Nokia C7 - mini N8?

As the title says, C7 is in one way a mini N8, not by size though, but by performance and capability.
Looking at the specs list you'll find many same things that are listed on N8 specs list.


-3.5" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution

-8 megapixel fixed-focus camera with dual-LED flash and 720p video @ 25fps recording; 
geotagging, face detection, smart zoom in video
-680 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 256 MB RAM
-TV-out functionality (SD)
-8GB on-board storage, microSD expandable
-DivX and XviD video support
-microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
-Flash and Java support for the web browser
-Stereo Bluetooth 3.0


So, the main differences between two of them is that N8 has:
-better camera (12MP vs. 8MP)
-HDMI port with 720p video output and true Dolby Digital Plus support
-16GB built-in memory
-Special video zoom
-Anodized aluminum body


AMOLED touchscreen is exactly the same, processor is exactly the same, both have HD recording, both have same OS (Symbian^3 - getting an update called "Anna" in time of writing this post), both act alike, there's no difference between their performance at all (except camera of course )! Battery life on C7 is slightly worse but that's it!
Like a N8 it's wonderful, it's a joy to work on it, everything is so smooth and easy.
So you see, the difference is not that big, in a way C7 is like N8, but still, C7 is not mini N8!
It has a great camera (only missing autofocus), it's slimmer and also made of metal, and the most important thing - the price! It's much cheaper than N8 (around 100 euros!).
And that's what makes C7 a Nokia's true bestseller, a world for it self!
They should have called N8 a C8, that "N" mark can be such a burden...

LG GT540 Optimus - low end smartphone

This is something I personaly own now, got it as a gift, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised!
I didn't expect much from it, I tought it was just another Cookie, only with Android, but as it turned out, I was wrong!

GT540 Optimus

-Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G (with HSDPA) support
-3" resistive touchscreen of HVGA resolution
-Android OS v1.6 (now upgradeable to 2.1, Sept 2010)
-Accelerometer for auto screen rotate
-3 megapixel autofocus camera
-Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and GPS receiver, digital compass
-Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
-139 MB internal memory
-Hot-swappable microSD card slot (supporting card with capacity of up to 16GB)
-Standard microUSB port and Mass Storage mode
-DivX/XviD video support







It's very good, and as you see from specs above it has almost everything.
Since Google made Android, you need to create a Google account as most apps (Android Market, Gmail, GTalk) work over it obviously..
When I got it I immediately upgrade it to v2.1 so I do not know the difference between v1.6 and v2.1.
Media player is OK but I downloaded arcMedia program which can play most DiviX/Xvid formats and subtitles too! I was impressed.
 For navigation solutions search Android Market, you can find many good free programs there!
Skype works just fine (doesn't work on v1.6), but you should have solid data plan or use Wlan! It's shame it doesn't have secondary camera for video calls, would be much better!
Camera is rather good, 3MP with autofocus, face and blink detection, but don't expect much when sun goes down 'cause it doesn't have flash.
Internal memory is limited to 139 MB so you don't have much space left to download all your favorite apps, unless you "root it" (procedure in which you expand internal memory onto your memory card and they act as one). Haven't tried it yet, some say it's not safe so I'll satisfy with 139MB for now, its more than enough for me at least.
Web browsing is excellent (I'm using Opera), only thing missing is Flash support.
Battery is 1500mAh. If I'm playing games and using Wlan it lasts around one day. Normal usage, without Wlan and some internet browsing it lasts for 2 or 3 days which is OK.
 Touch experience isn't the best out there of course, but hey, what can you expect from a €200 smartphone! It is better than one on the N97(my coworker who owns N97 said that!).
Although it has resistive touchscreen, works pretty smooth when you get used to it.
It is quite fast thanks to the 600MHz processor, no lags whatsoever, only when I play Angry Birds,but thats not that important, right?
Important is that this device has almost everything you need (Wlan, GPS, Highspeed internet access) for a couple hundred euros. What more would you want?

High end smartphones

This is the most interesting and extremely growing category of mobile phones, because they all have nice looking little widgets and apps and other bunch of stuff that make them cool, so everybody wants to own one.
The thing is, you have to choose one that suits your needs!
So I'll introduce 5 of them which, in my opinion, represent the high end class.
Apple iPhone 4, Samsung Galaxy S, Nokia N8-00, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, HTC Desire HD.

Entry No1: Apple iPhone 4
iPhone is a device that made milions of people to stay in line for hours and hours just to get their hands on it. So that must mean something, right?
Well, I must say, this IS one of the best phones ever made!! And I'm not just saying that! As a matter of fact, I'm a Nokia lover, so this isn't easy thing to say, believe me!

iPhone 4

Scrolling down the spec list you'll find some interesting stuff:

-Scratch-resistant oleophobic surface,  three-axis gyro sensor

-Scratch-resistant glass back panel
-Retina display,3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
-5MP camera,720p@30fps, LED video light, geo-tagging
-TV out
-talk time up to 7h (3G)
-16 or 32 GB version  
-1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, PowerVR                              SGX535GPU, Apple A4 chipset






Besides the "death grip"(a way most people hold their phones in their hands, which is perfectly normal) in which this device looses network coverage, there is nothing else you could find wrong about this one, the build quality is great, display is phenomenal, so clear and colourful, responsiveness of the touchscreen is still the best, no one can beat that for now. 
One more thing that makes this phone great is that they don't malfunction that easily, they can last for years if you take good care of them!
But, see, I still wouldn't buy one! I'm a modest man, and this device, and all others with the prefix "i", are so expensive and they represent some kind of a higher class of life, like Toyota Prius in Hollywood. 
So if you don't have one it doesn't mean you're not cool, it just means you have no money!


Entry No2: Samsung Galaxy S


Samsung is bringing their beast to the playground, and let me tell ya, they got something to show us! Check out the specs list:

Galaxy S

-4" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
-Android OS v2.1(upgradeable to v2.2) with TouchWiz 3.0 UI customization
-1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird CPU; 512 MB of RAM
-5 MP autofocus camera with face, smile and blink detection
-720p HD video recording at 30fps
-8/16GB internal storage, microSD slot
-1500 mAh Li-Ion battery
-Slim waistline at only 9.9mm thickness
-Document editor
-File manager comes preinstalled
-Secondary video-call camera
-Swype predictive text input
-Full Flash support for the web browser (after v2.2 update)






Ok, so it's a beast, so what? Is it that good? Well, it could be better! For start, Super AMOLED touchscreen is no more "Super", they started shipping them with just AMOLED now (?!?).
The thing that bothers me the most is that it has no flash for the camera!!! It's like buying a luxury sedan that doesn't have air conditioning! A big mistake by Samsung, it's their flag ship for god's sake!!!
Other thing, the body is all in plastic which i don't like much, should be made of a tougher material. It looks so vulnerable! 
On the other hand, I must admit that touch experience is something different, thanks to TouchWiz overlay and Android v2.2, it improves usability and looks. Don't expect a miracle, but progress is made. Android is very user friendly and 1GHz of power underneath gives you more than enough to listen to the music, tweet, and to play Angry Birds at the same time!
So to sum up things, if photography is not your thing, and you don't work at construction site, then this one is for you!


Entry No3: Nokia N8-00


 Long awaited Nokia's flag ship has finally arrived! Finally now they have something to compete with! But is it enough?
Specs are quite interesting:

-Penta-band 3G with 10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA 
-Sleek anodized aluminum unibody
-3.5" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
-12 megapixel autofocus camera with xenon flash and 720p@25fps video recording
-Camera features: large 1/1.83” camera sensor, mechanical shutter, ND filter, geo-tagging, face detection
-Symbian^3 OS
-680 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 256 MB RAM
-microHDMI port for 720p TV-out functionality
-DivX and XviD video support
-microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
-Flash and Java support for the web browser
-Stereo Bluetooth 3.0
-Nice audio reproduction quality
-Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display

As many of us thought, this one was supposed to compete with iPhone 4 or HTC Desire, but the truth is this device's only advantage is camera: 12MP autofocus camera, xenon flash an HD video recording! And that's about it! It has weaker processor and less RAM than competition, Symbian^3 is outdated and 3rd party software availability is limited (for now)!

But I think Nokia never meant this one to compete with the best, they wanted just one thing: to have the best camera phone on the market! And they succeeded!!!

Besides camera Nokia has some other stuff to brag about. For example:
-HDMI  port for connecting your phone directly to TV and watching videos you recorded (720p).
-microUSB port for USB On-The-Go support allowing you to connect any USB flash memory device an transfer data directly to your phone.(For now it's only reading Nokia devices???)

It's very nicely built, solid and firm, you have a feeling if you dropped it, it wouldn't break that easly. Battery should be better! It doesn't last long as you would expect!

As I said earlier I'm Nokia fan and I did expect much more from this gem ( it's not a disappointment like N97), but obviously Nokia engineers didn't think that! If you like photography then this one is just for you. For all other things choose one of the above or one of the next one's that I'm reviewing later on. Stay tuned.




Entry No4: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10


 It's been almost a year since Sony Ericsson introduced us with their first Android running device, and it is still among 5 best smartphones out there.
Checking out the specs list you'll find out why:



-4" capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 854 pixel) resolution and scratch-resistant surface
-16M-color ready (65K effective colors under Android OS v1.6)
-Android OS v1.6 ( upgradable to v2.1) with complete Sony Ericsson UI customization
-Timescape and Mediascape UI
-Excellent build quality
-Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon 1 GHz CPU, OpenGL ES 2.0 support; 384 MB of RAM
-8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash, touch focus, image stabilization, geotagging, face and smile detection
-WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) video recording @ 30fps
-1GB storage, microSD slot, bundled with an 8GB card
-Accelerometer and proximity sensor
-Great audio quality
AFTER V2.1 UPGRADE:
-720p HD video recording,continuous auto focus in video recording
-5 homescreens,Live wallpapers
-HTML5 support in web browser


Major difference between this device an all other Android running devices is that Sony Ericsson completely customized UI. And by doing that they've added two awesome features: Timescape and Mediascape.
Timescape is part of UI in which you can see all your communication that you had with some of your contacts. So by pressing on a persons name you enter a screen which contains all your communication with that person, and that includes: calls, sms, mms, e-mails even Facebook an Twitter. Isn't that cool?!?
Mediascape, also part of the UI,  offers all your favorite media in one place: Music, Video and Photo. You can organize them as you want: recently added, recently played, favorites...
In the end it's very nice looking phone with very nice looking UI, especially when you upgrade it to v2.1.
But, there are some things that are missing here, for example: it doesn't have DivX and XviD video playback (but that's no problem nowadays with the Android market), it has limited storage available to the user on the system partition (you are left with only 512 MB for installing apps!), no secondary video-call camera (or videocalling whatsoever!), no FM radio(?),and  an extra xenon flash would’ve made the very good camera perfect!
One thing I hate the most about Sony Ericsson is that you have to upgrade software every now and then because of constant software and/or hardware issues: they tend to freeze,reset and to lose some parts of UI and sometimes battery doesn't last a day! So if you buy one of these (or any other S.E. phone) you have to know something: be very prepared to backup your data on a monthly base!!! Otherwise you are gonna lose some of it! I'm doing this at least 10 times a month at my store, no matter what series: Walkman, Cybershot, you name it!
 And thats the main reason I would never buy a S.E phone, no matter what specs, it's not worth it!!!




Entry No5: HTC Desire HD


Last but not the least, Desire HD is one of the most wanted smartphone these days, next to the iPhone 4, and looking at the specs sheet, it's no wonder: 









-4.3" 16M-color capacitive LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
-Android OS v2.2 Froyo with HTC Sense UI
-Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8255 1 GHz processor
-768 MB RAM and 1.5 GB ROM
-8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
-720p video recording @ 25fps
-microSD slot up to 32GB (8GB card included)
-DivX/XviD video support
-Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancement
-Unibody design
-14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- Dimensions :123 x 68 x 11,8 mm
-Weight :164 g






Now, some of you will say "Oh it's too big", or "It's way too heavy", but it’s a phone that feels very solid and durable and with time you don't notice such things, 'cause everything else it's just perfect! 
Ok, it doesn't have a killer display like iPhone 4 or Galaxy S but it's pretty close. 1GHz processor gives him ultra fast boot time (if you don't remove battery) which can be very helpful in some situations.
Camera is fantastic and maybe with xenon flash would be better but thats splitting hairs now,
HD recording on board makes you ultimate cameraman. Android Market, as usual, gives you enough apps for you to download and personalize your HTC. A great Flash-enabled web browser gives you perfect internet browsing experience, hell, you can even play flash games! And some of them are touch optimized!

One thing I love about HTCs is that they hardly ever brake! I'm not kidding, I haven't had any of them ever returned to the service! Amazing! 
Price tag is quite high, (Xperia x10, Galaxy S and Nokia N8-00 are cheaper!) but in the end, this is the most complete smartphone on the market, it has all you need, and all you'll ever need, the whole nine yards!!!
I think I just found my next toy!