It’s not enough that I was debating the upgrade form N95-1 (EU) to N95-3 (US) now we have another newcommer on the horizon (with the possibility of release next week during the upcoming Nokia event in Finland. It’s the N82 which saw the daylight back in May of this year through some shots leaked on the internet. N82 looks like a hybrid between N95 and N73. While i drool over it I am also a bit disappointed for a couple of reasons. #1 – the display seems to be smaller than N95 (it seems to be more comparable to the e-Series devices) and #2 is a single WCDMA band support. I can only hope that it will be re-released in the US with T-Mobile’s 1700Mhz frequency. I really dislike at&t and would absolutely hate it if I’d have to ditch T-Mobile because of the lack of kick-ass devices. Nokia at this point only released N75 and N95 with US 3G bands (s60 devices) and NONE on T-Mobile. YES… I know – T-Mob’s 3G is still “sleeping” but Nokia could make an effort and churn out a device that would support both at&t and T-Mobile so people would be ready.

So instead of mumbling and complaining about US networks lets go back to Nokia N82. Xenon flash is a long overdue upgrade. Why didn’t Nokia re-release N95-US and N95-8GB editions with Xenon light bulbs is beyond me. They pulled the lens cover to accommodate “thicker” battery so there’s has to be a millimeter or two under the hood for some changes. I’d really debating if I should skip N95-US at this point and leap over to N82. In either case I would not have much use out of 3G…On N82 it would be good only during my travel to Europe while N95-US would make sense only if I’d travel to Canada (Rogers launched 3G on the same band as at&t) and T-Mobile doesn’t roam in the US on 3G so one way or another I’d be without 3G. Another thing is while it would be REALLY nice to have 3G everywhere I go, I make a great use out of WiFi spots (and with my unlimited internet plan through T-Mobile I also get HotSpot access included at no extra charge all for $19.99 with all ports open and tethering to laptop). It would be nice to see faster uploading of photos to the web but for now I can survive. It would greatly piss me off though if I would decide to go for the Euro N82 just to find out that in two months it will be released with FULL US Support. And unfortunately I’m not a member of Nokia Blogger Relations program therefore I pay for all of my devices out of my own pocket and Nokia doesn’t offer any kind of discount or upgrade program for early adopter geeks such as myself so for now I will just drool for two or three months and see what the wind will blow in towards the standards unfriendly US Land. I’d love to hear comments on what factors are taken under consideration when choosing what HIGH END devices to buy or upgrade from “previous” model.

Another example (again…in mobile area) would be recent Samsung Symbian N95 killer device.. GORGEOUS design, STURDY like a tank from what I see YET crippled by only three GSM bands and a single 3G band..WHY OH WHY I ask.

So this brings me to the state of digital photo frames. After I wrote my posting on the (un)mentioned blog (I believe it was www.engadget.com) I received an e-mail from Hannes from Digital Photo Frame blog asking If I’d be interested in sharing my opinion about digital photo frames.. SURE. I can whore myself out a bit on the net J Since I’m just an average Joe in real and virtual life, it was a nice way to say “I’m interested in hearing what you have to say” so thanks Hannes for giving me the opportunity to voice my opinion.

Back on track…The comment I made was about the lack of WiFi on the photo frame which was discussed in the posting. I think DPF’s are a cool gadget to have but with the current implementation (at least in my household) it would quickly become a 5-minute gadget. The technology made me lazy. DPF’s that require from me to connect them to the computer or preload media on a memory card are just that…a 5 minute gadgets. They will be fun for a day or two, then you’d become less inclined to pull the card out, take it to your computer, fiddle around and figure out which photos to upload and then watch the same photos over and over and over for a week, two, three…then you’d just become TOO lazy to deal with it and the device you had so much fun with for 5 minutes would just collect the dust.

Enter the world of (some sort) of online connectivity…be it Bluetooth, or WiFi. Imagine now you won’t have to get up to yank the photos from your pc to the frame. Instead it would be nice to be able to link it to an online service (flickr for example) and stream all those photos you took with your camera phone or better yet be surprised with photos streamed from your favourites.

Hannes made a point by saying that not everyone has the need for WiFi enabled frames. I countered his comment and said that it’s out of pure convenience. I do not expect those frames to become movie or music download portals but simply a devices that can connect to online albums for pure convenience. In my opinion a frame without online connectivity is like photo albums where before you show it to your friends you take it to another room in your house, place 10-15 photos inside and show it to your friend. After they see 10-15 photos, you take it back, remove the old photos, put the new ones in and show the album again…obviously a pain in the neck process. Now imagine the same album but with 1000 pages…less running, less changing of the photos and more enjoinment from the actual fun of viewing the photos.

WiFi technology became so cheap these days that I don’t think person who decides to buy a DPF would skimp $10-15 extra to enable WiFi connectivity. So where are these super connected frames??? Only a handful exists on the market. We are being flooded by a low quality frames with even lower resolution displays. For many manufacturers instead of releasing 7inch frame with blue, red, yellow or what else color bezel and 6.5 and 7 inch displays WHY not releasing ONE but GOOD or at least decent device; 7inch 800×480 display, WiFi, and 256 MB of internal memory (with possible for expansion IF needed via memory card). Internal memory would be only for buffering purposes or if you’d want to give the frame as a gift to Grandma.

So the SAD state if DPF’s is just that…sad. Are we going to see some innovation from the manufacturers of those gizmos? I hope so. Until then I will be staying away from devices that lack online connectivity since for me it does not make a sense to waste money on a “half alive” device just like I would not buy an MP3 player without a display, or a cellular phone with three bands instead of four, or pc with the slowest cpu….you get the point.

Nokia to Acquire Navteq for $8.1 Billion in Cash (Update1)
By Juho Erkheikki

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) — Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest mobile-phone company, agreed to buy Navteq Corp., the biggest maker of maps used in car-navigation equipment, for $8.1 billion in cash to add more data services.

Nokia will pay $78 a share, the companies said in a statement issued on the Hugin newswire. The bid is 34 percent higher than Navteq’s price a month ago, the companies said. Navteq closed at $77.97 on Sept. 28.

A purchase of Chicago-based Navteq, the world’s biggest maker of maps used in car-navigation equipment, would help Nokia add more features to its phones to attract customers. Sales of personal mapping devices will triple to $12.8 billion by 2010 over four years, according to iSuppli Corp., a research firm. Espoo, Finland-based Nokia already is adding music and games.

Click here to read the whole article on Bloomberg’s website

So let’s start from the beginning… again big THANKS to Nokia and WOM World for inviting me to the event. All of my friends were asking me who did I sleep with to pull this off…this proves that it’s good to be a geek

Upon arrival in LA at noon on Thursday, September 27th I took the shuttle bus to Crowne Plaza Beverly Hills. Everything was paid for…Shuttle transportation, hotel, meals. When I arrived to hotel my room was not ready yet so I had about two hours to kill. I went out for a second but then returned to the hotel. I saw a group of people in hotel’s bar lounge so I approached them and asked if they were a part of the WOM crowd. Donna jumped up and threw her arms around me for a big and warm welcome. First impression was well…impressive. I got a chance to meet with part of the crowd (Jeremiah, Ricky, Darla, Mark, Mr. Thoughtfix , Jonathan and more..sorry but I’m bad with names). Later on we all had a quick bite and a short introduction to the world courtesy of Mr. Thoughtfix and YouTube (By the way.. I hold the rights to the Geekapalooza 2007 LOL )

At 6.15 pm we all gathered downstairs for the trip to Nokia Mansios with the crowd of around 30 people (all courtesy of WOM / Nokia). Upon arrival at the mansion we were hauled in N95 Golf carts which were playing N95 Moby theme (which I like quite a lot). The Nokia Mansion was a shocker…beautiful place to mingle and connect. Once there, Nokia took care of everything…hors d’oeuvres, live DJ, plenty of sitting room, goodie bags, and a LOT of people (more than expected as said by the organizers). N95′s were all over the place. Not too long ago I was writing about Sling player for S60 and that I signed up for the beta test for US release. I e-mailed sling not too long ago but everything was hush hush. Well it seems like Nokia and Sling partnered together for the N95 US launch and Sling player for Symbian release as one room at the mansion was dedicated strictly to Sling / N95 play time. Sling player was released on the 27th so I downloaded it immediately on my N95 and got a chance to play a bit with it. It’s SO SO over T-Mobile’s EDGE (I own the Euro version of N95 so I’m stuck with EDGE only). However at the mansion everything was running via WiFi and it ROCKED. I assume it will be a very similar experience on N95 US version on at&t’s UMTS. Mind you that all N95′s at the event were the US edition except the N95 8GB which is a BEAUTY with larger screen. An absolute drool causing toy. The speed of the OS was VERY noticeably better as both units have double RAM of the original euro version and the battery rocks. I did not see any device plugged in to the charger and believe me when I say that they were abused…yet most had only two bars gone from the battery indicator. AMAZING. I wanted to play with N95 a bit but some jerk put a lock code on the device so the display model in the main room was only as good as without battery since we could not do much on it (Look at the pics in my flickr set). Next was N81…music oriented phone. That device shows a MAJOR effort in the design. The slider no longer feels cheap and the sliding mechanism is all metal. There’s a slight barely noticeable “wobble” of the screen but that’s the design – if it was too tight – the slider would not open. Again the speed of the UI was on par with N95 US and 8GB edition – very fast. The camera is 2MP which is sufficient for a casual (ok…I’m spoiled now with 5MP on N95 photo shoots.

After some browsing WOM world folks (Donna and Frank) took us geeks for a semi private Q&A session. If you browse other blogs (symbian-guru.com, darlamack.com, thenokiablog.com and others) you can hear the questionsthat were asked but basically other bloggers were asking Bill Plummer, Vice President, Nokia, Multimedia Sales & Channel Management, North America, questions such as “why does N95 Euro battery sucks”, or “Why is Nokia USA service center so BAD” and why Nokia doesn’t offer worldwide warranty coverage. I on the other hand had another question…. I’m not the kind of user that would ditch my favourite network, T-Mobile, for at&t just because N95 US works on them so instead after the official Q&A session was over I asked if Nokia plans to release yet another variant of N95 US which would be good for T-Mobile 1700 Mhz UMTS frequency. With a GREAT disappointment I was told that there are no plans for such device. It makes me think though, since Nokia has the specs for T-Mob’s UMTS why not release the device now even though the network is not live yet. I’d buy it in a flash and I’m sure others would too so why fragment already fragmented market. But hopefully there will be another iPhone killer or N95 follow-up that will be even better.

Later on everyone mingled, talked, exchanged ideas, played…yes…played. This was also a promo event for the upcoming N-Gage gaming platform for Nokia devices. The games presented were quite nice and I had a short moment with the platform…a type of online store to get all the entertainment-related goodies onto your phones. One disappointment was the fact that most if not all of us were expecting a secret launch of some kind of new device. Well…this did not happen It seems this event was all about “Connecting” described by Bill Plummer. There were a few mentions of retail distribution representatives present at the event and I got a feeling this event was VERY much about California and Nokia looking VERY closely at that market (both in the way of partnership with fashion and entertainment industry) as well as the size and population which makes it a nice target. The party was also a blast in another way…the geeky way…you could order drinks from Nokia’s N800 internet tablets, which were relayed to the bartender and then you’d just pick up your drinks. The hostesses at the event were very friendly, mingled with everyone and were fun to talk to. The only bad part about it was that they did not seem too well informed about the capabilities of the device. It was almost like going to Best Buy and asking some high school kid for help with picking an HD Tv…he would be clueless but cool at the same time. This was the feeling I got. One very nice hostess for example told me that until that day she’s never heard of N95 but she liked the device. I had to tell her about all the features of the device as she revealed that she was Blackberry user. I asked her to allow me to guess… Pearl…. She was surprised I guessed. Besides this the party was a blast and a VERY nice way for Nokia to treat bloggers.

After this party I am proud to say that I am a devoted Nokia user – this is a company that besides using bloggers as a free form of publicity, also closely monitors their inputs and comments and doesn’t just let it fly by like some kind of empty comment but instead listens and implements.

Next morning we all gathered for breakfast and chat about gizmos, gadgets, toys and everything geek. Scrambled eggs have never tasted so good before. After the breakfast Donna did a quick impromptu interview with everyone around the table asking for their opinion, likes and dislikes about the whole event which was recorded on nothing else than N95. I’m sure it will be posted on WOM world website sometime soon.

Later on it was a quick trip to Beverly Hills (walking distance), a few photos on Rodeo Drive and back to hotel for good byes and departure. I was sad to leave as I had a lot of fun at the event. I got a chance to meet “blog world” celebrities who are one hell of a fun group. Huge thanks again to Nokia and WOM World for inviting me to the event.

This is the shot of all conversations

And here’s a shot of an individual thread