3G Iphone - My brief experience

The feel of the Iphone 3G...



Wish I had longer time with it..

MNP Campaigns by Operators

Since the official launch of MNP, there has been some interesting acquisition campaigns lodged by the Mobile Operators.

Here are some snapshots of the MNP campaigns done on TV that I am able to find on the web, to be shared.

Lets start with Celcom :

In educating the public, Celcom had made some funny TV commercials with Harith Iskandar as the Ambassador.. there are a few of them, but I am only posting just two.. more can be obtained from Youtube

Celcom positions the campaign on MNP similar to their coverage campaigns, by establishing their "claim" over the subject matter. Its an interesting positioning approach.





DiGi

On the other note, had made it more fun in its TVCs.



There's even a jingle for it :



However, apart from Celcom and DiGi, the other two operators are seen silent on the TVCs for MNP. They might have other approaches to their subscriber acquisition through MNP.

Samsung M880 - Key Entry and Google Map

Today's entry will be on usage experience for the M8800.

There are many available applications, but I will write on two features that are a bit different from most phones in the market, at the moment.

The first is on the text input experience in using M8800. Since this is a full touch screen device, its important to estimate the ease of use if you are purchasing the device.

It has several options for text input :

a) Alpha-numeric virtual keypads
b) QWERTY virtual keypads
c) Sectioned handwriting recognition (slower experience due to the recognition task)
d) Full screen handwriting recognition (slower experience due to the recognition task)

My personal experience, the first two options are very friendly and accurate and it provides easy usage for my messaging and browsing needs.

I have a video on the text entry experience as follow :

Text Entry



M8800 has an internal GPS function. With that function, the Google Map application is pre-installed. How does Google Map fare in comparison with Nokia Maps and Garmin XT?

Here is a snapshot of how the application works.

Google Map application



Note : The Google Map streams data off the internet. So, its best to be on the unlimited data rate plan or you will be served with an interesting bill amount in your monthly statement.

Google Map Navigation

Here are snapshots of my usage experience


I was at Ampang Point, and hence, started the route from there, to Ampang Jaya towards Jalan Dedap. At the touch of the End point, an address was requested.. I keyed in Jalan Dedap and the google search provided some suggestion. After selection the appropriate location, I hit the show directions button and ...


Details of the route was presented.


Navigational instruction pops up.

This is a snapshot of me meddling the roadmap of Kuala Lumpur.

Just as a show of the data usage, look at the blue rectangular ticker that appear on the top right corner. The map is streamed straight from the web (constantly).

A video capture of the Google map on mobile :



As show above, the application is VERY data intensive. It loads the map as you progress.

Interesting feature :

a) Map or satellite view option
b) Address or location search is online

Some things for further improvement :

a) The Map navigation will provide a specific route, if you move off the route, Google Map does not re-route you accordingly (unlike Garmin or Nokia Maps)
b) There is no voice navigation feature
c) Despite easy location to destination input, it still requires many input steps

Other notes :

a) With the internal GPS, this phone allows for Geo-tagging function
b) Location info tagged to the photo snaps

Apart from the above review, all other functions and applications are pretty much similar to most mid-range to high end phones.

Pre-launch Preview - Samsung M8800

Samsung has been very ambitious recently with their high megapixel, PDA-like phones.

Following the hyped up Omnia, they are introducing a new phone, positioned to thwart off the new range of smarter and more powerful mobile phones from the more established names such as HTC, iPhone and the likes, this phone is named M8800 or codenamed : Bresson or Pixon.

M8800 is the second 8 megapixel camera that is spawned out by Samsung after the newly launched symbian based iNNOV8.

However, unlike Omnia and iNNOV8 that uses Windows Mobile and Symbian Operating system, M8800 is using running Samsung's proprietary operating system which has its appeal and drawbacks at the same time.

Let me share the physical exterior outlook in the first segment.

Here are some snapshots of the phone :



The basic keyless candy bar design packs a powerful camera and some decent applications.



The phone is slim and rather lightweight.



There is a similarity of an actual camera feel to the back design of the phone.

Have a look at it again...

Seems like Samsung had placed some thoughts on the adding of a more user friendly feel to the phone by having the non-slip rubber pad on the back to have the camera function usage more practical.

From the physical factor, we move on to the operating system.

To have the navigation feel of the phone, I have the following video taken :

This video is approximately 3 minutes, a guided tour for the menu navigation, the screen widget, dialing a number, typing an sms and photo viewing with the accelerometer feature.



Sample image from this 8 megapixel device


In comparison to my Nokia E90's 3.2 megapixel image



Having the phone with me for a couple of days, this is what I feel about it.

a) The feel of the phone is good
b) This proprietary OS device meets basic to average "smart" device expectations (refer to technical specs below)
c) Camera has the megapixels but its still not perfect. Blurring while focusing, delay in photo snapping
d) I got bored with the navigation after 2 hours. It takes more steps to perform each function i.e sms typing, dialing, camera activation
e) It has interesting widget feature on the home screen. You can select some key functions or applications that can be accessed through sliding panel on the left side of the screen
f) The sound from the speakers are excellent
g) Personally, its a good second phone for me. Some features like HSDPA, a-GPS, camera with high megapixel, divx video player... in a way, this phone feels more like a multimedia player with internet connection and the phone is an added feature (as opposed to a phone with the multimedia features). This will not be my main phone as the use of the touch-screen feature is difficult whilst driving, word entry into the phone is taxing (i do a lot of mails and document editing on the move) and I cannot add more application to personalize the phone like most Windows Mobile or Symbian operated phones.
h) Cost factor for this? Well.. we'll probably find out once its out in the market maybe next year

I am finishing off this entry with a brief technical specs for M8800 :

* Quad-band GSM, tri-band HSDPA
* 107.9x54.6x14.9mm, 110 g
* 3.2-inch touch screen display (240 x 400 pixels)
* 8 megapixel camera, auto focus, face recognition with smile detection and
blink detection, WDR (wide dynamic range), ASR (advanced shake reduction),
GPS geotagging, ISO 1600, WVGA (720x480 pixels) and VGA (640 x 480 pixels)
@30fps video recording
* Built-in GPS receiver (Using google maps)
* Accelerometer
* DivX playback
* FM radio with RDS
* microSD card slot
* Bluetooth
* Landscape virtual QWERTY keyboard
* Handwriting recognition
* ShoZu integration - direct image and video upload
* Office document viewer