Nitish Kumar Says: Call for Nokia-An ideal Smartphone for mass

Choosing to buy something always bring confusion to us due to lots of choices out there. Either it be simple T-Shirts, a Wrist Watch or be it a Flat or Car, we always find ourselves chewing our nails that which one to choose. Same with Cell phones, lots of choices there, but what we need and how much we are ready to pay is an equation that never seems to be settling down.

As numbers grew for mobile users all over the world, so the number of features offered by various cell phones. In the race of raising features, it really become hard to select one affordable to pocket if you wish to buy one for longer while.

Nokia, sure a deserving brand for the number 1 spot due to variety of the products it cater for each segment of the market. What fascinate me about Nokia is, its products compete among themselves rather than struggling against rival companies. Only with Nokia, I find the motto to stick with the core; Best Signal Strength!!! Best Battery Life!!! Best Price packed with features!!! anything else come second. For sure, they have a very active cell to monitor the needs and responding to them in a way, which suits more to users than the business needs. The same orientation to users and seemingly uncountable phones for each segment keep them steady on their spot.

Today, I thought to put my thoughts for a dream Smartphone, which would be affordable, feature packed and able to capture market in snaps of time. Sure, its inspired by their best cost effective Smartphone Nokia 5800 and so I would be mentioning things with its perspective that what could make it much better. Hope I would be reasonable enough about cost and not that mean about asking costly feature. Even then I would highly obliged if readers join the conversation to suggest me more.

Specification for Dream Phone: Call for Nokia -

I can’t go for each and every details inside and as I am talking about Nokia here, so some features have already been standard in now days. I am assuming to keep all of them in the phone, which would not be called as being mean I guess.

Price: Most of the technical specification sheets put it on bottom, while I am putting it on the top as this is my main concern and so of most of the users out there (at least in Asian Continent).

My Price band is Rs. 13, 000/- to Rs. 15, 000/- ($280 - $325)
Note: Nokia 5800 is standing on Rs. 13, 200/- or $290. Possible!!!

Battery: Again last thing first, but no one wants to starve with a discharged cell phone, when required most.

My choice Li-Ion 1320 mAh (BL-5J), same as Nokia 5800, don’t know why Nokia went with Li-Ion 1200 mAh (BL-4D) in Nokia N97 Mini. Again Possible!!!

Connectivity Options: The technology is all about connections today and your mobile is the closest techy thing with you all the time. Office has some other means of connections, your home has something and cafe, restaurant something else, more of it, you want still to be connected if on some deserted Island. So, as Nokia says “Connecting People”, my choices are

2G: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G: HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100 (not asking HSUPA)
Wi Fi (uPnP, DLNA whatever), Class 32 EDGE/ GPRS, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, microUSB v2.0 (should be able to charge phone) Possible!!! I am just asking about things, which are already available under the same price.

Build, Dimensions and Screen: Definitely in now days, no one wishes anything lesser than a 3.2” resistive Touch Screen TFT with at least 360 x 640 pixels and at least 16M colors (more is better, but intelligent is to be better on battery and cost), so it does suits to Nokia’s aim for filling market with more touch screen devices by this year. Nokia 5800 had the same and no reason that they cant make another one within same cost.

Another thing is dimension and sure most of the people around the globe are loving the sleekness of Apple’s iPhone, so you know what people like. Nokia has made many sleek non touch screen phones for sure, but don’t know I am not finding them more sleek in Touch screen department. Is resistive screen technology the reason? I know Capacitive ones are high on price, neither do they stand on my choice, but if they could give sleekness a bit more effort like they attempted in Nokia N97 Mini (I am not asking for a physical keypad here), then it would be huge plus.

Plastic is not what many stand with, but definitely it doesn’t go deal breaker, if you manage to keep the price and features perfect. But even then if build material could be more robust (something like N97 mini or N900 and many of E-Series), then it will make many wishes come true.

And yes I am asking Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate as well. Should not be costly enough, I guess.

Isn’t it Possible!!! for Nokia? Sure it is.

A-GPS/ Navigation: I am not sure about the cost involved in a built-in Digital Compass, but I have seen it in Nokia N97 Mini and Nokia N900 and sure its a very intuitive thing. If could keep it then well.. if not then not insisting, but what’s important is same GPS capability Nokia 5800 or Nokia N97 Mini had and obviously the same free navigation. Possible!!!

Processor, RAM and Internal Memory: I am asking for ARM 11 434 MHz processor only, no snapdragon, no separate graphics, but please don’t throw another 80 MB internal memory. Okay!! you can’t give me 8 or 16 GB internal memory, but at least internal memory could be kept on 128 MB or 256 MB at least (anything below would be unacceptable). You can go with a 128 MB RAM, not asking 256 MB as I know that a company needs profit. But anything generous than it would be lovable. Possible!!!

Operating System: Yes, the world is changing for mobiles and techies are looking for some Maemo, iPhone OS or Android and Symbian loosing it, but even then it has a largest base and most percentage users are familiar with it. I don’t mind being with a Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5 or more as Google Apps aren’t supported with Maemo yet and most of us can’t live without that.

Camera and FM: OK!!! I am not asking you for a 5MP Carl Zeiss optics, but really I want Xeon flash back as was with Nokia N82 and a better 3.2 MP camera than Nokia 5800 had. Don’t why I don’t find Nokia 5800 one better than Nokia 73. Obviously, no one wants to carry SLRs or digital cameras in pocket all the time now days. Moreover, you don’t wanna miss a decent secondary camera in front for supporting video calling, if you have so many connectivity options.

And come on!!! why cant the video recording size could be improved than Nokia N82. Small video recording size might require some hardware inclusion, but could be given a try within the cost. Not impossible!!!

FM Receivers been a must for India at least and FM Transmitter is becoming something God. I understand that it costs (That’s why might have been removed from Nokia N97), so usual FM Receiver as in Nokia 5800 would do fine. Many people love FM Recordings as well and I don’t see its hard enough to incorporate the same feature (its a software thing, not costing bucks to manufacturer).

Same goes with Call recording. I think its time, when this feature should be incorporated in all the Smart phones by default with all the legal issues won. Would be great for corporate.

All of these things are Possible!!!

Video format support: Here I feel something sure going wrong for sure. There are many open source solutions for support all kind of videos on computers and still there is no Application like VLC Player or mplayer for Symbian?? I just loved the way, I was just able to copy paste my video files in Nokia N900 and they were ready to play, if not with default player installed then with mplayer at least.

May be its hard for providing the support out of the box, but why open source community or developers taking this much time to make such a player for symbian, its out of my understanding. Definitely, it becoming a core weakness of Symbian against other completive. Please do something about it. Its not a rocket science and sure Possible!!!

Browsing: Now days, smart phones have taken more responsibility and with receiving and dialing calls, browsing web has become of much more importance than ever. The same reason, people loved the way iPhone browser worked, the same reason, Nokia N900 spreading like a fire, the same reason Opera been so popular around all Smart Phone users.

I know its not easy to bring full web experience over phone, with more RAM, better processors and big screen sizes, it has became a reality on other mobile platforms like Maemo. Flash Lite support 3.0 is essential and if latest workaround Flash 10 could be fruitful, then it would be great for Smart Phone world.

Hoping that like Opera trying to revolutionize browsing over Desktop, will bring the same technology to Smart phones as well, even then Opera 10 for mobile isn’t bad either. Possible!!!

Messaging: Its an era, Nokia always been innovative. Either it be simple tricks with even less capable Series 40 devices or full fledge integration of message needs with Nokia N900. Its high time to bring the same thing to lower regions as well.

Integrating always on IMs like Google Talk, Skype in your phone out of the box, will mark an era for sure and technically its not that bigger call as API are available for free. Possible!!!

There are many mobile sets out, who meets most of these thing, but miss one or two points. Unfortunately, I don’t find any of Nokia filling all of these above including price strictly. All of them miss the things by an inch or two, which is sure frustrating but understandable due to difference of opinions all over the world and in various classes of users. These were my requirements, someone else might have others, there is no end of it, but if Nokia 5800 became so strong that iPhone or anything else not getting any stand in India, then sure such a phone could win the battle for mass for sure.

I really wanna comments from all to know what other users might be wishing for. But note that what I mentioned here are not the best of the technologies, but best affordable one in the price band. Don’t be mean about asking for more. ;-D

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