Nokia Talk

One of my personal weaknesses over the years, if you can call it that, is Nokia phones. Ever since the first days I started carrying a cell phone, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Nokia-made handsets, and this is still true for me up through the present day. This past week's press release of their new N82 model (which looks fantastic) has inspired me to share some of my thoughts on Nokia and their phones.

Back in the late 90's, when cell phones started becoming much more common in people's lives, I remember Nokia as being at the forefront of the industry. The company became known for its colorful interchangeable faceplates, the catchy little Nokia ringtone, and quickly gained the "cool-factor" in pop culture. Some of us may remember the modified 8110 model being featured in the first Matrix movie, or Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu carrying their colorful 8200 series handsets in the first Charlie Angels movie. Others (like myself) desired to have the sleek chrome silver 8800-series phone which, much like the BMW M5 or Nissan Skyline, were always tantalizingly out of the typical college kid's price range.

More importantly, I associated Nokia with simple designs that just plain worked and worked well. Personally, I appreciated the fact that Nokia phones were pretty basic in every way - easy-to-navigate menus, customizable shortcuts, a small but well-organized display, and sturdy hardware that could withstand its share of bumps and bruises. Putting all of the style factor and marketing aside, the bottom line is that Nokia phones always got the job done, and were reliable and pretty cool to boot.

As we've all seen, a lot has changed in the cell phone industry since those days. In the past several years, quite a few trends have emerged in the cell phone industry - and many of these developments have seemed to leave Nokia behind in the process, where it is no longer the dominant presence it used to be. Especially in the U.S., we no longer think of Nokia as the top dog it once was, but as just another phone manufacturer among dozens, but which happens to be one of the bigger ones.

One of the trends I noticed is that flip phones started to become much more popular in the early 2000's. While early versions of flip phones were flimsy and bulky at first, manufacturers steadily improved the hardware to be slimmer and more durable. As the technology improved, many people traded in their traditional "candybar" type phones in for the so-called "clamshell" designs that offered larger screens and more comfortable ergonomics. From the beginning, Motorola was the leader in this trend, scoring most notably a couple years ago with their wildly popular RAZR model.

Meanwhile, Nokia was quite slow to adopt this trend and continued to stick to the old candybar form factor for as long as it could. Eventually, they caved to market pressure and began to produce some flip-phone models, but by this time they were well behind the rest of the industry. And even now, I think the "bread-and-butter" of Nokia continues to rest in its candybar designs (which I personally like, but I'll talk plenty more on my opinions later). The fact is, I still don't see very many Nokia flip-phones on the market today, and the few models they do have are rather unimpressive.

Another area where Nokia arrived late to the party was in the camera-phone "revolution". I don't know what went on in the boardrooms at Nokia, but apparently they did not take the idea of camera phones very seriously at first. Whereas other manufacturers such as Samsung were quick to capitalize on the exploding popularity of camera phones, Nokia was one of the last cell phone makers to offer any of its phones with a camera of decent quality. As many business analysts have pointed out, this was also a significant factor contributing to Nokia's falling market share during the past few years.

Adding on top of these changes has been the emergence of Blackberry/smartphones among the "common" consumer segment. While business users had already been carrying these "all-in-one" phones for several years, we are now seeing a lot more of the general public adopting them as well. One reason is that the text-messaging boom has driven many of the younger crowd to demand phones with QWERTY-type keypads, which were once found only on RIM's aforementioned Blackberry devices. Additionally, the emergence of higher bandwidth networks has made internet browsing on phones more feasible, thus fueling the demand for larger displays and more advanced operating systems than before. And perhaps most importantly, the prices of these smartphones have been dropping enough so that non-business users can now afford them.

There is perhaps no better example of how the cell phone industry has evolved than in Apple's recent release of the iPhone. Unless you live in a cave, you've seen the commercials boasting about the iPhone's wide range of features. A large touchscreen for easy navigation, multimedia player (for both music and video), 2 megapixel camera, integration with YouTube and Google Maps, even built-in accelerometers to automatically adjust the display orientation.

The fact that the iPhone appeals to so many people, and not just technology geeks, says a lot about what consumers are looking for in a phone these days. Gone are the days in which a phone is merely a way to connect Person A to Person B. In the year 2007, your phone must also function as a camera, entertainment device, schedule planner, navigation system, internet browser, and yes, as a status symbol/fashion statement, all in one package.

I'm not saying that any of this is a bad thing, by the way. I guess my point is that as the cell phone industry has changed over the years, Nokia's place in the market (and its image) have changed a lot too, as a result.

In my opinion, it's not that the company has stopped making solid phones over the years, or vastly changed its culture of doing things for the worse. If anything, arguably the opposite is true. From what I can tell, Nokia's dedication to simplicity and its conservative style of doing things is what allowed competitors to step in with new ideas and claim market share. Sticking to the basics is what made their phones so great to begin with, but their refusal to divert their focus from the core aspects has been costly in terms of industry dominance, as I described above.

This is not to say that Nokia has become some sort of ancient relic in the face of competition from Motorola, Apple, or the whoever next big player in the industry to come along may be (Google, perhaps?). While they have historically been reluctant to stay with with the latest trends, I personally see that Nokia has maintained a solid identity at its core. Despite lagging many of its competitors in innovation and creativity in recent years, they still seem to do a good job of putting out a quality product, once they do catch up. To me, the interesting/admirable part of it all is that there seems to be a certain "Nokia way" of doing things where, even as they are following the innovations of other companies, they still are able to make their phones stand out in their own way.

Which brings me back to the topic that inspired this entry in the first place - that is, the recent release of the Nokia N82:





Although I work in the technology field and I like playing with gadgets as much as the next person, I don't typically obsess about getting the latest electronics as much as your typical nerd. For example, I didn't get my first HD TV or my first iPod until a few months ago (and the iPod was a hand-me-down from my sister after she got a Nano and 2 Shuffles).

But every once in a while, I see some new product that comes out and it almost immediately makes me say to myself, "I gotta get that thing!". Well, that's the reflex emotion that hit me when I first read about the N82 a few days ago. This model is actually quite similar to the N95, which was released not too long ago itself, but for a couple reasons I'll describe shortly, the N82 resonated with me a lot more right off the bat.

To quickly run through some of its features (copy pasting a lot of this from the Nokia website):

- 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, Carl Zeiss optics
- Built-in GPS integrated with Nokia Maps
- Digital music player, 3.5mm stereo headphone plug
- N-Gage capabilities
- Video capture and playback @ MPEG4 VGA, 30 fps, TV-out with composite cable
- USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity
- 2.4" QVGA display
- Orientation sensor (accelerometer)
- Candybar design

There's a lot to like there. The built in GPS and navigation software, for example, is something I would definitely get a lot of use out of. I also think the 3.5mm jack is a must if the music player is to be of any use. It has taken mp3-capable phone makers way too long to start incorporating this feature, if you ask me.

The last feature I mentioned may not show up in the marketing brochure, but I happen to really love the fact that they made this phone with the old-school candybar design. In the age of ultra-slim flip phones or fancy two-way sliders, I still prefer the compact style of the candybar. No hinges, minimal moving parts, it's plain and simple and I like it that way.

Out of everything listed above, the camera is what will jump out about this phone the most. 5 megapixel is certainly among the highest I've seen for a phone camera, although realistically, it's well beyond what I would ever use (for example, I usually set my "real" camera to capture at around 2 MP, even though it's capable of 4).

While I'm on the subject, I guess I should preface these thoughts by saying that personally, I've never been all that enamored by the thought of a camera on a phone. The way I see it, unless the quality is comparable to a real camera, it's just a novelty. There isn't a whole lot of practical usefulness to taking pictures that are grainy, blurry, and hard to transfer from your phone memory.

On my current phone (6230i), the camera quality is actually not bad at 1.3 MP. It's also relatively easy to copy the photos from my phone to my laptop (I've actually posted quite a few of them on my blog or Facebook in the past). But without a flash, any pictures taken indoors or at night still are pretty much worthless. So in "light" of that (har har), what I really like seeing on this N82 model is the xenon flash. Very few cell-phone cameras (if any) incorporate a "real" flash, so this is probably as close as you can get.

As far as the "Carl Zeiss optics" goes, I'm not a big photography expert, so it's well beyond what little bit I know about lenses and such. I guess as Jessica Simpson might say, "I don't even know what that is... but I want it!"

In any case, I think what Nokia is trying to say with their design of the N82 is this - if we're going to incorporate a camera with our phone, we want it done right. Though they initially seemed reluctant to follow other companies that were adding cameras to their phones, it seems that once the decision was made to start adding that feature, they fully committed to making sure the camera would actually be useful to whoever bought the phone.

And in the end, I think that really sums up what I like most about the "Nokia way". When they focus on making a product, they do so with the goal of putting out something that goes above and beyond its competitors, but is still simple enough to be practical for the end user.

A disclaimer - I'm not saying that I love everything Nokia - just that I happen to admire a lot of what they do with their cell phones in comparison to other makers. The N-Gage was a horrible idea (and extremely ugly), and I'll never understand why they decided to use the worst possible connector on their headsets. Seriously, the thing absolutely sucks. I also wish they would cater their high-end products more to the North American markets. I had to get my last 2 phones through UK and Australian vendors, and when I did get them, it was kind of a pain to get them to work fully with my T-Mobile service.

With regards to the N82, until I actually get my hands on one of these things and use it myself (and believe me, I fully intend to do that), I won't know for sure if it's as great as it sounds. So far I like pretty much everything I see, except for the keypad. Not a fan of the small buttons, and I was kind of hoping that my next phone would have a QWERTY layout. Also, the secondary camera in the front (for taking low-quality self-portraits) seems very unnecessary, and the enginerd in me wonders if they had to cut out other parts of the design in order to incorporate that feature. That would be unfortunate.

The one other major drawback I've been reading about is that this initial model can't support the higher speed data networks in the U.S. It's not a dealbreaker for me, because I'm not a heavy Internet browser, but I'd hope that they would fix that before bringing it to this side of the Atlantic (assuming that they eventually do). Especially for a device that costs as much as it does, you'd hate to see it limited by the available networks in this market.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I need to go digging for overseas vendors on the Internet, to get myself a Christmas present.

Pictures from:
http://www.nokia.com/press/photos

For more information visit:
http://www.nseries.com/n82
http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Press/Materials/White_Papers/pdf_files/Nokia_N82_data_sheet.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N82

Early November Thoughts

I know I find myself saying this a lot lately, but time flies. I really can't believe we're already a week into November already. October flew by, and for that matter, so did September. Thankfully the weather has stayed reasonably warm lately, but it looks like that is about to end soon.

Life has been extremely busy all around. But, as I was telling a friend the other day, it's overall a good kind of busy.

Work is getting more challenging than ever. There has been a lot more responsibility on my part, both in terms of project assignments, but with my involvement in the leadership committee for our site's Asian employee network. Besides the normal engineering stuff, there's also more higher-level work to take on, which is giving me a new perspective on a lot of how this industry works.

I am even taking on the role of party planner right now, to coordinate this "Ice Cream Social" event coming up. It has given me a MUCH greater appreciation for anyone who plans events, like weddings and stuff. Lots of work and little things to stay on top of.

Speaking of weddings, apparently I need to start planning a bachelor party soon. Most likely it will be a cruise of some sort. Anyone with suggestions or advice from your own experience on cruises?

Outside of work, it seems like it has been one thing after another. Went on a couple mini-weekend trips, which were definitely interesting. Maybe I will write more about them later.

On Halloween, I had a family of trick-or-treaters come by my house, and as I was giving them candy, the mother pointed to her son and asked me, "do you know what he's dressed up as?". So I look at him, and all I see is some little kid in a jacket and a backpack. I have absolutely no freaking clue what his costume is supposed to be.

I smile and politely say no, what is he supposed to be? She laughs and excitedly goes, "he's Diego!!"

I give her the blankest stare in the history of blank stares. Never heard of this Diego feller.

"You know, Diego from Dora the Explorer?"

Actually, I have heard of Dora the Explorer, so that's a start. But believe it or not, I have not watched very many episodes of Dora the Explorer in my life (the number is somewhere between zero and zero). Thus, it is quite unlikely that I would know of, let alone recognize any secondary characters from the show.



Alright, so maybe there wasn't much point to that story. I guess I just felt like sharing.

In other news, I ended up getting Britney's new CD, "Blackout". As many of you know, I pretty much stopped being a big Britney fan around the time she hooked up with K-Fed. From there, it predictably went downhill and now she's a freakshow.

But I guess old habits die hard, and some things never change. All these news reports were coming out about how her album was getting good reviews (I like how it was such big news that her album didn't completely suck), and I liked her single on the radio, so I figured why not give it a whirl? Under $10 on sale at Target, to complete my collection of Britney albums.

It turns out, I do like this album, so I'll consider it money well spent. I wouldn't say it's great, and I'm kind of surprised that so-called "critics" would give it good reviews, but it's definitely better than her last album.

In reality, it's a CD with 12 of the same song, except with different titles and lyrics. Or at least they all have pretty much the same beat and synthesized instrumentals on each track. But at least the beat is a good one and the music is catchy. My favorite song is "Break the Ice". It's hot.

To end on another musical note (har har), I'm excited that the Lite has started playing their Christmas rotation again. Loves it. Reminds me that I'm gonna have to put up the good old Christmas tree soon.

Sally Dominating Ava

What a little bully...

Sally



So last month, my sister got a new puppy and we named her Sally. It's my sister's dog, but since she's usually out of town during weekdays, I end up taking care of her and spending the most time with Sally.

And I must say, Sally is quite an interesting girl. I could probably write pages upon pages of stories about her, but I don't wanna be one of those annoying people who bores everyone by talking about their dog all the time. I thought I would share some of my favorite bits here though:

- Sally is a ghetto girl. When I was driving Sally back from the vet, John Mayer was playing in my car and she kept whining and looking at me with an angry stare. After a few minutes, I decided to put on some Soulja Boy, and believe it or not, she stopped whining completely. The rest of the trip, she quietly sat there and listened to "Crank Dat". My next step will have to be to teach her that stupid dance.

- Overall, she's a very tough little puppy. Then again, I imagine when you grow up with the name "Sally", inevitably you build up a lot of angst and a certain attitude of "me against the world". I guess I'll put it this way - she definitely would not be one of the dogs that Michael Vick ends up electrocuting.

There's been times when I've accidentally stepped on her paw when she runs under me, and she'll yelp for a moment, but less than 2 seconds later, she just bounces back and resumes running around randomly like nothing happened. Or when I take her outside and she sees other dogs, some of them maybe 5-10 times bigger than her, she has no fear and just goes barking and chasing after them relentlessly. I end up having to pull her back on her leash and pick her up in my arms, before she goes and gets herself eaten.

- Maybe the one thing Sally hates is baths. I think all dogs do. But after the first time I gave her a bath, she gave me attitude for like 2 days, which is a very long time in "Sally-time" (see the next point). She refused to look at me and didn't follow me around like she normally does, she just watched TV and sulked around.



- Sally has ZERO attention span. Not until she came along, did I fully understand why people say "you have the attention span of a puppy". She seriously has complete ADD. She'll be happily playing with her chew toy or watching TV or something, but as soon as she hears a noise or senses movement somewhere else, she's off to investigate. Or, if there's noise in the background like a lawn mower or air conditioner, and it suddenly stops, Sally will immediately freeze what she's doing and look around.

Sometimes when I walk across the room, she'll frantically run after me, but then accidentally run into her food dish before she gets close enough to bite my ankles. This seems to suddenly remind her that she's hungry, so she'll give up the chase and start eating her food (until the next distraction comes along). Other times, I'll be playing with her and as she's rolling around on her back, she just suddenly decides to stay there and fall asleep.

- Despite the ADD, she does like to sit there and watch me when I'm cooking or washing the dishes. I think it's so hilarious how she looks so intrigued by what I'm doing. I also appreciate that she's staying within my line of vision, though, so I know that she's not off peeing in the corner somewhere.



- I think Sally's starting to get protective of me. One morning as she was eating her breakfast, I decided to brush my teeth next to her, sitting on the couch. Apparently, the sound of my Sonicare made her think that I was being attacked by some sort of machine, so she started to bark at my toothbrush and trying to jump up onto the couch. Compared to other dogs, Sally doesn't seem bark that much, so she must have been pretty agitated. I thought that was sweet of her though. Dumb, but sweet.

- People make fun of me for having a small bladder, and I've even written about how I need to get myself checked out BPH or whatever. But I've never seen anyone pee more than this little troublemaker. There's times when I'll take Sally out to pee, she'll pee TWICE outside in my backyard - and then 10 minutes after I bring her back inside, she's left another little puddle on my kitchen floor. Sometimes I really hate that little biatch.

- On the plus side, Sally is a true Bears fan. I got her a Bears leash and she likes to play with my Bears hat. Also, after they came back to beat Philly this week, she was extra hyper. High-Five!



- My personal favorite Sally story is about her "punishment box". At first, whenever she misbehaved (peeing/pooping inside, chewing at cables, barking for no reason), we used to just scold her and put her back in her cage. But actually, you're not supposed to make your pet feel like their cage is a punishment, because she has to sleep there every night.

So as an alternative, we decided to use an empty cardboard box instead. We had a Petland box already with "air holes" in it, which seemed convenient:



The first time I put Sally in the punishment box, she put up so much fuss about it. I tried to ignore the noise and go watch TV in the living room, but for about 10 minutes straight, all I could hear was her whining, barking, and clawing at the box. At this point, I seriously wondered whether this box method was more of a punishment for Sally or punishing myself.

But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, all of the commotion suddenly stopped. No more barking, no more squealing, no more frantic scratching sounds. I thought to myself, "Great! Maybe Sally actually learned her lesson and is accepting her punishment."

So I get up to go let her out and give her a treat, and what do I see? The little bastard's wandering around the kitchen, just sniffing about and looking at me as if nothing happened. Apparently, she didn't "learn her lesson" at all - she just figured out how to jump out of the box!



I was pretty pissed off, but what can you do? The next time, I made sure to close the lid when putting her the punishment box.

As an addendum to the story, Sally has now chewed a hole in the side of the punishment box, only big enough to fit her head through so far. What can I say, the little psycho is out of control. I don't think this box is going to last very much longer.

Same Ol' G



I just realized that as of this month, I will have had my car for 5 full years. It seems like just yesterday that I was giving up my beloved Maxima for a new love, the G35 in its first year of manufacture. Now, my baby is all grown up and has over 80,000 miles of history with me.

Infiniti has since put out several newer models of the G with more horsepower, all-wheel drive, and sleeker design, but would I consider "trading up" given the chance? Nah.

Some people see their car as merely a way to get from point A to point B. To me, a man's (or woman's) relationship with his/her car is so much more.



First of all, the car you drive should be an extension of your personality. If you are a very outgoing person, it wouldn't make sense to drive a boring gray compact sedan. If you are more of an artistic type, you probably wouldn't roll out in a pimped out Escalade.

As for me, I do feel like my car just fits who I am and what I'm about. It's not the most attention getting car, but quietly performs just as well as (or better than) many other luxury brands that receive more hype. Personally, I really respect that quality and I think it applies to people just the same as it does for a car. It's better to keep your mouth shut and just let your actions do the talking, than to constantly brag about things you don't always back up. Not only do I look for it in the friends I keep, I also try live that way myself (though I know I fall short sometimes too).



Another thing about this car is that it's typically very low maintenance, but occasionally demands some attention and extra care than others. Throughout these 5 years, I have yet to have anything break down unexpectedly with the G. But it does cost a lot to change the performance brake pads when they wear down, and the tires are expensive too when I get flats. I'm kind of the same way - pretty independent and dependable most of the time, but once in a while I need a little more help and support from those who are closest to me.



The other fact about the G that I can relate to, is that it doesn't really fit into any category or stereotype. It's a 4 door sedan, but I wouldn't really consider it economy, sport, or luxury - more of a blend of all 3. And it's a Japanese car, but Nissan/Infiniti has always been a little different than the other Japanese makers. Admittedly not always in a good way, but when I had my Maxima, I liked the fact that it didn't quite fit in with the Camry or Accord. Of course, if you really wanted to be unique, you could drive a Jeep or a Mini-cooper or something, but that's not quite what I go for either. The way I see it, you can be different without going out of your way to be different.

Admittedly, this is a stretch to compare myself to my car, but if you look at my life, you can see in a lot of ways that I'm a product of my surroundings and what I was born into. I fit into a lot of typical "Asian" stereotypes. Being raised in a church has also made me somewhat of a "typical" Christian.

But I think people who get to know me better, probably see that I don't really fit in with any particular group. Especially in college, I didn't really click with the church crowd at CFC, but I wasn't a major partier either. I was an enginerding major, but I never hung out with the hardcore geeks who were into reading electronics journals and coding Java applets in their spare time. I hang out with a lot of Asian friends, but never got into the AzN PrYdE thing. Though I wouldn't consider myself a loner, I still feel like an oddball in almost every group I associate with.

As I said, it hasn't always been a good thing. At times in my life, I have wished that I had more of a sense of belonging in this world, that I could fit in with people who look like me and talk like me and act like me in every way. It seems like there are so few people in this world, if any, that fully relate to me and who I am.

Still, you are who you are. Like I was saying with my car - I think it's only fitting that I drive a car that doesn't really fit into any category. I can appreciate what it means to be different, without being completely out there, if that makes any sense.



Another reason why I say the relationship between owner and vehicle is so valuable is, simply because you spend so much time in it. Doing some quick math and making some estimates - 80,000 miles in 5 years translates to more than an hour per day spent driving on average. That's a lot of time, and for some people who have longer commutes, it's even more than that.

Put another way, many of us potentially spend more time with our cars than we do with any of our closest friends, or even a significant other. Maybe the relationship doesn't run as deep (actually I hope it doesn't), but I'd still argue that it is deeper than we think.



There's a Cadillac commercial running lately that asks the question: "When you turn on your car, does it return the favor?". It's corny, and borderline creepy, but kind of goes along with what I'm trying to say. The driver-car relationship isn't a one-way, dead interaction. Sure, you step on the gas and the car accelerates. You hit the brakes and the car stops. But is that really all there is to it?

I remember the first time I modded my Maxima with a performance intake. A very simple mod, but when I took her on the highway for the first time and jammed on the throttle, it was one of the most memorable thrills of my life. Something about the way the engine roared, and the sudden jump in acceleration - it felt like she was literally coming alive. With my G, every time I hit a sharp turn or an on-ramp, I get excited to test the limits of the handling. And I've grown to love all the little features about the car, that I don't think I could live without any more.

It's hard to explain, but other people who love their cars know what I'm talking about. You share not only the good times but the down times too. Whenever I get pulled over for a speeding ticket, hit a flat tire, or simply get stuck in traffic for a couple hours, it sucks. But at least I never feel alone in those ordeals. My car is always there to share my pain, accompany me to my court date, patiently wait for me to get things taken care of.



People say that it's not financially wise to spend a lot of money on a car (as compared to real estate, etc.), which I'm sure is true. But I'm not looking at getting a car to make money on investment returns. The bottom line is, I have never regretted spending more on a car than is "financially wise". I don't know anyone who has spent some extra money on a car they know they'd love, and regretted it. Of course, this is talking within reason, but if you have to stretch your budget a little bit, I always believe it's worth it.

Anyways, this entry spiraled out of control pretty quickly (big surprise), but mainly I just wanted to note the very important milestone that my baby has reached. Happy 5 Year!