New cell phones bolder and brasher

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

Did you spend more than five hours at Roxy Mas, Jakarta's biggest cellular phone center, the last time you bought a new cell phone? Did you ask your friends what they thought of the latest, funky make and model? Did you spend hours reading magazine reviews and browsing the Internet for information?

Trust me when I tell you that choosing a new cell phone that you are going to use for at least a year will only get more difficult in the future. I know, because I have just seen some stunning models that are coming our way.

The mobile communications infrastructure may not be progressing as fast as we would like to see, and promises of new technologies heralded by the industry still remain unfulfilled.

Even the new game-changing, value-added services -- which will squeeze the last ounce of potential for the existing infrastructure -- have so far yet to produce any real impact on our lives.

Nonetheless, leading cell phone makers such as Alcatel, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Phillips, Samsung, Siemens and Sony-Ericsson continue to bombard us with newer and sleeker models.

Among the cell phone makers of today, Nokia seems to have worked extra hard to become the boldest and the most innovative of them all.

One thing is clear -- Nokia is one of the most aggressive vendors in launching new models. Although I have been quite lucky in having had the opportunity to review many of them, I have honestly lost track of how many new models this company has launched this year. The latest was the N6600, featured on last week's IT page.

And there are more to come. In late October, the Finland-based company organized its first Destination Nokia event in the Gold Coast, Australia.

During the event, themed "100% Pure Mobility", Nokia previewed a series of cell phones with very bold designs, which are expected to be released during the first half of 2004.

Fashion and style

If you place style at the same level of importance as features and functionality, be prepared for the N7200.

This model departs from the concept of style and fashion as we know them in a cell phone. The first clamshell, or flip-cell, phone from Nokia, the N7200 is sensuously wrapped in suede fabric.

"It took us about one year to design this model," said N7200 chief designer Duncan Burns during the Q&A session.

Three basic fabric colors are available -- black, gray-blue and brown. If I were to buy this cell phone for my wife, I would definitely have great difficulty in choosing the color. Luckily, we can buy Xpress-on textile covers for this model to match the color of our outfits. The covers are not cheap, of course.

As the emphasis is on style and fashion, the N7200 also comes with a matching soft pouch and wrist strap. Even the display wallpaper and the screensaver are color-coordinated.

The model is pretty small -- perhaps a bit too small for my hand. Personally, I prefer a larger phone that fits more securely in the palm of my hand.

The keypad is also beautifully designed. All the buttons and even the joystick are rectangular, and they are easy to press.

Small as it is, the N7200's technical features are surprisingly complete. It has a digital-zoom VGA camera, which means you can take 640 x 480 pixel pictures with this cell phone and record short video clips to be sent as MMS.

I wish Nokia had been bolder and opted for the one or two megapixel cameras instead, but perhaps the bulkier components of a more powerful camera would have reduced the stylishness of this model.

Beginning with its N6600 and N3650, Nokia has been using the 65,536-color TFT screen, which provides a better color display than the older, 4,096-color screen.

My only complaint is that the screen on the N7200 is a bit smaller than that of other new models. I guess the bezel could be reduced to allow for a bigger screen without increasing the size of the phone.

A leaf?

The N7600, another model showcased during the event, also departs from the mainstream designs.

Shape like a leaf, the screen is in the center of the unit and the buttons are placed along the rim. At first, I thought Nokia was repeating the same mistake that it made with the keypad of the N3650.

However, as each of the buttons on the N7600 are much bigger than in the N3650, it would not be difficult to memorize their individual locations. They could be a bit more responsive to pressure, though.

This model, which comes with dual-color sleeves in yellow and gold or light and dark blue, falls into Nokia's imaging category -- the same as my favorite, the N7650.

It has a VGA camera -- unfortunately, not a megapixel or higher resolution camera -- that can capture both still images and video clips. This model also plays both MP3 and AAC music files, which can be used as ring tones, too -- with this enhanced personalization, you need never worry about grabbing your phone frantically, only to find that it was the phone of the guy next to you that was ringing.

Other features include a gallery to help organize your pictures and video clips, an XHTML browser that automatically fits Web pages to the size of your screen, a 65,536-color screen and MMS.

Most importantly, perhaps, this model is 3G-standard ready for the GSM front -- or WCDMA -- in addition to the 2G GSM 900 and 1800 modes, and can switch between modes and bands automatically.

Media phone

The N7700 is the model that departs the most from the ordinary cell phone -- it has actually entered the realm of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), incorporating most of the features of a PDA, including a personal information manager. It has a 640 x 240 touch screen, and you navigate through the menus and icons of the Nokia-developed operating system with a stylus.

It is Microsoft Office-compatible, so you can even open a Word or Excel file on the N7700 and edit it. It has handwriting recognition, for sure, as well as a virtual keypad.

I'm still skeptical that dialing with a virtual keypad and a stylus can ever be as convenient as dialing with a real keypad.

We will find out when I get the chance to test drive this media phone.

This model represents the convergence of various cellular features, and Nokia calls it a "media phone". With its multi- tasking capability, you can take pictures and send it via MMS while carrying on a conversation.

The microphone and speaker are on the bottom, so it must be held perpendicular to your ear when you talk.

Other models introduced during the event included a revised version of the text-oriented N6800 -- the N6820, which now boasts an integrated camera, tri-band capability and a 65,536-color screen.

Nothing groundbreaking was announced in terms of technology during the event, but the new designs and the higher level of convergence were enough to rouse attention and excitement.