Cellphones Are Getting There - Slowly But Surely

I know there are million sites out there that do reviews of cellphones.  So I suppose this blog is not particularly unique in its topic.  However, I wanted to give you my personal perspective on a new device I've been recently playing with: the Nokia N91 mobile phone.  I wanted to describe how this device is becoming closer to my ideas for a media-rich mobile device suitable for the work we are doing in Mobile MUSE.

I have to preface this blog with the admission that I served as the Chief Architect of the Nokia Vancouver product creation centre here in Vancouver for about 4 years, so one can assume what biases you wish.  But let me just say while at Nokia, I tried very hard to make the best product possible and that never involves self-prostelizing ones own creations.

The N91 is based on the S60 operating system by Nokia/Symbian and finally it has become an extremely rich environment.  It has finally begun to fulfill its promise as a general purpose operating system allowing tremendous flexibility in user programming and configuration.  This truly is the Windows XP of the mobile world.  That means it is extremely adaptable and open to a significant amount of user extensibility.  This is an important aspect in breaking the barriers that carriers have thrown up to users and developers alike.  As an example of a fine piece of software, the XHTML/HTML browser is as robust a piece of software as you'll find on a PC.  Users can navigate to any publicly available URL.  Bookmarking is simple.  And access is over any number of programmable access methodologies.

This last point is important because the N91 support 802.11g WiFi connectivity in addition to WCDMA, EDGE, and GPRS connectivity.  The introduction of WiFi support in handsets will greatly aid the revolution against carriers who insist on protecting their domain by overpriced data fees and barriers of every kind designed to keep users within carriers own content domain.  With the inclusion of WiFi, users now have a viable alternative methodology for data network connectivity.

The N91 comes with a relatively massive storage capacity of 4GB hard drive.  I've removed the battery and it's obvious that the hard drive can be easily replaced and upgraded to larger configurations when such microdrives become available and affordable.

In addition, the N91 comes with the now obligatory camera (2M-pixel), but more importantly a 15fps video capture rate at nar QVGA size.  This is definitely moving beyond the "cool but crappy" phase of technology.

And finally the N91 sports a microprocessor that delivers a crisp end user experience.  This is my 3rd generation of S60 devices and finally it has become more than just tolerable in thumbing about.  Applications load and respond quickly.  And browsing on the WiFi network is definitely the way God intended us to experience the mobile Internet.  Coupled with a well thought out user interface model that minimizes keystrokes, the N91 is a very compelling user experience.

They've added support for location determination (via network or adjunct bluetooth GPS), implemented a Flash Lite player, and for those so inclined, added an FM radio with the visual radio feature

It's not all good news however.

The screen continues to be too small for a real compelling user experience.  But bear in mind, the N91 is not intended for a steady diet of rich multi-media.  Rather it's specifically targetted as a music device.  The N80 for example sports a much finer and larger screen.

But the real frustration with the device is the quality of software.  On more than a few occasions, applications have frozen, the entire phone has frozen, and transferring music via flashdrive mode is a frustrating experience with constant timeout errors.  It's the unfortuntate reality that as the complexity of software increases, so does the resultant quality of that software decrease.

But as I put my research hat on, I have to admit, this device is getting pretty close to what a really compelling mobile rich-media device will be in the 21st century.  It truly is a robust, media-rich personal computer ready for a cornucopia of context-aware, personalized content.