for the signal. Thank Heavens this will no longer be the case (as it was pretty much solved to about 90 seconds on N95 as well). N82...here I come...MAYBE. Hopefuly WOM World will get their hands on N82 soon and I'll be able to test drive it. Until then I will patiently await the arrival of the device at the stores.



UPDATE: Mark, Stefan and Jeremiah got a nice gift..they get to keep N82's...Congratulations guys